Have you recently published a book in the areas of legal or political anthropology? If your book has a copyright date of 2019 or later, it’s eligible to be featured in PoLAR’s new publication genre In Other Words.
In Other Words is a PoLAR genre introduced in 2025 that provides a way for legal and political anthropologists to share their work with a broader audience. In a period of considerable legal and political upheaval, the insights we have to offer as anthropologists are valuable—but only insofar as they reach beyond our immediate intellectual community. Accordingly, the twin goals of this new feature are to promote new scholarship and to make our scholarship accessible to a nonspecialist and, ideally, non-academic audience. Imagine how you would explain your book and its key insights to your mother, neighbor, or college friend—and then write it down, because that is what In Other Words should feel like. Simple prose. Anthropological insights.
Submissions to In Other Words for the issues published in 2025 must meet the following criteria:
● They are written by the book’s author;
● They describe and explain a book in legal or political anthropology with a publication date of 2019 or later;
● They use simple, non-technical language;
● They are written for an intended audience that does not share the author’s geographic or topical commitments, or even their anthropological training;
● They are between 500–750 words all-inclusive;
● They are free of notes or citations except to page numbers within the relevant book.
Submissions to In Other Words are not subject to the usual peer review process. Instead, they will be desk reviewed for clarity and concision only. In Other Words will be published via PoLAR Online (https://polarjournal.org) in order to encourage the widest possible reach. Publication timeline and issue will be communicated soon after acceptance. The number and frequency of publications in this genre is flexible for the time being.
Questions / Submissions: dda.polar@gmail.com