Questions by topic:
Submissions and Registration
Submissions to the Executive Call must be directly related to our 2025 Annual Meeting theme, Ghosts. Submissions to the General Call can be about any subject currently relevant in the four fields of Anthropology and do not have to be related to the theme.
The Executive Call only has two submission types to choose from: Oral Presentation Session and Roundtable/ Town Hall. The general call will have more submission type options, including individual submission types, and opportunities for other types of events such as installations and workshops. More information is coming soon.
Executive Call Accept/Decline notices: Sent out the week of March 31st, 2025
General Call Accept/Decline notices: July 2025
- Oral Presentation Session – in-person
- Roundtable/ Town Hall – in-person
Submission types for the General Call for participation are divided by Individual or Group submissions, with several options in each category:
Individual
Flash Presentation Session: Submit your individual paper as a flash presentation, and then it will be added to a 90 minute engaging performance of current work. Flash presentations will be submitted individually, and then combined into sessions during peer review. Sessions will be made up of 6 – 8 flash presenters who will present on a variety of topics in each session, moderated by staff or volunteers, and followed up by a discussion. Each flash presentation should be no longer than 8 minutes.
Poster Presentation Session: In-person. You will create a physical poster which you will display during our poster session and discuss your work with attendees who attend the session. You will be provided with a 4’x6′ board and pushpins to display your poster. You must bring your poster printed and ready to be hung.
Poster sessions will be held in the exhibit hall and will not compete with other scholarly programming. One is a happy hour session with a bar, and one is a coffee break session with coffee provided. These events were attendee favorites in 2024, very well attended and great for networking!
Group
Oral Presentation Session: This is an in-person, 90-minute panel which includes one or two organizers, one chair, 4-6 presenters, and 1-2 discussants. Each of the 4-6 presenters show their work in a 15-minute presentation. Presenters may read a prepared speech or informally discuss their work using visual aids such as an accessible PowerPoint presentation. The submission for this session type must include a full session title, an abstract for the entire session, as well as the name of each presenter, each presenter’s individual paper/presentation title, and abstract for the individual presenter’s paper. If your submission is found to contain more than 6 presenters during peer review, it will be disqualified from consideration. Please be careful to only add 6 presenters to your submission.
Roundtable/Town Hall Session: This is a 90-minute session type and includes one organizer, one discussant, and 4-7 presenters. A roundtable session is designed to allow the presenters to discuss and share ideas with each other on a topic of shared interest with the aid of a discussant. The discussant acts as a guide and frames the conversation, with most of the comments and discussion coming from presenters. For submission, you must provide a session title and an abstract for the entire roundtable session (no individual talk titles or abstracts are required).
Conversation or Debate – During this 90-minute session, 2-4 participants engage in a traditional-style debate lead by one to two moderators (discussant role) or an informal conversation followed by a brief question and answer session from audience members.
Interview – One-on-one conversation in which a host interviews one person about a topic in an engaging lively discussion followed by a question-and-answer session with audience members.
The option for individually volunteered papers (IVPs) has been replaced with flash presentation sessions and poster sessions.
Flash presentations will be grouped into one session with similar topics, consisting of 6-9 presentations of individual papers. Each presentation should be 8-9 minutes, though if there is enough time available the moderator may allow a few more minutes per presentation. These sessions are very similar to oral presentation sessions, and will be listed in the program equally.
Poster sessions are very well attended and dynamic events that were attendee favorites in 2024. In a poster session, you will provided with a board and pushpins to display your physical visual aid. These sessions take place in the main exhibit hall, and you will be displaying your poster along with many other poster sessions. Attendees to the session will walk around and discuss your work with you. This type of presentation is an industry standard across many scientific and social science disciplines.
If you would like to present your work in an Oral Presentation Session, you are responsible for connecting with other papers and forming an oral presentation session before submission. In pre-formed oral presentation sessions, roles are clearly defined ahead of submission and sessions are more cohesive because participants choose to work together based on an overarching theme. To form a session, we are encouraging people to collaborate before and during the General Call, by:
- Using #AAA2025NOLA on various forms of social media
- Making a post on the AAA Community Boards
- Connecting on the 2025 Annual Meeting LinkedIn Group
We have several options for individuals wishing to participate in the AAA Annual Meeting program. Individuals can submit for:
Flash Presentation Session (individually volunteered paper)
A 90 minute, engaging performance of current projects/concepts via a few image-rich slides, along with brief visual descriptions, and dynamic and reasonably-paced spoken content. Flash presentations will be combined into session blocks made up of 6 – 8 flash presenters who will present on a variety of topics in each session.
