amanthro-topic-selection

Topic Selection & Fit (amanthro-topic-selection)

AA is the flagship four-field journal of the American Anthropological Association. The bar is not "new to my subfield" — it is "matters to anthropology broadly." A great paper makes a finding in sociocultural, archaeological, biological, or linguistic anthropology legible and useful to readers in the other fields. Use this skill to pressure-test fit and section before you invest.

When to trigger

• Choosing among possible projects or framings for an AA submission
• A reviewer/colleague said the paper feels "too narrow" or "subfield-only"
• Deciding among Research Article and the journal's shorter/engaged sections
• A field or community partner has reframed what the project is for

The AA fit test

A strong AA paper usually clears all four:

1. Four-field reach. A scholar in a different subfield should see why it matters — the shared stakes are anthropology's enduring questions: culture, power, kinship, exchange, language, embodiment, deep history, human variation, colonialism and its afterlives.
2. A real contribution, not just a description. It changes how the field thinks, theorizes, or accounts for something — a new concept, a reframing, a decisive case, a corrected record.
3. Credible on its own methodological terms. Ethnographic, archival, material/archaeological, bioanthropological, or linguistic — each is welcome but each must be rigorous and reflexive (see amanthro-research-design).
4. Ethically sound. The relationship to interlocutors, communities, descendants, and heritage is accountable; consent and care are part of the design, not an afterthought (see amanthro-transparency-and-data).

Reach past your home subfield

Home subfield	Reach to four-field anthropology by…
Sociocultural	draw the portable concept/mechanism, not just the ethnographic particular; speak to theory others can use
Archaeology	connect material/temporal evidence to general claims about social life, not only site chronology
Biological / physical	tie human-variation or evolutionary findings to social and cultural meaning, not biology alone
Linguistic	show what the language data reveal about culture, power, or cognition beyond the grammar
Reflexive / public	make the methodological/ethical/political stake one the whole discipline shares

Section choice

• Research Article — full study, broad claim, ≤ 8,000 words (extendable to ~10,500 at the editors' discretion on acceptance).
• Vital Topics Forum — a curated multi-author debate on a pressing issue (often invited/proposed).
• World Anthropologies — anthropology produced beyond the Anglophone center; decenters the canon.
• Public Anthropologies / Multimodal Anthropologies — engaged, activist, or media-based work where image/sound/film is part of the argument (see amanthro-tables-figures).
• Review Essay — a synthetic essay across 2–5 recent books (≤ 5,000 words).

Anti-patterns

• "No one has studied community X" as the whole contribution (descriptive, subfield-only)
• A method showcase with no anthropological payoff readers in other fields can use
• A sprawling project that cannot be argued within the section's word cap
• Picking Research Article out of habit when a forum, essay, or multimodal piece would land harder
• Treating ethics/consent as a later checkbox rather than a reason the project is even askable

Output format

【Question】one sentence
【Four-field reach】who outside the subfield cares, and why
【Contribution type】concept / reframing / decisive case / corrected record
【Section】Research Article / Vital Topics / World / Public / Multimodal / Review Essay
【Ethics flag】any consent / community-accountability / heritage issue to design for now?
【Fit verdict】strong / needs reframing / off-fit (why)
【Next】amanthro-literature-positioning

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — data/archives/lab sources by subfield
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — AA sections and scope