SPA Biennial Meeting 2013
Biennial Meeting of the
Society for Psychological Anthropology
With the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group
San Diego, CA
April 4-7, 2013
Conference theme
The program with abstracts is available here.
For the first time the Society for Psychological Anthropology biennial meeting was held jointly with the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG).
Psychological anthropology examines the relation among social processes, cultural meanings, and human subjectivities. Psychological anthropologists study topics such as narrative, identity, experience, emotion, memory, discourse, belief, motivation, conceptualization, gender, sexuality, trauma, mental illness, stigmatization, and psychological development in social and cultural contexts.
The anthropology of children and youth is the cross-cultural and ethnographic examination of infants, children, youth, and adolescents. It examines such topics as child development across time and space (physical, cognitive, emotional, social); parenting, childcare, and childrearing around the world; the evolution of childhood; the impact of globalization on children and their families and communities; child health; child education and learning; child participation in their cultures; the socio-historical construction of childhood; child agency and vulnerability; children’s rights; the political lives of children; and critical studies of childhood.
For this biennial we welcomed proposals for panels and papers representing innovative work in either field. Historical, applied, and methodological topics are welcome as well.
In addition to panels and discussion groups, we also scheduled plenary sessions, coffee breaks, and receptions that brought our group together and facilitated informal conversation and networking. There was a banquet on Saturday night to highlight presentation of the SPA Lifetime Achievement Awards to Anthony Wallace and to Jean Lave.
The Conference Hotel and Venue
The meeting was held at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay in San Diego, CA. The Hyatt Regency Mission Bay and Marina is a resort near Sea World. It features waterfront rooms, a health club, spa, fire pits, water slides, and a marina with kayaks and whale excursions. Workers at the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay are represented by UNITE-HERE. This hotel is on the approved list of the AAA Committee on Labor Relations.