APLA and PoLAR are pleased to announce our special event at the 116th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association! Join us at Busboys and Poets in Washington DC on Thursday, November 30th for drinks, appetizers, discussion, and a roundtable with special guests Orisanmi Burton, Laura Nader, Ayşe Parla, and Sara Shneiderman.
Contemporary politics seem besieged by an apparent surge of populist longing for authoritarian, “strong man” leaders. Across the world, we have seen rhetorical and electoral assertions of ethnicized sovereignty against outsiders, particularly against “others” within nation-states and migrants. The reasons any given electorate may long for authoritarianism are numerous, including shifts in economic fortunes (e.g., neoliberal policies, rising inequalities within and between states, globalization, and deindustrialization), local political histories and hierarchies, armed conflicts, and massive crises such as climate change and human displacement/migration.
This event is an opportunity for us to collectively consider our responses to the politics of crisis, as both scholars and citizens. How can anthropologists analyze current political events in ways that are timely, well-informed, and accessible to a broad public? How can anthropology contribute to and inform policy decisions that impact the people we work with? Members of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) join with the editors of PoLAR: Political & Legal Anthropology Review to chair an open discussion about making anthropological scholarship more accessible to the public and increasing our profession’s impact in advocating just politics and law. Building from the successful PoLAR/APLA initiative to publish topical responses to current events, such as Trump’s Executive Order 13769 (aka, the immigration ban), series authors and APLA members are eager to make anthropology a voice of progressive engagement — we hope you can join us in that effort!
Busboys and Poets is a politically progressive event space at the corner of 14th and V streets in downtown DC, designed as “a space for art, culture, and politics to intentionally collide.” We chose this site because we want to get APLA and AAA members physically out of the convention center, and hopefully, to get our minds out into the real world as well. The event is free and all are welcome.
Download a flyer/invitation here: EVENT.
Directions from Marriott Wardman Park (Conference venue)
Location: Busboys & Poets, 14th and V location, 2021 14th St NW
Metro: U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo station
Metro: (Plan on a total of 30 minutes.) Take the Red line train from Woodley Park-Zoo Metro Station to Gallery Place Chinatown. Transfer to Green or Yellow Line. Take the Green or Yellow Line to U Street Metro Station. From U Street Station, walk west one long block to 14th street, turn right (north), and proceed to the corner of 14th and V Streets. (Click here for DC metro system map.)
Bus: (Buses run every 20 minutes or so.) Walk from hotel to the corner of Calvert Street and Connecticut Ave. Take 96 Bus or X3 Bus towards U Street Metro Station. Get off bus at 14th and U Street. Walk one block north to corner of 14th and V Streets. (Click here for 96 Bus schedule; and here for the X3 bus.)
Walk: (1.5 miles, ca. 30 minutes.) Walk down Connecticut Ave to Calvert. Turn left (west) on Calvert and follow Calvert across the long Duke Ellington Memorial Bridge, bending right as Calvert becomes Adams Mill road and then continuing on Adams Mill Road as it bends further into 18th Street (in the heart of Adam’s Morgan, identifiable by shops, restaurants, etc.). Continue about a block south on 18th Street and turn left just after passing the Amsterdam falafel shop, cutting one block over to Champlain St. Turn right on Champlain and walk to Florida St. Turn left on Florida, proceed to V Street and turn right on V Street. Walk east on V Street to the corner of V and 14th.
Dragon or Jetpack: Fly to the corner of 14th and V.
Association for Political and Legal Anthropology 