- Each flash presentation should be no longer than 8 minutes.
- The only modality for this session is in-person.
- Available for General Call for Participation and Late-Breaking Call for Participation
Poster Presentation Session
Using a combination of visuals and text, poster presentations allow you the opportunity to present your research, speak informally with interested viewers, facilitate an exchange of ideas and network. You will be provided with a 4’x 6′ board and pushpins to display your poster.
Poster sessions will be held in the exhibit hall and will not compete with other scholarly programming. One session will include a coffee bar and the other will include a happy hour bar with alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks. These sessions were very well attended and an attendee favorite in 2024.
- Available for the General Call for Participation and Late-Breaking Call for Participation
Learn more about all the submission types.
If both/all the authors want to present the paper and be included in the program as a presenter:
If both authors want to present the same paper in an oral presentation session, then each author should be included in the submission in the role of ‘presenter’, and both presenters should upload the same abstract and title. We do not have a role for a “co-presenter,” so each person must be listed as a presenter and both people will count toward the limit of 6 presenters.
So, for example, an oral presentation session could have six presenters, and only 5 papers, because two of the presenters are presenting the same paper. If you do this, then each presenter will have 15 minutes to present, for a total of 30 minutes for one paper. It is up to the session organizer to decide how to organize this time. You could allow all 30 minutes for the two authors to present one paper, or you could utilize 15 minutes for the paper and then use the other 15 minutes for Q&A or discussion.
If only one author will be presenting during the meeting:
If only one author will be attending and presenting at the Annual Meeting, they can credit their co-authors by adding them as a co-author during the submission process. A co-author does not have to be registered for the meeting to be listed as a co-author of a paper. However, they will not be listed as participating in the meeting and cannot be given a certificate of participation or invitation letter for the paper.
Adding co-author in the submission process or after your submission is accepted is also how you would credit a co-author if you will be making an individual submission: poster, flash presentation (individually volunteered paper). We cannot allow two presenters on one poster session.
The Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) hosts their Film & Media Festival in conjunction with the AAA Annual Meeting. Visit their website for deadlines and submission information.
Here are the links for VRC and SVAMFM Call for Submissions:
After careful consideration based on feedback from virtual participants, we have decided to discontinue virtual offerings for our Annual Meeting. While we understand the convenience virtual options provide, we found that participation levels and overall engagement did not meet expectations in recent years and that overall, it did not provide a meaningful experience for presenters or attendees. We remain committed to creating an engaging and rewarding in-person experience and look forward to welcoming you in New Orleans.
Every individual participating in the meeting is subject to certain role limitations that must be followed. NEW: These role limits have been updated in 2025 to allow for more participation.
Role Limits: Each individual participating in the meeting can have a maximum of one major role and two minor roles, OR, three minor roles. You can have an unlimited number of unlimited roles.
*There is one exception to this- Individuals may apply to participate and be accepted to the Late Breaking Call for submissions even if they are already accepted in the maximum number of roles from the General and Executive Calls. For example, if a participant is already a speaker in a session accepted to the general or executive call, and is also accepted as a speaker in the Late Breaking call, we will make an exception for that violation and allow an individual to have two speaker roles.
Role types: Major, Minor, Unlimited
Major Role: You can participate in ONE of these roles:
- Presenter
- Presenter includes:
- Flash Presentation, Poster, Oral Presentation Session Presenter
- Presenter includes:
Minor Roles: You can participate in two minor roles and one major role, OR in three minor roles (and no major role):
- Discussant: Oral Presentation Session or Roundtable
- Presenter: Roundtable presenter, Conversation or Debate Speaker, Conversation or Debate Moderator, Interviewer, and Interviewee.
Unlimited Roles: You can participate in an unlimited number of these:
- Organizer/Co-Organizer
- Chair
- Co-author
- Installation Participants
No. During the submission process, you can add participants, but once the submission is finalized and the call for papers is closed, no further additions can be made. All submissions are peer reviewed according to what is provided at the time of submission. After the peer review is complete and your submission is accepted, no additional participants can be added. However, participants can be removed. If a participant later finds out that they cannot attend the session, the participant can be removed from the session without the session being canceled.
