[Linganth] Options

[Mike Salovesh]

Dear Ron -- and the list!

My students used to call me a living link to the fossil past, with some
justification, I'm afraid.

This goes back to the early 1980s reorganization of the AAA. (I'm talking
about SLA here. LSA, of course, is MUCH older than that.)  Before the
reorganization, AAA provided billing and mailing services to many
professional societies with connections to anthro, but for many reasons AAA
decided it could no longer provide those services to "outside"
organizations. A number of organizations who had been using AAA services,
along with others with more or less loose ties to the AAA, were offered the
opportunity to become subunits within the AAA itself.

The Society for Applied Anthropology and the Amer. Assn. of PhysAnthro
decided to retain their independent existences. Both had thousands of
members, and in both cases the organizations were concerned that large
proportions of their memberships consisted of people who did not have any
interest in a general anthropological association as such.  Another
organization with similar concerns, the Council on Anthropology and
Education, likewise had large numbers of non-anthropologist members, but
they decided to stay with the AAA. And AES, arguably as well established as
AAA itself, decided to become part of the larger whole when it might well
have remained apart.

Lots of smaller organizations -- particularly including regional
associations such as the Central States Anthro Society (CSAS) -- voted to
amalgamate.  (I was President of CSAS at the time; on balance, I supported
becoming a unit within AAA, but I pointed out that if CSAS joined up that
would be the end of CSAS independence. In legal terms, CSAS now has no
independent status: it is solely and exclusively a unit within the AAA.)

As the reorganization went forward, AAA created new subdivisions to reflect
the traditional "four-field" approach. (Don't ask me "why four and only
four" if you don't want to go on forever!) These groups within AAA are,
like CSAS, *not* independent associations of people with like-minded
interests. They are creations of the AAA and exist for whatever purposes
the AAA provides for them. That includes SLA, of course -- and SLA, acting
as such, has only those powers specified in the overall AAA Constitution
and By-Laws and the parallel documents of the SLA itself.

SLA, acting as such, is limited in its powers to organize separate
meetings. Meetings have to go through the AAA central office and blah blah
blah.  Can bunches of us, *acting as individuals*, set up whatever
get-togethers we'd like? Hell, yes! Can they be *official* meetings of
SLA?  Hell, no!

Can SLA opt out of its connections with AAA? Legally and contractually, no.
Even the name belongs to the AAA. The membership, acting as individuals,
could, of course, form a totally new and independent organization under a
new name and corporate identity. That new organization would have no right
to the name SLA, to its records or even its membership list, or to whatever
funds (from dues, etc.) are now credited to the SLA account within the AAA
structure.

That's the formal situation. Do I like it? Not particularly.

I think it's important that there be a single, national organization of
anthropologists as such. I am convinced that any such organization MUST
provide for linguistic anthropology as a major part of the whole. This is
entirely without regard to the fact that the ratio of lingistic
anthropologists to the number of anthros as a whole is AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN
extremely small. (Please excuse the double shouting: I'm extremely strong
in these beliefs.) SLA is part of AAA to keep a linguistic voice within the
association, which badly needs us.

Linguistic anthropologists also have other natural homes -- like, e.g.,
LSA.  We also have, and should have, links with organizations tied to
geographic areas such as the Dialect Atlas, Latin American Studies
Association, or SEAA.  Thank heaven!

That's enogh for now.

-- mike salovesh     m-salovesh-9 at alumni.uchicago.edu     PEACE !!!

P.S.: Personally, I'm devastated by the Atlanta decision. My non-refundable
air fare was paid to an airline that doesn't fly to Atlanta. My plans to
take advantage of a California meeting to visit my brother in southern
California, and have Thanksgiving with my fiance's daughter near San Diego,
are shot. I'm seriously thinking about not going to the AAA meetings at all
-- and I have attended 45 annual AAA meetings so far.  Aaaargh!!!

Ronald Kephart wrote:
>
> At 9:26 AM -0700 10/24/04, Richard J Senghas wrote:
>
> >...When I've raised idea the [of separate meetings] informally in
> >conversations at past AAA meetings, sometimes I get a positive
> >response, but others worry about causing the SLA to become more
> >isolated from the general membership...
>
> Richard,
>
> As perhaps the newest member of AAA and LSA (and therefore the least
> qualified to comment, but why let that stop me?), I wonder if the two
> need be mutually exclusive. Would it be possible to have smaller,
> separate meetings that, as someone pointed out, would allow for
> longer presentations, and also participate in the general meetings?
> Maybe the smaller meeting would be better for individual papers,
> while the general meeting would be a good place to focus more on
> panels that might be attractive to folks who have strayed from the
> *true* >:-) core of anthropology?
>
> Of course even as I write I can think of arguments against, and I'm
> sure y'all can as well. Just thinking "out loud" (in the virtual
> sense)...
>
> Ron
>
> PS: I just graded my midterms, and I'm truly astounded at the number
> of students who, on one problem, identified two sounds as allophones
> of different phonemes, and than gave as their justification that one
> is always initial and the other always occurs elsewhere, and
> therefore the two are in complimentary (yes, with an "i")
> distribution. Aaargh!