The ASA

The ASA was founded in 1946 to promote the study and teaching of social anthropology, to present the interests of social anthropology and to maintain its professional status. Its aim is to assist in any way possible in planning research, to collate and publish information on social anthropology and to function as a register of social anthropologists.

The ASA offers a number of benefits to members, including receipt of the annual ASA monograph, reduced fees for the increasingly popular annual conference, access to the directory of members and to the annals of the ASA. The ASA publishes and maintains the discipline’s Ethical Guidelines, which are increasingly used as a model for other associations and other disciplines. The ASA also supports its networks: Apply, Anthropology of Britain, the postgraduate network and Anthropology Matters, as well as supporting members who wish to set up new networks. The ASA also manages the Firth Fund and the Radcliffe Brown Fund, which offer assistance to students writing-up their PhD. It offers a limited number of occasional bursaries (such as a student bursary for travel to ASA08), and occasional small grants to support workshops and conferences by ASA members and networks.

The ASA represents its members in a wide range of consultations and campaigns, and also represents individual members when this is necessary. Recent activities include the ESRC’s benchmarking exercise, campaigning for better distribution of doctoral studentships, coordinating cross-disciplinary objections to unethical research programmes, representing the discipline to the Higher Education Funding Councils and responding to consultations from the British Academy and other agencies.

The ASA also aims to promote Anthropology, complementing the activities of the RAI, through its own publications, recently reinvigorated through the addition of blogs, film-sites and online articles. For more details about the ASA’s activities, past and present, please click here.

Quick Links

Read the latest report by Daniel Rodriguez on Nov 07 epidemics among the Matsiguenka in initial contact in Manu National Park in Peru - highlights the role of the media and reality TV and its fascination for 'extreme tourism'. We will be discussing this issue in the blog in Autumn 08.

The Call for Papers for ASA08 is now more or less closed!. Check out the full list of 43 panels on the conference website, and then propose a paper.
Student travel grants are now available for the trip to NZ - applications by 6th June. See conference website.

The ASA's new anthropology blog is currently discussing Immigration - please take a look and comment.

Read the 2008 AGM - agenda (pdf), previous minutes (pdf), and compiled officer reports (pdf)

The ASA website has two new secftions: ASAonline© and ASAFilm - read the news page for more info..

Join the ASA - click here - or update your membership details using the login link on the left

Make a credit card payment now to the settle your arrears...click icon below

The ASA is a member of the World Council of Anthropological Associations.