board, I had to find a managing editor, an editorial assistant, and editors for the sections on public anthropology, visual anthropology, book reviews, and obituaries. As I took on these tasks, I learned a lot about work organization at the journal and some of the logistical problems associated with editing AA.
I had no trouble finding a good managing editor. Mayumi Shimose had held the position for more than a decade and wanted to continuing working for AA. However, the structural position of AA within the AAA made it surprisingly difficult to keep Mayumi on.
All but two of the more than twenty AAA-sponsored journals are affiliated with sections of the association such as the American Ethnological Society, the Society for Medical Anthropology, and the Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology. (It is difficult to give a precise figure for the number of AAA journals because periodically some are added and others disappear.) The sections are primarily funded by member dues and a complicated profit-sharing arrangement between the AAA and Wiley-Blackwell. Each section that publishes a journal receives an amount of money determined by a formula based on the revenue generated by the title and the number of downloads of articles from an AAA site called AnthroSource. Journal editors receive funds from this allocation from the treasurer and other officials of their section. For example, when editing Anthropology of Work Review, I received funds for a copy editor from the Society for the Anthropology of Work.
American Anthropologist and the much smaller Anthropology News are the only AAA-sponsored journals not affiliated with a section. In order for AA editors to obtain funds and other support for the journal aside from that provided by their institution and Wiley-Blackwell, they must negotiate with the director of publishing of the AAA. During most of my editorship, this position was held by Oona Schmid. I knew from my time editing Anthropology of Work Review that Oona was cautious about spending even small amounts of money. We had exchanged lengthy emails about funds for covers and financial penalties for the Society for the Anthropology of Work if the journal exceeded its page limits.
Each year, the AA editor submits a budget for approval by the AAA that includes items such as partial funding for the editorial assistant, travel for the editor to the annual meeting, and miscellaneous supplies. When Tom Boellstorff edited AA, the AAA gave money to the University of California, Irvine to hire Mayumi Shimose and provide her with some benefits. I never did fully understand the arrangement at Irvine, where Mayumi was hired as a part-time employee of the university. The costs for hiring Mayumi through the University of Iowa turned out to be considerably higher than they had been at Irvine. Oona, who did not want to spend this extra money, decided to see if Mayumi would be willing to work freelance for a somewhat higher salary, forgoing benefits. Because Mayumi had medical benefits through her husband’s job, she somewhat reluctantly agreed to this arrangement.
As the former chair of the Labor Relations Committee of the AAA, I was not happy to hear about this. This arrangement was an example of the outsourcing of work increasingly common in industrial societies. The Labor Relations Committee had strongly opposed the terrible working conditions often associated with outsourcing for adjunct faculty. In this particular case, I was also worried about the precedent set by the agreement. Future managing editors might not have Mayumi’s access to medical benefits. Although I did not say anything at the time, I should have.
Hiring an editorial assistant was straightforward. Brandi Janssen, one of my advisees, had just started to write her doctoral thesis on the production and sale of local food in eastern Iowa. Brandi is smart, reliable, and well organized. She was glad to have the position, which offered flexible hours and work that could be done from home.3
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