What types of anthropology do we publish at Allegra?
Categories
Contributors to Allegra can submit their work under three broad categories:
- THEMATIC THREADS – something like a special issue, but even more special! Each contribution in a thematic thread is selected and moderated by you as a guest editor/team of guest editors and externally reviewed as part of our care review system (if appropriate).
- REVIEWS – or a collection of reviews (symposiums) of books or films, in text, interview, discussion or other formats
- ONE SHOTS – a standalone piece with formats: essays, field notes, conversations, notes, films, fiction, happenings.
- We also publish Editorials, Newsletters, Resonancecasts, Gatherings, Petitions and Calls as a means of forging ALLIANCES.
Forms
Within each category there are a broad variety of forms your contribution might take. For example, you may have a thematic thread of essays, or fieldnotes, or a mixture. If you have something you’d like to publish but think it doesn’t fit within our proposed forms, then please get in touch. We are flexible.
An important note on multimodal anthropology. Allegra is keen to accept non-textual submissions: podcasts, videos, audio recordings, photos, drawings, comics, virtual objects and everything else you can think of (and think with). However, we see multimodal anthropology as traversing across all other submission types (e.g. an essay is an essay, whether it is done through photos or texts, a book review is a book review, whether it is produced via podcast or text and so on). We want to fight the hegemony of text not by creating silos for non-textual material. This is why we do not have a multimodal section, and rather infiltrate every other section of the website. Nevertheless, we are mindful that we have to take the mediums we use seriously and that, often, assessment and editing skills shift as we move across mediums. This is the reason why our ‘multimodal team’ is here to offer guidance to authors willing to experiment with other mediums. We encourage contributors, even if they work primarily with text, to think about the images, sounds, etc. they want to accompany their piece. A 2000-word essay needs 2-3 images.
All contributions are desk reviewed and most forms are peer reviewed. See here for more information on our review process.
We are not a blog but an open access, multimodal anthropological platform. Maybe we once were a blog. We don’t like the strange hierarchy between blog posts and journal articles that feed into discourses of rankings and impact factors.
Forms we publish:
REVIEWS
OF BOOKS, EXHIBITIONS, FILMS
Allegra generally publishes 2-3 calls for reviews per year. We also accept reviews outside of formal calls, if we think the book to be of interest to our audience. As we receive many requests for reviews, please write 2-3 sentences explaining why you would like to review this book, indicating how it relates to your own research or interests. The review is to be written within three months from receiving the book and should not exceed 2000 words.
We also publish book symposiums. A symposium is meant to discuss different aspects of a book and can include a response from the author. Each contribution to a symposium should not exceed 1500 words.
When submitting a review, do not forget to include your name, (academic) affiliation, a photograph of yourself and a short bio of 2-3 sentences.
ESSAYS
NUANCED AND SELF-CONTAINED CONTRIBUTIONS THAT DRIVE REFLECTION, EXPAND KNOWLEDGE, AND/OR ADVANCE AN ARGUMENT
Review Process: desk reviewed & peer reviewed.
Length: 2000-3000 words / 20-60 mins audio / 10-25 mins video
Abstract: 200 words.
FIELDNOTES
NOTES FROM THE FIELD, DIARY EXTRACTS, SOUND RECORDINGS, FIELDWORK PLAYLISTS, REFLECTIONS ON METHODS
Review Process: Desk reviewed.
Length: 1000-2000 words
No abstract.
CONVERSATIONS
DISCUSSIONS, INTERVIEWS OR ROUNDTABLES IN TEXT, PODCAST OR VIDEO FORM
Review Process: desk reviewed.
Length: 800-1500 words / 45-60 mins audio / 5-20 mins video
Summary 200 words.
NOTES
SHORT-FORM COMMENTS WITHOUT STYLISTIC CONSTRAINTS OR ESTABLISHED FORMAT
Review Process: desk reviewed.
Notes are not peer reviewed – only desk reviewed to encourage a fast turn around for contributors who wish to comment on current affairs or fast moving debates.
Length: 500-1000 words
No abstract.
