December 2006

A well-attended 2006 AGM took place on 20 September at the University of Bristol, during the biennial conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. It was followed by the equally well-attended Henry Myers Lecture, given by Professor Piers Vitebsky on 'Loving and Forgetting: a farewell to ancestors'. We are grateful to EASA and the University for their hospitality.

Thanks are also due to the University of Kent for hosting the 2006 Presidential Address on 3 November, given by Professor Alan Bilsborough on 'Species, pattern and adaptation in human evolution' before a large and enthusiastic audience.

JRAI Special Issues: Production is under way for the second volume in the Special Issue series, edited by Dr Elisabeth Hsu and Dr Christopher Low and entitled Wind, life and health: Anthropological perspectives. All RAI Fellows will receive a copy during 2007. The call for proposals for the 2008 and 2009 Special Issues has drawn a good response, and the Publications Committee expects to announce the result in the Spring of 2007.

Leach-RAI Fellowships: The Esperanza Trustees have conducted a thorough-going review of the Fellowship programme during 2006-7, which is being treated as a fallow year. A call for offers by institutions to host the next phase of the programme is published in this issue of AT and has been distributed to anthropology departments in the UK and Ireland.

Munro Project and Consortium: The RAI is the lead body of a consortium of UK-based and Japanese partners established to digitize the material on the Ainu people of Hokkaido, collected by N.J. Munro and held in various collections in the UK and Japan. Funding for digitization has been obtained from sources in Japan, and the RAI portion of the collections is expected to be digitized in December 2006. The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation has also kindly supported preparatory visits to Japan by RAI staff. Integral to the project is full consultation with representatives of the Ainu community.

RAI programme of pre-university education in anthropology: A one-year grant from HEFCE under its AimHigher National Rolling Programme has enabled the education programme to be put in place in 2005-6. We are delighted to announce the award by the ESRC, under its Science in Society programme, of further funding for three years to December 2009 in support of the programme.

ESRC International Benchmarking Review of UK Social Anthropology: The RAI was represented on the Steering Group of the Review, which completed its task in September 2006. The Report of the International Panel was launched during the EASA conference; copies are available from the ESRC.

Online Fellowship and membership renewal through Blackwell: From 2007, Blackwell Publishing will offer an optional service allowing RAI Fellows and members to renew their affiliation by email. Early in 2007, Fellows and members who have supplied an email address should receive a message from Blackwell inviting them to renew and pay their 2007 subscription online, and taking them through the process. Those preferring to renew by post are welcome to do so. The procedure is unchanged for those joining for the first time as Fellows, Members or Student Associates.

Christmas-New Year closures: The RAI office will close on Wednesday 20 December and reopen on Thursday 4 January. The Anthropology Library at the Centre for Anthropology, British Museum, will be closed from Saturday 23 December, reopening on Tuesday 2 January. We wish all AT readers a restful holiday season and a prosperous New Year.

October 2006

Professor Alan Bilsborough, President of the RAI, will give his Presidential Address at 6.00 pm on Friday 3 November in the Brabourne Lecture Theatre, Keynes College, University of Kent, by kind invitation of the University. Professor Bilsborough’s title is ‘Species, pattern and adaptation in human evolution’. All welcome; refreshments will be served.

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2006 is Professor Leslie Aiello, President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Professor Aiello’s provisional title is ‘The evolution of humans and the human diet’. The lecture will take place at 6.00 pm on Thursday 7 December in the Stephenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, Great Russell St, London WC1. All welcome; refreshments afterwards.

The next RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film will be held at the University of Manchester on 27-30 June 2007, and will be followed by a conference from 30 June to 2 July. For details and a Call for Submissions, see separate announcement in this issue of AT.

Christmas-New Year Library closure: the Anthropology Library at the Centre for Anthropology, British Museum, will be closed from Saturday 23 December 2006 to Monday 1 January 2007, reopening Tuesday 2 January.

August 2006

Annual General Meeting 2006. The AGM will be held at 1.00 pm on Wednesday 20 September 2006 in the Reception Room, University of Bristol Wills Memorial Building, Park Row, Bristol, during the conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. All are welcome; only RAI Fellows may vote. We hope that as many Fellows as possible will attend the AGM and participate in the affairs of the Institute. For the detailed AGM agenda and programme, please see the insert included with this issue of AT and posted on the RAI website.

