UK anthropology network (UKAN)
Following discussions at the ASA’s July 2016 AGM, and at meetings with the Heads of Anthropology Departments in the UK and other Anthropology Associations, the ASA Committee is taking forward plans to establish a network to forge closer collaborative links between Anthropology/related organisations in the UK. The name agreed for the proposed network is UK Anthropology Network (UKAN).
The aim is (a) to link Anthropology’s multiple and diverse professional associations; (b) to encourage intellectual exchanges and collaborations between Anthropology’s various areas, and (c) to support more effective liaison between Anthropology and policy and decision makers. It is anticipated that as well as linking the many fields within Anthropology, UKAN will engage collaboratively with more comprehensive organisations. Below is a list of organisations approached to date: the ASA Committee would welcome suggested additions to these.
Two central principles have been agreed:
- that the proposed network should be fully inclusive of all Anthropology-related areas, with all retaining their specific identities within it;
- and that it should be based upon an ethos of equality between them.
Establishing UKAN
Discussions generated a broad consensus that the best way to initiate the proposed UK Anthropology Network would be to hold a ‘pan-Anthropology’ conference including all its fields. The aim of this conference would be twofold: to provide an opportunity for intellectual exchange across diverse areas of the discipline, and to consider how to undertake anthropology in a more explicitly interdisciplinary way - possibly through the formation of UKAN.
The ASA2018 conference will be hosted by the Oxford University, in collaboration with the Pitt Rivers Museum and Oxford Brookes University. The ASA has written to the Associations listed below, inviting them to participate in this conference, and setting out a scale of potential levels of involvement, from undertaking a joint conference arrangement, to simply sending a representative to help establish UKAN.
A forum will be held at the conference for representatives from all of the Associations, with a view to deciding if and how to form an effective network. This will address key questions: how to link the Associations; how to ensure that they can communicate easily and, when necessary, speak with a united voice; and how to facilitate intellectual and practical collaborations between Anthropology’s many fields. .
Key Anthropology and Archaeology Organisations in the UK
Biosocial Society
http://www.biosocsoc.org/index
British Archaeology Association
http://thebaa.org/
British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO)
http://www.babao.org.uk/
British Association for Forensic Anthropology (BAFA)
http://www.bahid.org/home/about-us/
Chartered Institute for Archaeologists
http://www.archaeologists.net/
Council for British Archaeology / Society for Museum Archaeology
http://www.socmusarch.org.uk/
European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association
http://ehbea.com/
Linguistic Ethnography Forum
http://www.lingethnog.org/
Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG)
http://www.museumethnographersgroup.org.uk/en/
Museums Association
http://www.museumsassociation.org/home
Primate Society of Great Britain
http://www.psgb.org/
Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI)
https://www.therai.org.uk/
Royal Archaeological Institute
http://www.royalarchinst.org/
Society for the Study of Human Biology (SSHB)
http://www.sshb.org/
Academy of Social Sciences
http://www.acss.org.uk