anthropologies: Liberating Cultural Anthropology? A Thought Experiment

"In this brief post, we sketch one possible model for turning Cultural Anthropology, the journal of the Society for Cultural Anthropology, a section of the American Anthropological Association, into a gold open access journal.  Open access advocates describe such a process as liberatory because it frees a publication from arrangements that constrain its capacity to fulfill a core mission: namely, the widest possible circulation of the published work, regardless of a reader’s ability to pay.  This mission is a particular demand for anthropology, because anthropological publications concern communities, and are of interest to readers, in all areas of the world, many of whom do not have the resources or organizational connections to gain access to anthropological publications as they are now distributed.  Anthropological publications also have great potential to reach new and diverse audiences near to home, in policy, legal, and media domains, as well as within the growing number of universities, state colleges, community colleges, and other institutions whose libraries are cutting journal subscriptions in the face of mounting budget pressures.   Reaching these readers is also difficult within the current distribution model.  An open access model would provide many advantages, and is both economically feasible and technically well supported at this juncture.  Here, we lay out a rough process and budget, inviting feedback."