Short Abstract:

Migration and displacement are pressing issues, and anthropology has much to contribute to public understanding. The AAA encourages comments on a public initiative that will place migration and displacement in a global frame and capture the public imagination around the world.

Long Abstract:

Global migration and displacement are among the most pressing issues of our time, and for the foreseeable future. Anthropology has much to contribute to a broad public conversation about these issues. The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is planning a public initiative that will help frame contemporary issues of movement, migration, and displacement in a broad historical and comparative context, and intend this framework to be international and global in scale. Thus, our challenge is two-fold: (1) how to place these issues in a global frame, and (2) how to capture the public imagination. We will need to attend carefully to how we can best present the nuanced complexity of scholarly research in an informative, accessible, and interesting manner to general audiences in a number of different settings.

This roundtable discussion will include a brief presentation about our preliminary plans: outlining major themes and questions in the history of anthropological scholarship about human population movements, such as why people move and what happens when they do, in pre-history, history and the contemporary world, and across geographical spaces. The discussion then invites three distinguished commentators to offer their views about the major themes, as well as effective ways of framing these ideas for a broad general international audience. Roundtable attendees will be invited to contribute their views as well.

Presenters: Leith Mullings (CUNY-Graduate Center, AAA Past President), Edward Liebow (AAA Executive Director)