For over two decades, Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR) has provided a forum for theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich scholarship. Our editorial vision builds on this long tradition to catapult PoLAR to the center of conversations that will shape political and legal anthropology in the coming years. We write in the context of a worldwide resurgence of right wing politics, progressive solidarity movements and at times radical shifts in law and governance. PoLAR is a critical anthropological outlet for understanding this changing terrain and defining intellectual responses within it.

We are excited to announce our new editorial board, a group of thinkers that exemplifies the commitments we see as central to this vision. This board will guide our project of crafting an inclusive journal that responds to the urgent call for new perspectives in theorizing the realms of politics and law. In response to the challenges of academic labor in neoliberal and precarious times, the board will help us invigorate the journal’s longstanding praxis of mentorship that responds to the changing conditions in which anthropologists work. With the board, we will build bridges across U.S. and non-U.S.-based scholarly conversations, contribute more robustly to interdisciplinary scholarly fields, including critical race, ethnic and indigenous studies, and broaden the range of our contributors. We believe this ethos of intentional intellectual openness makes the journal and the discipline a stronger and more exciting place for daring political and legal questions and ethical ethnographic scholarship.

We are also pleased to introduce our new book review editor, Leo Coleman, and our associate editor, Jennifer Curtis, who will also incorporate these goals into their editorial practice–particularly in making these aspects of PoLAR entirely open access.

It is in this spirit that we hope to set the agenda for political and legal anthropology in the coming years. We encourage you to join us in that vision.

Jessica Greenberg and Jessica Winegar

Co-Editors, Political and Legal Anthropology Review

From Leo Coleman, Book Review Editor

PoLAR has a long tradition of publishing quality reviews in the ethnography of law and politics, broadly construed, including traditional book reviews and longer essays. As editor, I want to increase our number of single-book reviews of new monographs and edited collections (particularly first ethnographic monographs), while focusing our longer review essays on three themes: 1) trends in world anthropologies of law and politics (particularly in languages other than English), 2) teaching political and legal anthropology and the resources that are available for that common task, including appreciations of new and classic works that are especially teachable, and 3) review essays that highlight new works that extend the reach of our field while exploring classic themes (e.g., dispute processes, ethnographies of the state/courtrooms/institutions, sites of crisis and injustice and rites of repair). Reviewers for PoLAR should have completed their Ph.D. in anthropology or a related field, or have a record of contribution to the association. I invite interested parties to write to me at polar.reviews@gmail.com with ideas, proposals, and expressions of interest—or even just announcements of forthcoming work. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts, and commissioned single-book reviews will be no more than 1,000 words, reviews of two or three books no more than 2,000 words, and thematic review-essays no longer than 3,500 words. I look forward to working with authors from across the subfield and beyond!

From Jennifer Curtis, Associate Editor

For more than a decade, PoLAR Online has been a forum for political anthropologists to reflect upon and discuss theoretical and methodological issues, and has provided open access to PoLAR’s past issues and articles. As associate editor, I will ensure PoLAR Online continues this work, with longstanding features such as Virtual Editions and Emergent Conversations, and newer series such as Speaking Justice to Power. We will also continue the Digital Editorial Fellows program, which has provided graduate students with vital skills for translating anthropological knowledge to broader audiences. As our discipline grapples with profound structural changes, and political actors grapple with crises of climate and capital, PoLAR Online is open to proposals for series, features, and new formats from our readers and contributers. If you have proposals for pieces, please email jennifer.curtis@ed.ac.uk.

PoLAR Editorial Board Members

Wale Adebanwi, University of Oxford

Vanessa Agard-Jones, Columbia University

Elif Babul, Holyoke College

Andrea Ballestero,  Rice University

Pratiksha Baxi,  Jawaharlal Nehru University

Karina Biondi, Federal University of Sao Carlos

Yarimar Bonilla, Rutgers University

Erica Bornstein, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee

Carna Brkovic, University of Goettingen

Matei Candea, Cambridge University

Matthew Canfield, Drake University

Michael Cepek,  University of Texas at San Antonio

Kamari Clarke, Carleton University

Leo Coleman, Hunter College, CUNY

Robin Conley Riner, Marshall University

Rosemary Coombe, York University

Susan Coutin, University of California – Irvine

Dace Dzenovska, University of Oxford

Didier Fassin,  Institute for Advanced Study

Gregory Feldman, Simon Fraser University

Ilana Gershon, Indiana University

Kelly Gillespie, University of the Western Cape

Mark Goodale, University of Lausanne

Radhika Govindrajan, University of Washington

Sarah Green, University of Helsinki

Ghassan Hage, University of Melbourne

Rema Hammami, Columbia University

Faye Harrison,  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Douglas Holmes, Binghamton University

Yukiko Koga,  Hunter College, CUNY

Darryl Li, University of Chicago

Leticia Barrera Lopez,  National Research Council – Argentina

Sally Engle Merry, New York University

Elizabeth Mertz, University of Wisconsin – Madison

Ronald Niezen, McGill University

Kevin O’Neill,  University of Toronto

Arzoo Osanloo, University of Washington

Petra Rethmann, McMaster University

Isaias Rojas-Perez, Rutgers University

Shalini Randeria, The Graduate Institute Geneva

Hanan Sabea, The American University in Cairo

Maria Sapignoli, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Naomi Schiller, Brooklyn College, CUNY

Mark Schuller, Northern Illinois University

Audra Simpson, Columbia University

Kate Sullivan, California State University – Los Angeles

Miia Halme-Toumisaari, University of Helsinki

Sindiso Mnisi Weeks, University of Massachusetts Boston

Marina Welker, Cornell University

Olaf Zenker, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg

Li Zhang, University of California – Davis