Feb 1
SDISD Professor Sindiso Mnisi Weeks featured in Anthropology News
SGISD Associate Professor of Law and Society, Dr. Sindiso Mnisi Weeks was recently interviewed in her new role as editor of Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR). The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) Section News editors interviewed Sindiso and her PoLAR co-editor, Georgina Ramsay, on how they became anthropologists and the connections between their anthropology and activism.
Professor Mnisi Weeks describes her experience and relationship to the field of anthropology:
“I use anthropology’s approach to studying law as it is experienced in the real world. But it’s been hard for me to describe myself as an anthropologist. I think of my work as being more activist because, even though anthropology is such a big tent, I’ve had to combine different fields to create the critical lenses I sought.”
The APLA News editors also asked Sindiso if journals remain relevant in our evolving “attention economy”, which acknowledges our limited capacities to focus on everything that demands our attention. To this, she responded with an invitation:
“[Political and legal anthropology] can’t just discuss and describe what needs to change but must also be part of that change. We want to bring people into the conversation who see the world differently, not perpetuate the racism and imperialism that is part of our profession’s history and continues in many ways today….Who says that editorial boards should be exclusively academics, especially in such an applied field? I hope PoLAR can be a venue where people feel free to pursue ideas they felt there wasn’t space for within our field.…bring all the things you felt weren’t welcome, or you felt there wasn’t space for. We will make space for them in PoLAR.”
Read the full interview with Professor Mnisi Weeks in Anthropology News, The New PoLAR Editors Discuss Accidental and Activist Anthropology and Political Journal-Making.
PoLAR is the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology’s journal, which publishes anthropological law and political works focused on nationalism, citizenship, political and legal processes, the state, civil society, colonialism, postcolonial public spheres, multiculturalism, and media politics.
Learn more about Professor Sindiso Mnisi Weeks’ academic and policy achievements at SGISD and beyond.
