Deepening and Broadening African Networks in the Social Sciences

Kathleen McDougall, a 2012-2013 Next Generation Social Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellow, is one of two newly appointed editors of the journal Anthropology Southern Africa. She has used her new role to encourage publications from under-represented academic communities on the continent.

Anthropology Southern Africa is a peer-reviewed journal, which publishes current research based on ethnographic and qualitative sociological research in southern Africa. The journal is one of only two Africa-based anthropology journals, and aims to give voice to theoretically-informed ethnographic research. This young journal has been transformed in the last ten years from the South African Journal of Ethnology, which was informed by Afrikaner Nationalist volkekunde principles, to a journal at once more expansive, more encompassing, more egalitarian, and more attuned to social justice issues. To view the September inaugural issue, click here.

Appointed as editor in 2013, McDougall has worked to encourage publications from countries north of South Africa, currently under-represented, as well as encourage publications by black South African scholars—also currently under-represented. She says, "My access to the network of emerging scholars in the Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa program has been invaluable," which you can see by the number of fellows who have collaborated with McDougall on the journal. Currently, three Next Generation program fellows have been published in the two double editions of the journal in 2014: Steve Ouma Akoth, Eric Awich Ochen, and Ebunoluwa Popoola.

The Anthropology Southern Africa journal would like to solicit papers presenting analysis of ethnographic fieldwork based in Africa. They will also consider papers that draw on qualitative interviews or focus groups, and/or that present analysis based on multi-sited studies where only one component of the fieldwork took place in Africa. They welcome the submission of images and associated multi-media, which may be published either in the hard copy of the journal or online. Papers should be no longer than 8000 words in length, and will undergo peer review. Kathleen McDougall reports that editors at the journal are happy to work with emerging scholars seeking to develop a first publication as well as more seasoned scholars.

Please forward this call to your networks, and send submissions and queries to Kathleen McDougall at kathleen.mcdougall@gmail.com .