Journal for the Anthropology of North America

Welcome to the Journal for the Anthropology of North America (JANA), formerly North American Dialogue.

JANA is the peer-reviewed publication of the Society for the Anthropology of North America. We welcome manuscripts concerned with the anthropology of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. While elements of this research tradition are addressed by applied, medical, educational, political, and urban anthropology, among others, JANA focuses upon this region as an “area” by placing research findings in historical perspective and theoretical conversation. JANA is particularly committed to featuring work from diversely situated scholars that builds on critiques of inequality and violence to further envision, imagine, investigate, and enact actual alternatives to the ‘-isms’ of our time. We aim to publish manuscripts that anchor theory-building in compelling ethnographic grounding, and we are particularly insistent that our authors avoid the temptation of simply processing a case study through a given theoretical lens. Going further, we want to invite (and challenge) authors to bring out the reflexive and ethical dimension of their work: the what is to be done?

We currently accept four types of manuscripts. Research articles present findings from original fieldwork and make explicit contributions to contemporary dialogues in the study of North America. Coming to Terms are short, non-peer-reviewed pieces that engage with language critical to our work as anthropologists in order to provoke further dialogue and reflection. Snapshots are single image-based short essays documenting key moments in contributors’ fieldwork. We also publish book and film reviews.

JANA publishes two issues per year, in the spring and fall. Members of the Society for the Anthropology of North America receive JANA as a benefit of their membership. Please visit https://sananet.org to learn about becoming a member.

Visit us on Facebook and Twitter, and find our Author Guidelines below.

Author Guidelines

General Guidelines

The journal’s online submission system is the only acceptable means of submitting a manuscript for review. Manuscripts sent directly to the editors will not be considered.

Submissions must be double-spaced, use left justification, with no hyphenation at the end of lines. 12-pt, Times New Roman or Arial font should be used.

All identifying information should be removed prior to submission. Please upload, as a separate attachment, a title page (with author and affiliation), with a minimum of 3 keywords.  For research articles, this must include a one-paragraph abstract and the names and email addresses of three possible reviewers.

Word Counts

Abstracts: approximately 250 words.
Research articles: maximum 8,000 words, including references.
Coming to Terms: 750 to 1,500 words, including references.
Snapshots commentary: 400 to 500 words, including references.
Book and film reviews: 800 to 1,000 words, including references.

Snapshots Photograph & Commentary

The submission of one appropriately formatted photograph taken (of or) by the author should be accompanied with a short reflexive commentary.  This should describe and explain the picture, including geographic location as well as its significance in your research and/or the anthropology of North America. Snapshot photographs are often made the cover image of the issue. The Snapshot image itself should be 100x132mm and 392 dpi, and the cover version should be 210×276 mm and 310 dpi.

Image Formatting

Images and photographs accompanying manuscripts should be supplied with the highest quality, with a minimum of 300 dpi, JPEG or TIFF format.  Line art, graphs, and charts or figures that include multiple styles should be submitted with a minimum of 600 dpi, PDF or EPS format.

Tables

Number tables consecutively in the order in which they appear in text. Each table should have a caption. The caption and body of the table should be double-spaced.

Book & Film Reviews

We welcome reviews of books or films which were released in the past three years.  Relevant unsolicited or volunteered reviews are evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  All reviewers must not be affiliated with the book or film reviewed in any capacity.   A review requires more than a summary or synopsis. The appropriate submission will analyze, comment on, and evaluate the work and evaluate its relevance for North American anthropology which could include as a teaching resource, for praxis, or new cultural insights (broadly defined).

The title of your review must follow the Chicago Manual of Style as follows:
“Book Title by Book Author(s), Publisher Name, Date of Publication”
“Book Title. Edited by Editor(s), Publisher Name, Date of Publication”
“Film Title. Directed by Director, Date of Film, Length.”

Style Guidelines

JANA follows the Chicago Manual of Style (Author-Date) for most matters of style, including hyphenation, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations, and grammar, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary for spelling. In-line citations and references should follow AAA Style guidelines.

Best Practices

  • Use footnotes as little as possible. Incorporate the material into the body of the text.
  • Avoid excessively long sentences and run-ons.

In-text Citations

  • Place citations in parentheses and include the author’s name and the source’s year of publication, with no intervening punctuation, at the end of a sentence or before a comma or semicolon, whenever possible: (Author Date).
  • Only include page numbers for quotations, using an en dash for page ranges: (Author Date, ##–##). (Note: they are preceded by a comma, not a colon; this is a major change from the old AAA Style Guide). This means do not include page numbers for paraphrasing.
  • If a quotation will take up more than four-lines, make it a block quotation (this also means do not use quotation marks).
  • Use semicolons to separate two or more references in a single parenthetical citation and list them alphabetically: e.g. (Bessire and Bond 2014; Comaroff 1996; Daser 2014; Foucault 2000).
  • When mentioning the specific work of an author in-text, ensure the publication date follows the author’s name in brackets: Author (date) text.
  • If introducing a quoted piece of work using the author’s name, the page number follows the quotation: Author (date) said “text of quotation” (page number).

Reference List *Author-Date Formatting only

  • Always include the publisher and publisher location. (Location: Publisher).
  • Include every source cited in the text and no others, listed alphabetically by author.
  • When including multiple works by the same author, list them chronologically, from oldest to most recent.
  • For works published by the same author in the same year, add a, b, and so on, and list them alphabetically by title.
  • Avoid DOIs

Style Notes

  • When using the possessive, never add another “s” after the apostrophe when the word ends in “s”
  • Italicize any words that do not appear in Webster’s Dictionary.
  • Spell out whole numbers from one through one hundred, round numbers, and any number beginning a sentence. If the number beginning a sentence would be awkward spelled-out, rework the sentence.
  • Percentages are the exception regarding spelling unless at the beginning of a sentence. Do not use %, spell out percent. (e.g. 45 percent)
  • Do not use ampersands (&)

Abbreviations for In-text Citation

  • Do not include “ed.” or “trans.” in the in-text citations (and in the case of books that have been reprinted or updated, do not include the original publication year), as this information will be included on the reference list.
  • Use the first author’s last name and et al. for works with four or more authors.
  • You may use the following abbreviations: e.g., and i.e.
  • Do not use ibid., passim, op. cit., and so on.
  • For “compare,” use the abbreviation: cf.
  • For publications with no date: n.d.
  • Follow CMS 10.4 regarding other abbreviations. Typically, when abbreviations end in a lowercase letter, use periods. Do not use periods for two-letter state, province, and territory abbreviations.