APLA Graduate Student Paper Prize Competition

The APLA Board invites individuals who are students in a graduate degree-granting program (including M.A., Ph.D., J.D., LL.M., S.J.D. etc.) to send papers centering the analysis of political and/or legal institutions and processes. We encourage submissions that expand the purview of political and legal anthropology and challenge us to think in new ways about power, politics, and law.

Submitted papers (limited to one per person) should be original, unpublished works that are not currently under consideration for publication in any journal. Submissions should also not be simultaneously submitted to any other prize competition with a publication option. Authors of submitted works commit to giving right of first refusal to the peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review.

APLA awards a cash prize of $350, plus travel expenses of up to $650 if the prize winner attends the 2023 annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association (Toronto) to receive the prize in person. The prize winner will be announced in Anthropology News, and the winning paper will be considered for publication in PoLAR. If warranted, an Honorable Mention may also be named.

Authors must be enrolled in a graduate program through at least May 1, 2023. Papers should not exceed 8,000 words (including notes and references) and should follow the style guidelines of PoLAR, which are detailed in the American Anthropological Association Style Guide. Please review the submission instructions carefully, as they have been revised.

Submission Instructions

Papers must be submitted by July 31, 2023.  Please submit your paper via this form. To facilitate a blind review process, your paper manuscript should not contain any personal identifiers, but include the title in the header of each page. Papers longer than 8000 words will be automatically disqualified. You will be informed about the decision regarding your paper no later than October 1, 2023. If you have any questions, please contact Mark Schuller at mschuller@niu.edu.