Volume 38, Issue 2

The November 2015 issue of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review (Volume 38, Issue 2) is now available. The first issue to emerge under new editors William Garriott and Heath Cabot, it features a symposium on Punishment and the State, 5 original articles, a new directions piece on Anthropology’s Contributions to Training in the Policy Professions, 8 book reviews, and 2 review essays. In their editorial introduction, Garriott and Cabot outline their goals as co-editors:

Our first goal for our tenure is to keep with previous editors in ensuring that review processes continue to move quickly and smoothly, and that this remains the premier venue for work in political and legal anthropology….

A second major goal is to find strategies to increase the reach and impact of the journal amidst budgetary and other material constraints. It is an exciting, precarious, and uncertain time in academic publishing, which will necessitate creative and collaborative thinking with both the American Anthropological Association and wider scholarly communities….

A third major goal will be to further internationalize the journal both in terms of readership and submissions. As our current issue will show (with articles from three non U.S.-based scholars), Political and Legal Anthropology Review is increasingly on the map for international scholars, which demands that we attend even more carefully to questions of language and scholarly culture and to ways of bridging readerships. Similarly, we remain committed to expanding the disciplinary appeal of the journal, particularly in fields such as sociolegal studies, where many of PoLAR’s readers and contributors are already engaged. Though anthropology is in the title, we envision the journal as a space where, regardless of discipline, high quality and, particularly, ethnographic, studies of politics and law may find a home.