When Kathleen Openshaw asked that the AAS executive issue a statement about the climate emergency, I thought, well, we're not climate scientists, but this is a good opportunity for Australian anthropologists to contribute to the discussion about the climate emergency (amidst bushfires and huge chunks of the country burning) by offering perspectives on the impact of anthropogenic climate change on the various communities where we work.
The replies and comments I have received from AAS members have made me realise that there is no good way to bring together all those diverse perspectives into a single statement from the AAS executive. Anthropology, it turns out, really doesn't lend itself to reducing complicated situations to 1-2 sentences per field site!
Instead, what I've decided to do is post individual comments (attributed to individual members, not as AAS statements) on our new Instagram account. That way, instead of trying to make a unified statement, we can serve as a mechanism for sharing members' perspectives.
The public AAS Instagram account is at www.instagram.com/australiananthropology. We've already posted several items about climate change written by AAS members, drawn attention to what an Indigenous journalist for the Guardian is writing about the impact of climate change on Indigenous communities in Australia, linked to Dolly Kikon's new book on the oil industry in India, and recognised three amazing Australian anthropologists who were recently awarded Australia Day Honours in 2020. As you can see, we're using this space to post pictures and information showing what Australian anthropologists are doing, announce awards and publications, and anything else that we can do to promote the work of Australian anthropology and AAS members!
If you've got a picture to share and a story to tell, we'd love to post it. Tell us about a new book or article, tell us a story about your fieldwork, or comment on a news item or current event. If you'd like to contribute, send a photo and caption (which can be up to 2000 characters, including all punctuation, spaces, any links, and the hashtags which serve an indexing function) to lisa.wynn@mq.edu.au. Please confirm that you own the copyright of any image or have permission to post someone else's image (and of course credit the photographer).
~ Lisa Wynn, AAS President