FILMS
ETHNOGRAPHY IN VIDEO FORM
Review Process: desk reviewed & peer reviewed.
Length: Max 25 mins with an abstract/summary/commentary of max 500 words.
FICTION
CREATIVE WRITING THAT RELATES TO A COMPLEX WORLD (OR ACADEMIA AND THE DISCIPLINE MORE WIDELY)
Review Process: desk reviewed & peer reviewed.
Length: maximum 3000 words
HAPPENINGS
CONFERENCE REPORTS, SEMINAR REPORTS, PLAYS – THINGS THAT ARE HAPPENING OR THAT HAVE HAPPENED.
Review Process: desk reviewed.
Length: Circa 1000 words
Style
We encourage clear expression and simple sentence structures, especially if English is not your first language.
We do not believe everybody should be made to write as if they were a native speaker. We publish in English with an áççénñț.
Spelling: British English. Please use –ise and not –ize word endings.
Font: Whatever, except Calibri…
Size: 12.
Line Spacing: 1.5
Limited use of footnotes, please!
Referencing
If you cite other works, please reference the publication at the end of your contribution. We don’t mind the style of referencing you use, as long as it is consistent. If you have links that you want to include, it is helpful to insert the hyperlinks directly in the word document. This makes most sense for publicly accessible sites (for example, don’t link to paywalled journal articles). Please keep academic references to a sensible minimum and include a full list at the end.
Keywords / Tags
Please choose 3-5 keywords from the list on the right hand side of this page and include them below the title in your submission: https://allegralaboratory.net/discover/
Once a piece has been accepted for publication we will ask for an author bio (60 words max) and photo for the site: https://allegralaboratory.net/authors/
If, for whatever reason, you would rather not have a photo or need to remain anonymous then please let us know.
Images
Please supply them separately and indicate with the submission text where they should go, ideally alongside a caption. Consider this an opportunity! But we are also happy to select images for your post.
Review and Publishing Process: What to expect?
Desk Review
One member of the editorial collective will desk review your piece, ideally within a week of submission, and within one month maximum. The editor may ask for changes or decline to publish the piece. Please remember that everyone at Allegra is a volunteer and sometimes the requirements of wage labour and/or non-work life make us slower than we’d like to be. Note that Allegra closes for summer in July/August.
A desk review process may involve multiple rounds. This is because we see our role as editors as guiding the piece into being the best it can be rather than issuing curt desk rejects. We adopt a generous disposition towards the editing process, looking for strengths within a piece, especially those submitted by junior scholars (including students).
Peer Review
Most but not all forms of contribution are peer reviewed by one external reviewer (please see above). We use a double-open peer review process, i.e. both the reviewer and the contributor are aware of who each other are. Contributors can suggest reviewers if they think their work would benefit from an engagement with another scholar specifically.
We typically ask a reviewer to submit their review within a month. However, it can sometimes be hard to find reviewers (who are all volunteers) and so it might take longer than a month to receive a review. There’s enough pressure on everyone and so we don’t like to add to it (see our Manifesto)
After an editor receives the review they may pass it on to the contributor or seek further reviews or clarifications from the reviewer. The contributor should then respond to the reviewer by amending the piece accordingly. They should also submit a short response to the review, indicating what they have changed and what not (with justifications for this). If there are issues of contention, we encourage a dialogue with either the editor or, if needed, with the reviewer (mediated by the editor).
Once the piece has gone through the peer review process, there is usually a second round of editing – sometimes for language, style and sometimes to address larger issues. Once again, the process is a conversation designed to improve the piece. We’re into style-building, not gatekeeping. If a contributor is unable or unwilling to improve the piece to fit Allegra’s standards then it will not be published.
Once accepted, a piece usually takes around one week to be published. Our volunteer managing editor and editorial assistants prepare the piece for publication. We then feature the piece in our newsletter and promote it across social media.
Open Access
Since April 5, 2021, articles on Allegra are being published under a BY-NC-SA licence. Articles on Allegra were published under a CC-BY license until April 5, 2021.