Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology

The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology is a major new outreach initiative for the department. It is an open-access encyclopaedia that provides people around the globe with information about commonly used anthropological concepts, such as “race and ethnicity”, “migration” and “religion”. You can find the first few entries here: www.anthroencyclopedia.com

Each entry is peer-reviewed by leading academics. In times of increasing uncertainty around the reliability of online knowledge, we consider peer-reviewed content more valuable than ever. Over time, we aim to turn the encyclopedia into an important alternative to expensive printed reference works, which are inaccessible in most countries of the Global South, and to online databases that are either too unreliable to be cited or not free of charge. The encyclopedia is also an open resource in that it allows any author in the world to submit an entry. We hope it will be a truly international effort, shared with the world at large.

The encyclopedia will serve a readership of pupils and students who lack access to academic works. It also targets government officials, NGO workers, artists, journalists and members of the business community. Their work is increasingly research-heavy, using social science concepts as part of funding calls, fundraising, working across cultural boundaries, and thinking about global challenges such as forced migration or indigenous rights.

Lastly, we want the encyclopedia to become a key part of the currently growing movement for open access Anthropology. We are firmly convinced that anthropological knowledge must be shared between academics and with the general public in order to deal with the fundamental challenges of our time. We therefore actively encourage entry submissions on contemporary topics such as climate change, nationalism and finance as well as about long established subjects such as kinship and ritual. To get the ball rolling, we have uploaded a small set of entries ourselves. We look forward to growing the site over the years to come.

Felix Stein is the founder and managing editor. The Editorial Board is: Sian Lazar, Matt Candea, Hildegard Diemberger, Joel Robbins, Andrew Sanchez and Rupert Stasch. The encyclopedia is an initiative of the whole Department of Social Anthropology.

Part funding: Wenner Gren and the ESRC Impact Acceleration Grant