Overview
The Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America is awarded annually to a senior anthropologist for broad-based contributions to research, teaching and service related to the development of critical studies of North America, including the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It recognizes a distinguished long-term program of research and publication and takes into account contributions in other areas, such as teaching and training, SANA/AAA service, and community, activist, practice, or policy involvements outside academia.
Current Recipient
2025
Shannon Speed
Paula Gunn Allen Chair and Professor of American Indian Studies, Gender Studies, and Anthropology, UCLA; Director, American Indian Studies Center and Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Native American and Indigenous Affairs
We are delighted to award the 2025 SANA Prize for Distinguished Achievement in the Critical Study of North America to Professor Shannon Speed, whose extraordinary scholarly contributions have reshaped the critical study of Indigenous social movements, sovereignty, gender, violence, and migration.
Previous Recipients
2024
Susan Hyatt
Professor Emerita in Anthropology, Indiana University Indianapolis
Dr. Susan Hyatt has spent her career working on issues of urban poverty, social policy, and community activism in the US and the UK, combining rigorous scholarship with deep community engagement and innovative pedagogy.
2023
Lynn Bolles
Past President, SANA (2009–2011); Past President, Association of Black Anthropologists and Association for Feminist Anthropology
The SANA Board is pleased to announce Professor Lynn Bolles as the recipient of the 2023 prize, recognizing her many years of distinguished scholarship on Caribbean women and contributions to Anthropology, Women's Studies, and African American Studies.
2021
Josiah Heyman
Professor of Anthropology; Endowed Professor of Border Trade Issues; Director, Center for Inter-American and Border Studies, UTEP
Josiah Heyman is Professor of Anthropology at UTEP and Director of the Center for Inter-American and Border Studies, known for his articulate public engagement with borderlands communities and his extensive scholarship on migration and human rights.
2021
Carlos Vélez-Ibáñez
Regents Professor, School of Transborder Studies and School of Human Evolution and Social Change; Motorola Presidential Professor of Neighborhood Revitalization, Arizona State University
Carlos G. Vélez-Ibáñez is Regents Professor at Arizona State University, recipient of the Bronislaw Malinowski Award, and author of numerous scholarly books and articles on transborder communities and neighborhoods.
2019
Catherine Besteman
2012 Guggenheim Fellow; Past President, Association of Political and Legal Anthropologists
Catherine Besteman's work explores the intersection of race, mobility, security, neoliberalism, and carcerality, with a goal of analyzing pathways toward abolition and critiquing security regimes that control mobility worldwide.
2017
Yolanda Moses
Professor of Anthropology and Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Excellence, UC Riverside
Dr. Yolanda Moses has made major contributions to the field as a teacher, scholar, administrator, and public intellectual, reshaping public discourse on race, diversity, and higher education through decades of tireless advocacy.
2016
Setha Low
Professor of Environmental Psychology and Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center
Professor Setha Low has published over 80 books and articles on urban space, privacy, and cultural diversity, combining critical ethnography with advocacy for more inclusive public spaces and tireless mentorship of students and junior scholars.
2015
Emily Martin
Professor, Department of Anthropology and Institute for the History of Production of Knowledge, New York University
Professor Emily Martin has published six ground-breaking books on gender, the body, and cultural formations in North America, with a tireless commitment to public engagement, feminist scholarship, and student mentorship.
2014
Johnnetta Betsch Cole
Director, Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art; Former President, Spelman College and Bennett College for Women
Professor Johnnetta Betsch Cole has coupled rigorous scholarship on intersectionality and gender with tireless public engagement, serving as the first African American Woman President of Spelman College and as Director of the Smithsonian Institute for the National Museum of African Art.
2013
Lee Baker
Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education; Dean of Academic Affairs, Trinity College of Arts and Sciences; Professor of Anthropology and African and African American Studies, Duke University
Dr. Lee Baker's pioneering scholarship deploys historical and contemporary analysis to trace the history and politics of racial formation, connecting anthropological constructions of race to the social and political contexts that shaped the civil rights movement and contemporary discourses.
2012
Michael Blakey
National Endowment for the Humanities Professor of Anthropology; Professor of American Studies; Director, Institute of Historical Biology, College of William and Mary
Dr. Michael Blakey's pathbreaking, interdisciplinary scholarship uses both physical and cultural anthropology to explore the bioarchaeology of the African Diaspora in North America, making profound contributions to our understanding of race through the New York African Burial Ground Project.
2011
Ellen Lewin
Professor of Anthropology and Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies, University of Iowa
Ellen Lewin's long career exemplifies her commitment to social justice through scholarship on motherhood, reproduction, and sexuality in American cultures, with a particular focus on lesbian and gay families, commitment ceremonies, and the discipline's engagement with sexuality studies.
2010
Catherine Lutz and Patricia Zavella
Professor of Anthropology, Brown University; Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, UC Santa Cruz
Professors Lutz and Zavella have made outstanding contributions as scholars, public anthropologists, and advocates, with ground-breaking work on militarization and U.S. culture (Lutz) and gender, race, and Chicano/Latina communities (Zavella).