About | Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group

The Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) provides a forum for the increasing number of anthropologists, other researchers, and practitioners broadly concerned with children, childhood, and youth. It serves as an arena in which scholars, students, and practitioners in this area can develop ideas, network, and share resources.

ACYIG also seeks to raise awareness regarding the important contributions of this growing field and it does this by, among other things, sponsoring sessions for the Annual Meeting of the AAA, developing collaborative research networks (CRNs), maintaining a website, and distributing a biannual newsletter entitled “Neos: A Newsletter of the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group”.

ACYIG goals include:

To promote and facilitate the development of anthropological scholarship pertaining specifically to children, childhood, and youth, broadly defined, and to emphasize its relationship to the development of inclusive, comparative theoretical models, as well as fieldwork methodology, for the discipline of anthropology;
To encourage research focused on young peoples’ perspectives which emphasize the centrality of children and youth in cultural production, not only as objects of socialization but as social agents in their own right;
To engage researchers in discussion of ethical considerations particular to working with children and youth;
To contribute anthropological knowledge to the interdisciplinary efforts to address the contemporary problems facing children and youth, and to establish links with other professional associations and practitioners concerned with the study of children, childhood, and youth for professional collaboration in teaching, research, and scholarship;
To promote the professional interests of members and help produce the next generation of anthropologists and practitioners whose work will influence policy in both governmental and nongovernmental agencies concerned with young people.

Join ACYIG

ACYIG membership is free. Just select the ACYIG box when renewing or beginning your AAA membership. For further information regarding AAA membership, visit their membership page.