In August 2019, Drs. Courtney L. Everson and Maria V. Barbero began their positions as the new Co-Editors of NEOS: The Official Publication of the Anthropology of Children & Youth Interest Group (ACYIG), American Anthropological Association (AAA).

Read on to meet the new Co-Editors and hear their vision for the future of NEOS!

An Introductory Letter from the NEOS Co-Editors

Greetings!

We are honored to join ACYIG-AAA leadership as the new NEOS Co-Editors. We want to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves, the editorial team, and the rising horizons for NEOS!

A Reflective Pause: This past February, NEOS celebrated its 10^th year as a publication dedicated to building community among child and youth studies scholars, practitioners, and students. Over the years, it has morphed and re-shaped to meet the needs of its readership, both within and beyond the AAA community. As scholars who have found community within this carefully cultivated space for rigorous scholarly engagement and collegial support, we are thrilled to be able to continue this legacy, reflecting on how NEOS can be further re-imagined in line with the ever-evolving needs of our community.

You may have noticed it is October and you have not yet received your October issue of NEOS in your inbox. Good observation! We have decided to use our transition into the Co-Editor positions as an opportunity to take a NEOS reflective pause, reflecting on the good work accomplished to-date by our predecessors and thoughtfully planning for the future of NEOS. In commitment to our NEOS vision and goals (outlined below), we have worked with the ACYIG Board to develop a membership/readership survey in place of an October Issue. We genuinely believe that the future of NEOS must be participatory, meaningful, and responsive. As engaged researchers, we can think of no better way to enact this belief than to begin our journey as NEOS Co-Editors with direct input from our esteemed colleagues, allied practitioners, and students.

We thus cordially invite you to take the ACYIG/NEOS 2019 Survey. The survey can be found here or via www.bitly.com/ACYIG2019. The survey closes on December 6^th, so don’t delay — help us shape the future of NEOS and ACYIG!

Our Vision: As the official publication of the Anthropology of Children & Youth Interest Group, we believe NEOS has a critical role to play in advancing anthropological and interdisciplinary scholarship on children and youth. We are committed to strategically promoting the advancement of NEOS to meet the needs of our professional communities and those we serve with our research, teaching, and service.

Our Goals: To achieve this vision, we have outlined two broad goals for our first year as Co-Editors.

1. Goal 1: to ensure the NEOS publication is responsive to the needs of the anthropological community and our interdisciplinary colleagues. This includes cultivating a publication that: (1) reflects the ever-evolving nature of our field, (2) keeps up with cutting-edge opportunities for dissemination and application of our scholarship, (3) critically engages current events on children/youth, (4) includes the voices of children/youth scholars from all four fields of anthropology, and (5) creates synergy with larger ACYIG and AAA strategic efforts.
2. Goal 2: to support the sustainability and capacity-building of NEOS infrastructure for all stakeholders involved. This includes defining publication processes and platforms that are accessible, effective, and efficient for the editorial board, peer reviewers, contributing authors, and the ACYIG advisory board.A New Structure: continuing with our vision and goals above, NEOS is undergoing a few new structural changes!
   • New Co-Editor Structure: earlier this year, the ACYIG Advisory Board decided to move from a singular Editor structure to a Co-Editor structure. This decision helps to support publication sustainability and capacity-building (Goal 2) while also creating space for further NEOS innovation and impact (Goal 1).
   • NEOS Publication Schedule: based on feedback from the previous Editor, editorial team, reviewers, and authors alike, we have decided to move NEOS to a new bi-annual publication schedule, that is: October and April. This new publication schedule will distribute issue timing more evenly, better support authors and reviewers in their contributions to the publication, and allow us to dovetail NEOS more closely with fall and spring conference events of AAA and ACYIG.

Online Journal Format: we are exploring the possibility of moving NEOS into an online journal format. We believe an online format will help to increase the professionalism, dissemination, and impact of the publication. In the survey, you will find an opportunity to share your thoughts on this potential change. NEOS Editorial Board: The vision, goals, and structure of NEOS rests on the dedicated people behind the publication. So let us take a moment to do a virtual “meet and greet” with your NEOS editorial team!

Co-Editor – Courtney L. Everson, PhD

Courtney L. Everson, PhD, is an Applied Medical Anthropologist with a long track record of community engagement, research, teaching, and leadership in health and human services, non-profit management, and higher education. She earned her Ph.D. in applied medical anthropology from Oregon State University with doctoral level minors in public health and women, gender, and sexuality studies. Dr. Everson is currently appointed as a Researcher with Colorado State University (CSU) in the Social Work Research Center (SWRC), School of Social Work, College of Health and Human Sciences. Here, she engages in team-based science to help transform the child welfare landscape and strengthen families through meaningful research-practice partnerships. As a mixed methodologist, Dr. Everson uses biosocial health frameworks and community-based approaches to study maternal-infant health, child well-being, child maltreatment prevention, youth development, and family functioning. In addition to being the new Co-Editor for NEOS, Dr. Everson serves as a Research Working Group member of the Academic Collaborative for Integrative Health, an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and a strategic consultant to higher education entities, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations on issues of equity, complex systems evaluation, and anti-oppression.