The AGM will be followed at about 1.40 pm by the 2006 Henry Myers Lecture, which will be given by Dr Piers Vitebsky, Head of Anthropology and Russian Northern Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Dr Vitebsky’s title is ‘Loving and forgetting: A farewell to ancestors?’

The Annual Report for 2005 has been published and is being sent to Fellows with this issue of AT.

Professor Alan Bilsborough, President of the RAI, will give his Presidential Address at 6.00 pm on Friday 3 November in the Brabourne Lecture Theatre, Keynes College, University of Kent, by kind invitation of the University. Title tba. All welcome; refreshments afterwards.

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2006 is Professor Leslie Aiello, President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Professor Aiello’s provisional title is ‘The evolution of humans and the human diet’. The lecture will take place at 6.00 pm on Thursday 7 December in the Stephenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, Great Russell St, London WC1. All welcome; refreshments afterwards.

We are pleased to announce that the University of Kent at Canterbury will host the RAI’s Urgent Anthropology Fellowship programme from 2007 to 2010, in succession to the University of Durham. An announcement and call for applications for the 2007 Fellowship appears in this issue of AT.

The next RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film will be held at the University of Manchester on 27-30 June 2007, and will be followed by a conference from 30 June to 2 July. For details and a call for submissions, see separate announcement in this issue of AT.

Subscriptions for 2007. The RAI Council has approved the following rates for individual subscriptions for 2007 (£ sterling rates; for Euro and $US equivalents please see the forthcoming membership leaflet). These represent a 3% inflation-only increase in rates over 2006. Fellows and institutions subscribing to the JRAI will receive, free of charge, the second volume in the JRAI Special Issue Series.

Summer office closure. The RAI office will be closed from Monday 21 to Monday 28 August inclusive, reopening on Tuesday 29.

June 2006

The international conference on Periphery and Policy, jointly hosted by the RAI, College of St Mark and St John (Plymouth) and Cornwall County Council, was successfully held in Truro on 21 and 22 April. It was opened on 21 April by HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO, Patron of the RAI, who conveyed a greeting from the conference to Her Majesty the Queen on her 80th birthday.

Annual General Meeting 2006. The AGM will be held on Wednesday 20 September 2006 at the University of Bristol during the conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. All are welcome; only RAI Fellows may vote. We hope that as many Fellows as possible will attend the AGM and participate in the affairs of the Institute. The detailed programme for the AGM, together with the Annual Report for 2005, will be sent to Fellows with the August 2006 issue of AT, and will be advertised on the RAI website.

The AGM will be followed by the 2006 Henry Myers Lecture, which will be given by Dr Piers Vitebsky, Head of Anthropology and Russian Northern Studies at the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Dr Vitebsky's title is 'Loving and forgetting: A farewell to ancestors?'

Details of the location and timing of the AGM and Myers Lecture will be announced in the August issue of AT. Both events are being held by kind invitation of the University of Bristol and EASA. Please note that both the AGM and Myers Lecture are open to all without the need to be registered for the main conference.

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2006 is Professor Leslie Aiello, President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Professor Aiello's provisional title is 'The evolution of humans and the human diet'. Date, time and venue tba.

In a departure from RAI tradition, the Presidential Address in 2006 is being given separately from the AGM. Professor Alan Bilsborough will give his Address at the University of Kent on Friday 3 November by kind invitation of the University; details tba.

The London Anthropology Day for Schools, designed to inform school students and teachers about the potential of anthropology as a university subject, will be held for the third year running at the Clore Education Centre, British Museum, London WC1, on Thursday 6 July. For more information and booking details please contact the RAI Education Officer on .

As part of the Youth Programme of the BAAS Festival of Science, and in association with the Association's Archaeology and Anthropology Section, the RAI is organizing a workshop for 16-19-year-old students in Norwich on Thursday 7 September 2006, entitled 'Better humans or not human? What it really means to be human in the 21st century'. This interactive event will introduce students to anthropological approaches to human nature and bioscience. For details contact the RAI Education Officer by .

