Paper short abstract:

This paper examines changes of WCAA during its ten years of development. The paper focuses on the challenges WCAA now faces: activating communication channels among member associations, setting its agenda neither too general nor too specific, and utilizing resources of past International Delegates.

Paper long abstract:

From the beginning in Recife on June 9th in 2004, when a meeting for the foundation of WCAA started, I participated in WCAA first as International Delegate of JASCA, then as Facilitator, then as its Chair and now as Secretary-General of the other international organization, IUAES. The title of Recife conference - "World Anthropologies: Strengthening the International Organization and Effectiveness of the Profession" - epitomizes the spirit and role of WCAA and this has not and will never change. But WCAA in the past decade has naturally been changing to my eyes, not only as my position changes in relation to it but also as WCAA grows in size and develops into organization closer to an institution. I would like to discuss some of the new challenges WCAA now faces due to these changes: (1) finding ways to effectively activate communication channels established by the network of WCAA member associations, (2) finding a solution in setting its agenda between conflicting demands of being meaningfully general enough to encompass the interests of all members and not being too specific as to alienate disinterested members, and (3) utilizing the resources of past International Delegates to the maximum, thus overcoming the problem of too swift rotation of WCAA delegates in face-to-face interaction. Finally, I will argue that WCAA should realize its full potential by being politically powerful in the best sense of the term.