Call for Exertions Submissions 2025

Published On: December 2, 2025|Categories: Announcements|
sign saying protest

SAW co-editors call for pitches to two new collections, below and an ongoing call to the Jobs We Had column, edited by Carrie Lane

The Work of Anthropology/Sociology in Times of Crisis

What is the work of Anthropology/Sociology in current times of crisis? SAW Editors call for despatches from the frontlines of the university inviting brief submissions by way of photo essays, audio postcards, short blogs (up to 500 words) and other multimodal contributions that share the current situation at your university or in the contexts in which you work. We invite reflections (anonymous or attributed) that engage how scholars and teachers are responding to current and ongoing struggles around academic precarity and budget cuts; authoritarian governance; protests against the genocide in Palestine; and other issues that are fundamentally shifting how we live and work by Dec 30, 2025 to Arnaud.kaba@gmail.com and Hemangini.gupta@ed.ac.uk.

A Method for Our Times

SAW Editors invite brief blogs on innovative methods that are being devised by anthropologists of work to navigate the changing nature of work itself. With the rise of gig economies, precarious work, and jobs that are continually under threat, how do we study work itself? We invite reflections on methodological innovations that you have found helpful to work and think with in short posts of 500-750 words that share the method, explain how you’ve used it, and reflect on its wider significance for the field of anthropology/sociology of work. Submissions invited by Dec 30, 2025 to Arnaud.kaba@gmail.com and Hemangini.gupta@ed.ac.uk.

CFP: The Jobs We Had
When we talk about the work we did to become anthropologists, we usually refer to coursework or fieldwork, the process of learning how to research, write, and teach. Yet many of us also did very different kinds of work to support ourselves as students in high school, college, graduate school, and beyond. We waited tables, worked in retail, cleaned houses, babysat and nannied, ran focus groups, drove Ubers—you name it. The “Jobs We Had” series collects stories from anthropologists about the other jobs we’ve had—what we did, why we did it, how we felt about it, and how it shaped us, then and now. Contributions might consider how our paid work related to our life as students and scholars—maybe it offered an escape from academic life, or perhaps it was a burden that kept us from the “real work” of anthropology. These discussions might connect with conversations around value, productivity, virtue, and shame as they relate to different types of labor. We can also consider this work in relation to student loans, the funding landscape, and inequities between students and across programs and universities. These are not research pieces, but we encourage you to use your work experiences as an entry for critical reflection on conversations around work and anthropology.
Interested folks should email a short pitch describing what you’d like to write about to Associate Editor Carrie Lane at clane@fullerton.edu. Final articles will be around 1500-2000 words.