News Archive

UWA's centennial year marks the 50 ^th anniversary of Anthropological Forum , founded by one of UWA's greatest alumni, Ronald Berndt.

Casting a wider net than other Australian anthropological journals of the time, the opening editorial declared coverage of comparative sociology as well as social anthropology and of settler Australia and South East Asia as well as Aboriginal Australia and the Pacific.

Under Berndt 's editorship (1963-1985) most issues appeared annually, including special issues (for example, The Uses and Misuses of Anthropology , vol. 2 no. 2). Though originally published by the Department of Anthropology in 1999 under John Gordon's editorship (1988-2000), Carfax Publishing, the journal wing of the Taylor and Francis Group, began publishing the journal. During Robert Tonkinson's tenure as editor (2000-2011) Taylor and Francis began publishing it directly with volume 13 (2003).

The current editorial team has embarked on several initiatives to celebrate this anniversary year: our newly designed cover; the transition from three to four issues per year; a special festschrift issue, Dialectics and Dynamics: Papers in Honour of Robert Tonkinson ; and a free ‘editors' choice' electronic issue, including selected articles from our first 50 years that have often been cited in unpublished anthropological reports contributing to demonstrating native title (see < https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/canf20#.UluEjBCnGSo >).

Anthropological Forum 's new cover, still features an Australian Aboriginal engraved pearl shell from Broome, representing a highly stylised human figure (with permission from the Berndt Museum of Anthropology at The University of Western Australia). This image has been used from the very first issue.