Publication Guide
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is the definitive scholarly society for anthropology in the United States and the largest in the world, founded in 1902 and based in Arlington, Virginia. It is not a commercial publisher: its roughly 22 peer-reviewed journals are produced by the association and its 40 sections - groups like the American Ethnological Society, the Society for Cultural Anthropology, and the Society for Medical Anthropology - and most are published in partnership with Wiley on the AnthroSource platform, a relationship in place since 2008. One section title, Transforming Anthropology, moved to the University of Chicago Press in 2024.
If you work in any sub-field of anthropology - sociocultural, linguistic, biological, medical, visual, or archaeology - an AAA journal is a natural home for your paper. This guide covers how to pick among the section journals, what open access costs (and where it costs nothing), how peer review works, and how to submit.
Which AAA journal fits your paper?
Each AAA journal is run by a section with its own editorial board and scope. The flagship, American Anthropologist, spans all four fields; most others are sub-field specific.
| You're most likely to... | Choose this journal |
|---|---|
| Have a four-field or broad-audience anthropology paper | American Anthropologist - the AAA flagship since 1888, publishing across sociocultural, biological, linguistic anthropology and archaeology. |
| Have ethnographic research with strong theoretical framing | American Ethnologist or Cultural Anthropology - the two leading US ethnography venues. Cultural Anthropology is fully open access with no APC. |
| Work on health, illness, or biomedicine | Medical Anthropology Quarterly - the Society for Medical Anthropology's journal. |
| Study language in social life | Journal of Linguistic Anthropology - the Society for Linguistic Anthropology's journal. |
| Work on education, schooling, or learning | Anthropology & Education Quarterly - ethnographic research on education. |
| Work on psychological anthropology, self, or emotion | Ethos - the Society for Psychological Anthropology's journal. |
| Work with film, photography, or multimodal media | Visual Anthropology Review - the Society for Visual Anthropology's journal. |
What the AAA actually publishes
- ~22 peer-reviewed journals, almost all tied to an AAA section, covering every sub-field of anthropology. Alongside the titles above, the portfolio includes journals such as City & Society, Anthropology of Work Review, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, and the Annals of Anthropological Practice.
- AnthroSource - the digital library launched in 2004 that hosts current issues and the full back archive of AAA journals, newsletters, and bulletins. AAA members get full access as a membership benefit; institutions subscribe through Wiley.
- Anthropology News - the association's magazine, not a peer-reviewed research venue.
Note that some well-known anthropology journals are not AAA titles: American Antiquity belongs to the Society for American Archaeology, and Current Anthropology is published by the University of Chicago Press.
Open access & APCs
Most AAA journals are hybrid: subscription-based with an optional Wiley OnlineOpen route. Publishing without OA is free for authors.
| Route | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription (default) | $0 | No submission or publication fee on Wiley-published AAA titles. |
| Hybrid OA (Wiley OnlineOpen) | ~3,600 | American Anthropologist lists ~$3,570; check each journal's current Wiley price page. |
| Fully OA, no APC | $0 | Cultural Anthropology has been diamond OA since 2014, funded by the Society for Cultural Anthropology - no APC. |
| Read-and-publish agreements | $0 to author | Authors at institutions with a Wiley transformative agreement can publish OA at no direct cost - check the ESAC registry or your library. |
| Green OA | $0 | Self-archiving of the accepted manuscript is permitted under Wiley's standard embargo terms. |
Wiley waives or discounts OA fees for corresponding authors in Research4Life-eligible countries.
Peer review process
- Model: double-anonymized review is the norm - American Anthropologist explicitly anonymizes both authors and reviewers.
- Editors: each journal is edited by scholars appointed by its AAA section, so scope fit matters; read recent issues before submitting.
- Turnaround: expect roughly 2-5 months to first decision, typical for ethnographic journals with essay-length manuscripts.
How to submit
- Pick the section journal whose scope and recent issues match your manuscript.
- Read the author guidelines on the journal's AnthroSource / Wiley page - word limits vary (American Anthropologist research articles run up to ~10,000 words).
- Format citations in the Chicago author-date style; the AAA retired its separate style guide in favor of The Chicago Manual of Style, and SciSpace templates handle the formatting automatically.
- Anonymize your manuscript - remove identifying information and self-citations that reveal authorship.
- Submit through the journal's platform. American Anthropologist moved from ScholarOne to Wiley's Research Exchange in April 2025; other AAA titles still use ScholarOne (Manuscript Central) - the journal's submission page tells you which. Cultural Anthropology uses its own OJS system at journal.culanth.org.
Ethics and integrity
AAA journals follow the association's Principles of Professional Responsibility, the anthropology-specific ethics code covering informed consent, do-no-harm obligations to research participants, and transparency about funding. Wiley, the publishing partner for most titles, is a COPE member, and retractions and misconduct investigations follow COPE guidelines. Authors should also disclose permissions for images and ethnographic materials involving identifiable people.
