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 f