Section memberships enhance the benefits of AAA by providing access to specialized leadership and mentoring opportunities, a close-knit community of anthropologists, and of course access to their special events at the AAA Annual Meeting.
The Society for Linguistic Anthropology (SLA) is devoted to exploring and understanding the ways in which language shapes, and is shaped by, social life, from face-to-face interaction to global-level phenomena.
The Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA), formed in 1967 and incorporated into the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in 1971, is dedicated to the profession and practice of medical anthropology, which uses concepts and methods from anthropology to produce new understandings of health, disease, illness, treatment, and care. Open for membership worldwide, the SMA brings together medical anthropology graduate students, practicing anthropologists, scholars, and scholar activists. The SMA includes a number of special interest groups organized to advance endeavors – including policy-related initiatives as well as research and teaching – on topics and priorities identified by these groups. The SMA publishes the journal Medical Anthropology Quarterly and offers venues for members to present their research at conferences.
The Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA) of the American Anthropological Association was founded in 1977. SPA is a broad, multidisciplinary organization of individuals interested in cultural, psychological, and social interrelations at all levels.
The SAE was first conceived in 1986 and its first elections as a section of the AAA were held in the Fall of 1987. The purposes of the organization, as announced in the organizing letter that went out to colleagues in 1986, were:
The SAE is the section of the American Anthropological Association that promotes the anthropological study of European societies and cultures and encourages connections between scholars working in Europe.
The Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition (SAFN), formerly known as the Council on Nutritional Anthropology (CNA), was organized in 1974 in response to the increased interest in the interface between social sciences and human nutrition. SAFN has the following objectives:
The Society for the Anthropology of Religion (SAR) is a section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA). We seek to facilitate the research and teaching of the anthropology of religion.
We wish to support anthropological approaches to the study of religion from all the subdisciplines: cultural anthropology, archaeology, physical anthropology, linguistic anthropology and others. We also intend to encourage and help provide avenues for enhanced communication among scholars sharing the interests of anthropology and religion.
The Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW), a section of the American Anthropological Association, seeks to advance the study of work and to communicate that knowledge to the world. Established in 1980, the society today comprises more than 200 members. SAW publishes a peer-reviewed journal, the Anthropology of Work Review, and a short-form web publication, Exertions; confers awards for outstanding scholarship across the career cycle; and supports activist efforts to better the lives of workers and nonworkers alike.
The Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) examines how aspects of culture can be visually interpreted and expressed, and how images can be understood as artifacts of culture.
A section of the American Anthropological Association, SVA promotes the study of visual representation and the use of images for the description, analysis, communication and interpretation of human [and sometimes nonhuman] behavior.
* International Special Rates are section membership dues for World Bank designated Less Developed Countries (LDC).
** Sustaining Member dues are the section membership dues PLUS a donation to the section.
