Transforming Anthropology

For those interested in publishing articles that address questions of race, gender, class and other issues of social inequality within one or more of the four fields approaches in anthropology. An Association of Black Anthropologists journal, it publishes professors at all stages of career. (BH)

For those interested in publishing ethnographically based articles, with an attention to hard-hitting, theoretically and critically engaged explorations of socio-political inequality in the United States, especially race and class. (HP)

Transforming Anthropology is the flagship journal for the Association of Black Anthropologists, inviting scholars from the four fields of anthropology to submit work as it relates to question of inequality. Over the past five years, the journal has been dominated by pieces that explore the black racial experience in the United States, yet it has also accepted work that explore the black diaspora, the experience of race for Latinos and Asian communities in the United States, and a small portion of pieces have been included that undertake examinations of race in other parts of the world. The journal is not committed to any singular conception of race, but tends to accept work that takes an intersectional approach to its analysis when examining questions of inequality across a number of fields (medicine, criminal justice, education etc.). The last special edition of the journal focused on black motherhood and mourning, and over the past five years (for obvious reasons) discussions of mourning, death, and violence pervade the journal. In addition to substantive areas of examination, the journal is interested in discussions of affect, sense making, materiality and race, space making, and other topics that might be said to define the “cutting edge” of anthropology today. As a matter of style the pieces are mainly derived from ethnographic work, though not exclusively, and writers seem to have the liberty to organize their articles in a number of different ways rather than along a particular formula. Some pieces pursue a social science format with a clearly stated thesis, description of method, analysis conclusion, while others are more free form and narrative driven, without explicitly fleshed out discussion of theoretical frameworks or analytical commitments. (BH)

Useful for Submission

Word Count: 35 double spaced pages

Issues per year: 2

Current volume number: 24

Articles per year: 10 (not including book reviews, commentaries, and editor’s notes)

Citation style: Chicago Manual of Style 15^th addition. Also refer to the “General Style Guidelines” found on the journal website for additional guidelines.

Abstract length (if required): 150 words maximum and up to 5 keywords

Upcoming special issues (if available): no upcoming special issue listed but last special issue on “black maternal grief”

Relevant Editors: Editor in Chief: Michael Ralph

Associate Editor: Laurence Ralph

Harvard dominant editorial board.

Submissions Guidelines 

About Wendy Belcher

Associate Professor, Princeton University, Department of Comparative Literature and the Center for African American Studies. Author of Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Instructor of Deep Reading Journals as Publishing Praxis.

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