Discussion:Future SASci Meetings

From SASciWikid

Dear Colleagues,

First, we would like to report that the just ended SASci meetings in Savannah were quite successful. We had over 45 participants- down from Santa Fe, but, to our minds, quite good since this time we lacked the contribution provided last year by the AAA melt-down. The quality of papers was generally excellent, and they were almost always well-attended. We owe our Savannah organizing committee, Doug Caulkins, Vic DeMunck, and Eric Jones rich and warm thanks for doing such an excellent job.

Second, this year’s success raises the question of “What next ?” The question is given some urgency by the facts that a) SCCR has enthusiastically invited us to join them once again next year in San Antonio, Texas, but b) they will need to know within the next month or so whether or not we will do so.

SASci members with whom we talked in Savannah seemed in favor of at least the one more time (based on very positive responses to the Savannah meeting), even if over the longer haul there were some reservations about making it yearly (vs., say, biennial) and about sticking too close to SCCR. The feeling there was that the immediate momentum would be useful, that there probably wasn't time to negotiate with another partner for next year (though maybe we should start talking with others now regarding the more distant future), and that we still need the extraordinary degree of support that SCCR has provided (and that another partner might not provide). Those of us who talked about it in Savannah felt that San Antonio would be a good thing to do IF we were assured of an adequate level of interest AND IF we had a committed Program Chair and committee.

By way of context, let us provide (thanks to Murray Leaf) a little information about the San Antonio site. The meetings will be at the Menger Hotel, downtown on the Riverwalk. This is a very pleasant area near the Alamo with lots of pleasant places to walk. There are also about four very good restaurants and a lot of ordinary good ones. The very good ones include one of the two or three best Mexican restaurants in San Antonio, which is saying quite a lot.

If we do go ahead with the San Antonio meetings, many of us hope to see more papers from a wider diversity of subject areas across the range of anthropological science than we have had--including (but not limited to !) ecology, behavioral ecology, economic anthropology, religion, social relations and structures within cultural anthropology, as well as contributions from biological anthropology and archaeology. Particularly apropos for SASci meetings might be sessions on topics that cross the subdisciplinary lines or that benefit from inter-subdisciplinary cooperation. And similarly useful and attractive might be some consideration of a given cultural topic (such as the role and functioning of religious systems or patterns of mating) from a variety of perspectives (such as cognitive, social, economic, psycho-analytic, etc.). The size and tenor of our meetings seem particularly well suited for such interactions.

With the SCCR invitation in mind, we would like to ask you to respond to two questions.

• 1) In general, over the longer haul: We are interested in your general feelings about future SASci meetings especially in the context of hopefully immanent Section-hood in the AAA for SAS. Are winter/spring meetings attractive to you ? Do you have any feelings about annual vs. biennial meetings ? How do you feel about continuing to pair up with other organizations (such as SCCR) ? How do you feel about the continuing SCCR partnership ? Are there other partnerships you’d like to see ? Which ? In this context it maybe relevant that (thanks to Carmella Moore) SASci is now, as of 24 January 2006 incorporated as a non-profit organization. This means we have a full, independent status, which might perhaps influence how you might feel about an independent meeting on our own. Maybe there would be enough members to support that.
• 2) Specifically, regarding SCCR and next year: We would like quickly to hear from any of you who fairly definitely would attend a SASci meeting next year if held with SCCR in San Antonio.

If SAS/SASci Board) we then will press ahead with those meetings. We have a Program Committee lined up, contingent on the decision to press ahead, and thus will be able to quickly move forward with program planning.

For replies to both questions, please just reply to mailto:david.kronenfeld@ucr.edu. Please do NOT post it to the whole list. You can also add a comment on this request.

Thanks much,

                                               John Gatewood 
                                               David Kronenfeld

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