The AAA is not able to provide the technology necessary for hybrid sessions, where part of the group is virtual and the other part is in-person, due to the high cost of the resources needed for a fully hybrid meeting. In 2025, the AAA Annual Meeting will be in person only. If you are unable to present your portion of the session in-person with the rest of the presenters, then you are welcome to pre-record your content and reach out to your session organizer and ask them if they would be willing to play the audio/video of your presentation during the session. It will be your session organizer’s responsibility to ensure the success of the session while including virtual components, and the AAA cannot promise additional tech support on site. You will still need to register for the meeting in order to participate, even if you are not attending and your session organizer is playing a video of your presentation. If you are not an active member of the AAA and registered by the deadline, then you will be removed from the program.
No. Participants listed on submissions do not need to be members of the AAA prior to submission. However, all participants accepted onto the program must become AAA members and register for the meeting no later than Friday, September 26th, 2025, in order to remain on the program. Anyone who does not become a member and register for the annual meeting by this deadline will be removed from the official program and cannot be added back. If you are removed from the program due to not becoming a member and registering, and then become a member and register after the deadline and participate in the meeting, we cannot add you back to the program. This is because after the deadline, the program data is exported so that we can use it create the final program and can no longer be edited.
However, if you registered late and participate in the meeting, we can issue you a certificate of participation after the meeting is complete.
Yes, all participants accepted onto the program must become AAA members and register for the meeting no later than Friday, September 26th, 2025, in order to remain on the program. Anyone who does not become a member and register for the annual meeting by this deadline will be removed from the official program and cannot be added back, because the program data is exported after the deadline and can no longer be edited.
If you are removed and then register after the deadline and participate at the meeting, we cannot add you back to the program but we can issue you a certificate of participation after the meeting.
Note: Participation in the annual meeting is a member benefit of the AAA. It is required that each participant becomes a member and register for the meeting. Registration is also discounted for active members. If you only wish to attend the meeting and are not participating in any session in an official role, then you are welcome to attend as a non-member.
No, one participant dropping out will not result in the entire session being cancelled. That person will be removed from the program, and the session will be listed and take place without them. The organizer of the session can rearrange the timing so that it is most successful. Note: We cannot replace a dropped out participant with another person after peer review is complete.
The AAA offers several financial assistance programs, which your participants can apply for. Information about these programs will be published on this site once it is updated for the 2025 meeting.
Participating in the Annual Meeting is a benefit of being a member of the AAA. Anyone who is a session participant and has any of the following roles: organizer, chair, discussant, or presenter, must be a member of the AAA and register for the conference in order to participate.
There are very few and specific exceptions to this. Please email aaameetings@americananthro.org if you have questions and think you might qualify for an exception. Also please note that becoming a member and registering is less costly than registering as a non-member.
Title: 300 characters
Whole Session Abstract: 3,000 characters
Individual Paper Abstracts (for oral presentation sessions): 1,500 characters.
Note- we are required by the limits of technology to count in characters not words. Characters to Words Calculator can be a helpful tool.
If your poster is accepted, you will be assigned a time slot and a board number. The poster sessions will be held in the back of the exhibit hall, behind the booths. You will be provided with a 4’x6′ cork board on a stand and pushpins where you can attach your poster or visual aid. You do not have to fill the entire space with one poster- feel free to be creative with your visual aid within the 2D space provided. You should arrive 10 minutes early to your poster session with your poster or visual aid printed and ready to be hung up for display.
If you cannot find your colleague in the search function of the submission portal site, they need to go to https://my.americananthro.org and click on “Don’t have an account?” to create an AAA profile. Creating a profile in the AAA system will add their name to this database, which will allow you to add the colleague to a role. They do not need to become a member or register at the time of submission, but they do have to create an account. After they have created their AAA account, return to this portal and search for your colleague. Please make sure you are selecting the correct person by checking their full name and email address in the submission portal database.
Travel
Please fill out this form with all information, and then we will email you your visa letter.
No, the AAA cannot intervene on your behalf with the Embassy or U.S. Consulate via fax, phone, surface mail, or email. The U.S. State Department provides information on traveling to the United States regarding passports, international travel, and visas.
