December 2007

Professor Roy Ellen FBA took office as President of the RAI at the AGM on 26 September, in succession to Professor Alan Bilsborough. Professor Simon Coleman succeeded Glenn Bowman as Honorary Editor of the JRAI. We thank the outgoing President, Officers and Council members for their hard work for the RAI, and welcome their successors to office.

A lively and well-attended Curl Lecture was given by Dr Daniel Nettle after the AGM, under the title ‘Nature versus culture: Or how is human behaviour to be explained?’

As previously announced, the RAI office has assumed responsibility for membership administration with effect from the 2008 membership year. Joining and renewal procedures are now live at http://www.therai.org.uk/joining/index.html. We ask anyone encountering problems in joining or renewing as a Fellow, Member or Student Associate to inform the office promptly by .

Holiday closures. The RAI office will close on Wednesday 19 December and reopen on Thursday 3 January 2008. The Anthropology Library at the British Museum will close at 4.45 on Friday 21 December, and will reopen on 2 January 2008.

October 2007

The 2007 Annual General Meeting will have taken place by the time this issue of AT goes to press. The Rivers Memorial Medal for 2007 is awarded to Professor Andrew Whiten FRSE, FBA, Professor of Evolutionary and Developmental Psychology and Wardlaw Professor of Psychology, University of St Andrews. The Patron’s Medal (awarded on an occasional basis for outstanding service to anthropology and/or the RAI) is awarded to Dr André Singer, CEO of West Park Pictures and Chair of the RAI’s Film Committee.
The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2007 is Professor Adam Kuper of Brunel University. Professor Kuper’s title is ‘Changing the subject’. The lecture will take place at 6.00pm on Friday 14 December, in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, London WC1.

The RAI Council has elected Professor Maurice Godelier and Professor Bruno Latour as (respectively) Huxley Memorial Medallist and Lecturer and Henry Myers Lecturer for 2008. Details of the events will be announced in future issues of AT.

Readers are reminded that 31 October 2007 is the submission deadline for proposals for the Special Issue of the JRAI to be published in 2010; see separate announcement in this issue of AT.

The Tenth RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film was held with great success at the University of Manchester in June. Thanks are due to the organizers, to the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, and to all who contributed to the success of the event. A list of competition prizewinners appears separately in this issue of AT.

We are delighted to announce that the 2007-8 Leach-RAI Fellowship (to be held at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth) has been awarded to Dr Andrew Moutu of Cambridge University and Papua New Guinea. A call for applications for the next Fellowship will appear in a future issue of AT.
Membership administration. As announced in the August issue of AT, the RAI office will take responsibility for membership administration from the 2008 membership year onward. The changeover is scheduled for 15 October 2007. Until that date, joining and renewal for 2007 will be handled by Blackwell as before. Thereafter the RAI will be responsible. Full details of the changeover arrangements are now posted on the RAI website (www.therai.org.uk). We request that Fellows, Members and Student Associates inform the office of any problems encountered. A special membership offer for undergraduate anthropology students in 2008 is announced separately in this issue of AT.

Library announcements. Now available to RAI Fellows: an ATHENS password which will enable online access to such journals as are held electronically at the Anthropology Library, Centre for Anthropology, British Museum. Anyone interested please email Jan Ayres, Senior Librarian at the Centre for Anthropology (jayres@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk). For the duration of the First Emperor Exhibition at the British Museum, the CfA library staff will have considerably reduced access to the material stored in the Museum’s Round Reading Room. Access will be limited to a short period before the exhibition opens to the public, and may not be possible every day. If Fellows need material which they know, or suspect, is shelved in the RRR they will need to give at least 24 hours’ notice to a member of the library staff. It is recognized that this is not ideal, but we will do our best to minimize the inconvenience.

Office Christmas/New Year closure. The RAI office will close on Wednesday 19 December 2007 and reopen on Thursday 3 January 2008.

August 2007

Annual General meeting 2007. The AGM will be held on Wednesday 26 September 2007, at 5.00 pm in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, Clore Education Centre, British Museum, London WC1. 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 6.00 pm by the 2007 Curl Lecture, to be given by Dr Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University. Dr Nettle’s title is ‘Nature versus culture, or how is human behaviour to be explained?’

Following the lecture, timetable permitting, we hope to show an outstanding film from among those screened during the 10th International Festival of Ethnographic Film, or recently seen elsewhere. Please see the RAI website (www.therai.org.uk) for details.

