The Society for Applied Anthropology is pleased to announce that the Boards of Directors of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) and the American Anthropological Association (AAA) have selected Professor Amber R. Reed to receive the 2021 Margaret Mead Award. Professor Reed was selected for her book Nostalgia after Apartheid: Disillusionment, Youth, and Democracy in South Africa, published by Notre Dame Press in 2020. Dr. Reed is currently an assistant professor of international studies at Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia.
The Mead Award will be presented to Professor Reed on March 25, 2022, at the 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in Salt Lake City, Utah. Professor Reed will also be acknowledged on November 19, 2021, at the live-streamed AAA Award ceremony to be held at the AAA hybrid Annual Meeting in Baltimore.
The Mead Award was initiated by the SfAA in 1979, with the approval of Margaret Mead. Since 1983, the award has been sponsored and presented jointly with the American Anthropological Association. The Mead Award is presented annually to a young scholar for a particular accomplishment, such as a book, which employs anthropological data and principles in ways that make them meaningful and accessible to a broadly concerned public. The award honors the memory of Margaret Mead, who in her lifetime was the most widely known woman in the world, and arguably the most recognized anthropologist. Mead had a unique talent for bringing anthropology into the light of public attention.
Amber R. Reed received her doctorate in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2014. Professor Reed’s background and interests are in the areas of South Africa, youth, democracy, race, nostalgia, apartheid, and visual media.
Additional information on the Mead Award and prior recipients may be found on the SfAA website – https://www.appliedanthro.org/about/awards-prizes.