Co-Editor – Maria V. Barbero, PhD

Maria V. Barbero, PhD is a Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at Rollins College in Central Florida, where she teaches in Latin American and Caribbean Studies and conducts research on issues related to youth, migration, and race. She has a PhD in Global and Sociocultural Studies from Florida International University an M.A. in Comparative Studies from The Ohio State University.

Maria is currently working on a book manuscript on south-south youth migration to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work on migration in Argentina has been published in journals such as Race and Ethnic Studies, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Maria’s research focuses on the migration-security nexus and how it impacts migrant populations in the Americas. She is particularly interested in the experiences of young people who straddle elusive boundaries between childhood and adulthood and how they experience state practices, discourses, and policies of protection and control. Maria has previously published work on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in Citizenship Studies and is currently developing a research project which documents the experiences of migrant minors in Florida detention centers.

Assistant Editor – Matilda Stubbs, PhD

Matilda Stubbs’ primary research focuses on the anthropology of social service administration, specifically the role of documents and bureaucratic culture in U.S. child welfare, adoption, and foster care services. She also teaches on a range of other topics including automobility and vehicularity, visual and material culture, communication, tourism, and sensory studies. Her most recent project focuses on the global political economy of youth slime culture and ASMR on social media platforms.

Assistant Editor – Anne E. Pfister, PhD

Anne E. Pfister, PhD is Assistant Professor of anthropology at the University of North Florida. Her research investigates how deaf youth and their families experience deafness in Mexico City, Mexico by integrating sociocultural linguistic theory with biocultural medical anthropology analyses. Her project utilizes visual methods including “photovoice” to actively engage participants as co-researchers. She has been involved with the Mexican deaf community for over ten years. Dr. Pfister’s research interests include disabilities studies, language socialization and medicalization; her work has been published in Medical Anthropology, Ethos, Visual Anthropology Review, Behavioral and Brain Sciences; Collaborative Anthropologies and Annals of Anthropological Practice.

Assistant Editor – Alexea Howard, MA

Alexea Howard, MA is a recent graduate from California State University, Long Beach whose focus is in Medical Anthropology. She graduated at the top of her class with awards such as Distinguished Graduate Student, Academic Excellence, and Best Thesis. Alexea earned her BA (Honors) in Anthropology with a focus in Medical and Psychological Anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles and received post-baccalaureate training in Psychology and Addiction Studies. Her research explores the way that concepts of health and illness are impacted by a sense of community and a gained sense of agency. Her most recent work focuses on reasons for continued use among those who participate and frequent pro-anorexia websites and how the use of these sites has impacted the community’s conceptions of health and illness as it relates to anorexia.

MANY THANKS! We would also like to take a moment to express our deepest gratitude to the NEOS editorial team members who have completed their service: Victoria Holec, immediate past NEOS Editor, and Alvaro Vargas, Layout Editor. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Victoria for her endless dedication to NEOS during her time as Editor. Victoria ushered in new systems and supports for NEOS while uplifting the publication’s profile. Alvaro meticulously designed each issue of NEOS to ensure publication content was organized, visually appealing, and professionally produced. Many thanks, Victoria and Alvaro, for your years of service with NEOS!

Get Involved! Again, we express our commitment to making the future of NEOS responsive, meaningful, and collaborative. Please consider these opportunities to get involved!

• ACYIG Business Meeting at AAA 2019: This year, the ACYIG Business Meeting at the AAA Meeting is on Saturday, November 23rd from 12:15 pm – 1:45 pm at the Vancouver Convention Center WEST, Room 216. ALL are welcome to attend!
• Call for NEOS Reviewers & Editorial Team Members: we are actively recruiting peer reviewers and additional members of the editorial team. Interested? Shoot us an email at Editor@gmail.com to learn more!
• ACYIG/NEOS 2019 Survey: Be heard! Lend your voice and experience via the survey – we can’t wait to hear from you!

We are excited about the future of NEOS and humbled to serve as your Co-Editors. Many thanks for your dedication to children and youth studies, to ACYIG, and to NEOS!

Until next time, may your teaching be inspiring, your writing productive, and your impact great.

All the best,

Courtney L. Everson, PhD                                                                            Colorado State University                      Courtney.Everson@colostate.edu

&

Maria V. Barbero, PhD                                                                                        Rollins College                                                                      mbarbero@rollins.edu

—

ACYIG.Editor@gmail.com                                                                                             Connect with ACYIG on Facebook and Twitter!