The Annual Report for 2006 has been published and is being sent to Fellows with this issue of AT.

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2007 is Professor Adam Kuper of Brunel University. Professor Kuper’s title is ‘Changing the subject’. The lecture will take place at 6.00 pm on Friday 14 December, in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, British Museum, London WC1.

We are pleased to announce that the Urgent Anthropology Fellowship for 2007-8, hosted by the University of Kent, has been awarded to Dr Dario Novellino. His project title is ‘Enabling the “indigenous voice”: Beyond technocratic solutions to forest conservation on Palawan Island (the Philippines)’. A call for applications for the 2008-9 Fellowship appears in this issue of AT.

The RAI Medical Anthropology Committee will hold a special conference on Medical Anthropology Today in London on 11 September 2007; see updated announcement in this issue of AT.

Readers are reminded that 31 October is the deadline for proposals for the Special Issue of the JRAI for publication in 2010; see announcement in this issue of AT.

There have been several recent deaths of persons close to the RAI. Professor Dame Mary Douglas died on 16 May. It is expected that the seminar series ‘Anthropology and the Bible’, which it was her intention to co-convene in association with the RAI and UCL and which was announced in the June issue of AT, will go forward in her memory. The death in June of Professor Peter Ucko, the RAI’s 2005 Huxley Lecturer, was closely followed by that of Miss Brownlee Kirkpatrick MBE (‘Miss K’), for many years the RAI’s much-valued Librarian and holder of the Institute’s Patron’s Medal. An obituary for Brownlee appears in this issue of AT. A further obituary by Sarah Walpole, the RAI’s Archives Officer, was published in The Independent on 23 June (http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article2697834.ece). The RAI extends its condolence to all those bereaved.

Membership administration and subscriptions for 2008. We are pleased to announce that, by agreement with Blackwell Publishing, the RAI will now take direct responsibility for the administration of individual subscriptions. Institutional subscriptions to the JRAI and AT will continue to be managed by Blackwell. For details of the changes, see separate announcement in this issue of AT. It has also been decided that individual fees for Fellows, Members and Student Associates in 2008 will be frozen at 2007 level. The fees for 2008 will therefore be (£ sterling rates; for Euro and $US equivalents please see the forthcoming membership leaflet):

Summer closure. The RAI office will be closed from Monday 20 to Monday 27 August inclusive, reopening on Tuesday 28 August.

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June 2007

Annual General Meeting 2007. The AGM will be held on Wednesday 26 September 2007 at 5.00 pm in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre, Clore Education Centre, British Museum, London WC1. It will be followed by the 2007 Curl Lecture, to be given by Dr Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University with the title 'Nature versus culture, or how is human behaviour to be explained?' The full programme will be announced in the August issue of AT.

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2007 is Professor Adam Kuper of Brunel University. Date, venue and title of Professor Kuper's lecture tba.

The 10th RAI Festival of Ethnographic Film (University of Manchester, 27 June-2 July 2007) will feature, in addition to film screenings and the 2007 Forman Lecture, a public debate on 'Anthropology on television: Education or entertainment?' This will be chaired by the celebrated broadcaster Anna Ford; speakers will include academic anthropologists holding different views, as well as filmmakers and media specialists. See also separate notice in this issue of AT.

RAI Fellows should now have received their copy of the 2007 Special Issue of the JRAI: Wind, life, health: Anthropological and historical perspectives, edited by Dr Elisabeth Hsu and Dr Chris Low. We are delighted to announce that the Special Issue for 2008 will be Objects of evidence (provisional title) edited by Dr Matthew Engelke. The Publications Committee has now moved to a two-year selection and production cycle for the Special Issues. We expect to announce the Special Issue for 2009 later in 2007, and a call for proposals for the 2010 Special Issue appears in this issue of AT and the June issue of the JRAI (submission deadline 31 October 2007).

The 2007 London Anthropology Day for pre-university students and teachers, co-organized by the RAI and University of East London, will take place on Monday 9 July at the British Museum. For information on this and all RAI pre-university education activities, contact the Education Officer on .

The RAI was represented by the Director and by Council members Professor Tom Selwyn and Dr Julie Scott at the First Palestinian Tourism Conference 'Building Destination Palestine: Challenges and opportunities', hosted by the University of Bethlehem and co-sponsored by the TEMPUS programme of the EU, in March 2007.

The RAI will hold a special conference on 'Medical Anthropology Today' in London on 11 September 2007; see separate announcement in this issue of AT.

