We seem to live in an era of perpetual crisis, surrounded by contested spaces. Anthropology and the social sciences continue to uphold their societal role and imperative to interrogate these spaces and create nuanced understandings through multiple framings. Professor Sandy O’Sullivan has addressed the ongoing impacts of the colonial project on gender and the seemingly endless ideological war against gender diverse peoples (2021). Professor Bronwyn Carlson and Terri Farrelly have dived into recent controversies around the removal of colonial statues and the public backlash this has created (2023). Discussions on conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and elsewhere in the world that are lesser known, have raised serious concerns surrounding democratic and academic freedoms for scholars and students at large. These have led to critical debates on the role of universities and academic disciplines in calling out colonial violence. Neoliberal university structures have implemented a number of firings and redundancies with only the barest pretence of consultation (Stolte 2023). A decades-long dissipation of traditional careers in university-based teaching and research has led anthropologists into new domains of work and action, raising challenges to traditional measures of status and reputation within the discipline. Anthropology needs a reclaiming if it is to thrive.

We welcome panels offering a wide range of interpretations of the theme. The following includes a list of potential ideas that work to reclaim the discipline in a variety of contested spaces. Panels are encouraged to be creative in their approaches. 

• Colonialism and its many ongoing impacts
• Cultural heritage, native title and shifting state policies
• Museums and archives, repatriation and reclamation 
• Black Lives Matter and the removal of colonial monuments
• The neoliberal turn at universities and its impact on the anthropology discipline 
• Disrupting the gender binary
• Climate change and sustainable development 
• Conflict zones and humanitarian lenses
• Reconfiguring the meaning of work as tools become ‘intelligent’
• Anthropology unleashed, or the false divide between conventional and unconventional spaces
• Rehistoricising the anthropology of dispute, conflict and contest
• Mining, extraction, and multiple imaginings of future materials

This year’s conference will be held at the University of Western Australia, just two years after a majority of their anthropology and sociology staff were made redundant. With UWA also being a contested space, we welcome AAS members to bring their ideas and passions together to reclaim the university grounds.