We are pleased to announce that the second volume in the Special Issue Series of the JRAI, to be published in 2007, will be jointly edited by Dr Elisabeth Hsu and Dr Christopher Low, and is provisionally entitled Wind, life, health: Anthropological and historical perspectives. All Fellows should now have received their copy of the inaugural issue: Ethnobiology and the science of humankind, edited by Professor Roy Ellen. A call for proposals for the Special Issues to be published in 2008 and 2009 appears in this issue of AT .

The RAI Publications Committee has decided to invite offers, expressions of interest and recommendations for the appointment of the next Honorary Editor of the JRAI, to succeed Glenn Bowman on completion of his term of office in 2007. Please see separate announcement in this issue of AT.

Tenth RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film. The next Film Festival will take place in Manchester in late June 2007. We expect to publish a call for submissions in the August issue of AT and on the RAI website during July.

Summer office closure. The RAI office will be closed from Monday 21 to Monday 28 August inclusive, reopening on Tuesday 29. HC

April 2006

Conference on 'Periphery and Policy' Truro (Cornwall) 21-22 April: we are pleased to announce that the Conference will be opened on 21 April by His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO, Patron of the RAI. It may still be possible to register for the conference at the time of publication of this issue of AT; for details please see separate announcement.

Annual General Meeting 2006. The AGM will be held on Wednesday 20 September at the University of Bristol during the conference of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. It will be followed by the 2006 Henry Myers Lecture, which will be given by Dr Piers Vitebsky of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. Times and title of Dr Vitebsky's lecture tba; both events are being held by kind invitation of the University of Bristol and EASA.

In a departure from RAI tradition, the Presidential Address in 2006 is being organized independently of the AGM. Professor Alan Bilsborough will give his Address at the University of Kent on Friday 3 November by kind invitation of the University (time and title tba).

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2006 is Professor Leslie Aiello, President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Date, venue and title tba.

We are delighted to announce the following awards:

The 2004 Wellcome Medal for anthropology as applied to medical problems has been awarded to Professor Luigi Capasso for outstanding work in palaeopathology and biological anthropology, and research on age, labour and diseases in remains excavated at Herculaneum. The Curl Essay Prize for 2005 has been awarded to Ivan Costantino for an essay entitled 'Landscapes of the Western Pacific: Anthropology and the land of ethnography in the work of Bronislaw Malinowski'. The Hocart Student Essay Prize for 2005 has been awarded jointly to Francis McKay (University of Manchester) for an essay entitled 'Archaeology and the denial of coevalness' and Eduardo Daniel Bogado (LSE) for an essay entitled 'Batty fi'dead (Homosexual must die): God, gender, body and society in the cultural construction of the Jamaican male homosexual'. The 2005 Hocart Essay competition drew a particularly strong field of entries, and the judges comment that the joint award to two essays on strikingly different subjects will benefit the discipline as well as the writers, illustrating the intellectual breadth of anthropology.

To signal its commitment to encourage and reward excellence in student work in anthropology, the RAI has decided to offer two student essay prizes annually from 2006: the Hocart Essay Prize intended primarily for postgraduates, and a newly created RAI Student Essay Prize with eligibility restricted to undergraduates. For details please see the separate announcement in this issue of AT.

The RAI's project to expand the presence of anthropology in pre-university education, funded for one year by a grant from HEFCE under its AimHigher National Rolling Programme (see AT, October 2005) is moving rapidly ahead under the supervision of the Education Committee. Those interested can obtain more information from the Education Officer, Gemma Jones by .

The Munro Project, for research and digitization of N.G. Munro's legacy of material on the Ainu people, is also proceeding well. The RAI is lead body for this project in a consortium of UK and Japanese partners. During February Arkadiusz Bentkowski, Sarah Walpole and Susanne Hammacher, respectively Photo Curator, Archives Officer and Film Officer, paid a visit to Japan as guests of the Japanese consortium partners to visit collections held there and plan the next stages of the project.

The inaugural volume in the JRAI Special Issue series, Ethnobiology and the Science of Humankind, edited by Professor Roy Ellen, will be published shortly and distributed free of charge to RAI Fellows and libraries subscribing to the JRAI. The RAI Publications Committee expects to announce in the June issue of AT the result of the selection process for the second issue, to appear in 2007, and also to set a timetable for selection of the third issue to be published in 2008. HC

February 2006

None published.

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