We are delighted to announce the award of the following Prizes. 2005 Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology: jointly awarded to Andrew Apter and Harry West for their respective books The Pan-African nation: Oil and the spectacle of culture in Nigeria, and Kupilikula: Governance and the invisible realm in Mozambique. Curl Essay Prize 2006: awarded to Richard Vokes for his essay 'Charisma, creativity and cosmopolitanism: A perspective on the power of the new radio broadcasting in Uganda and Rwanda'. RAI Student Essay Prize 2006: jointly awarded to Cy Elliott Smith and Kathleen Haywood, both of the University of Sussex, for their respective essays 'The mythos of geodemographics: Archetypal constructions 'of' and 'for' a panoramic cultural landscape' and 'Narrative, national identity and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission'.

Summer closure. The RAI office will be closed from Monday 20 to Monday 27 August inclusive, reopening on Tuesday 28 August.

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April 2007

Leach-RAI Fellowship Programme. We are delighted to announce that the next host for the Leach-RAI Programme will be the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. The Department of Anthropology at Maynooth will host the Leach-RAI Fellow for one year in each of the academic years 2007, 2008 and 2009. For details please see the call for applications for the 2007 Fellowship in this issue of AT.

Curl Lecture. The 2007 Curl Lecture will be given by Dr Daniel Nettle of Newcastle University, with the title 'Nature versus culture, or how is human behaviour to be explained?' We expect to run the Lecture during the last week of September, immediately after the 2007 RAI Annual General Meeting. Date and venue tba.

The Huxley Memorial Lecturer and Medallist for 2007 is Professor Adam Kuper of Brunel University. Date, venue and title of Professor Kuper's lecture tba.

The 2007 Special Issue of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute will be published shortly and distributed free of charge to current RAI Fellows and to institutional subscribers to the JRAI. The Special Issue, the second in the series, is edited by Elisabeth Hsu and Chris Low, and entitled Wind, life, health: Anthropological and historical perspectives. The RAI Publications Committee expects to announce the winning submissions for the 2008 and 2009 Special Issues, and the timetable for submission of proposals for publication in 2010, in summer 2007.

The RAI's comprehensive programme of pre-university education in anthropology, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under its Science in Society scheme, is moving ahead rapidly. A dedicated education website will be launched shortly, and a separate grant has been received from Museums, Libraries, Archives London (MLA) to create a microsite aimed at citizenship education, based on material held within the RAI Collection. The RAI contributed to the ESRC's Festival of Social Science, held from 9-16 March, through a special evening 'The art of remembering: Photography, art and anthropology in Ghana' at the October Gallery, London, to whom thanks are due. This was followed by a week of film screenings at Fitzroy St: 'Upstairs at the RAI'. The event was also used to launch http://www.anthropologistabouttown.blogspot.com, a guide for the general public to accessible anthropologically flavoured activities around the country. The next London Anthropology Day, introducing pre-university students to undergraduate anthropology and the variety of courses available, will be co-organized by the RAI and University of East London, and held at the British Museum on Monday 9 July. For more information on all education activities contact the RAI Education Officer by .

Preparations for the 10th RAI International Festival of Ethnographic Film are proceeding apace, and once again a record number of submissions for prizes and screenings has been received. The Festival will be held in Manchester from 27 June to 2 July, followed by a linked conference. For details see the separate announcement in this issue of AT.

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February 2007

We are delighted to announce the election of Professor Simon Coleman, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sussex, as Honorary Editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute in succession to Glenn Bowman, who completes his term of office in September 2007.

A generous grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, under its ‘Science in Society’ programme, takes effect in 2007 and places the RAI’s programme of pre-university education in anthropology on a secure financial footing for the three years to December 2009. During 2006, the first steps in establishing the operation were supported by the AimHigher National Activities Programme of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, to whom grateful thanks are due. Building on the activities of 2006, an exciting programme of information, events and initiatives for ‘anthropology in the classroom’ is now taking shape, and a dedicated website will be launched early in 2007. For more information, contact the Education Officer by .

The announcement was made in November 2006 of a merger between the RAI’s publisher, Blackwell Publishing, and John Wiley & Sons, Inc. The planned name for the merged organisation is Wiley-Blackwell. The RAI’s current contract with Blackwell runs to December 2012. Within the merged structure, the publication of the RAI’s journals and Special Issues of the JRAI will continue to be managed from the Blackwell Oxford offices.

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