Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA)

A Living Document*

Preface

This statement was drafted by an Ad Hoc committee of the SALSA Board and discussed with the membership during the 2021 SALSA XIII Conference Conversations in the Lobby (CIL). This document reflects recommendations made during the CIL. It limited its scope to SALSA forums and internal relations among SALSA members. It intentionally does not deal with relationships with spaces beyond SALSA’s immediate realms such as relations with research subjects and communities. These issues will need to be addressed at a later time. The SALSA Board unanimously adopted the revised statement of Conviviality Principles in February 2022.

SALSA Mission Statement

The Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA) is an independent professional association for anthropologists specializing in lowland regions of South America. SALSA’s main goals are to foster sound and ethical research and to promote the education of students and the general public on issues that we study. (This is the existing and unchanged SALSA Mission Statement).

Conviviality Principles

(Adopted February 2022) – Download in pdf format

• SALSA is committed to providing a safe, welcoming and convivial professional environment for all members. In all its forums, SALSA encourages the free expression and exchange of scholarly ideas.
• SALSA promotes inclusivity and encourages recognition of diversity and of others’ scholarly contributions.
• SALSA is dedicated to fostering conditions of equal opportunity and treatment for all members and ensuring an atmosphere that is caring and nurturing, free from all forms of discrimination, harassment, and exploitation.
• SALSA is committed to providing safe spaces for the expression of concerns and is aware that discomfort may be part of convivial interactions. SALSA recognizes that there is a distinction between constructive criticism and victimization through harassment. Harassment, sexual or otherwise, undermines the principles of responsibility and conviviality and is considered by SALSA to be a serious form of professional misconduct. Harassment is a form of misconduct that undermines the integrity of meetings, publications, and events, and as such is unacceptable in SALSA forums.
• SALSA encourages members to model and promote care and respect in all their professional activities.

These Conviviality Principles are necessary to promote the conditions for caring and nurturing academic interchange. SALSA expects members to act in ways that minimize harm and avoid exploitation of power differentials and follow its Conviviality Principles in all SALSA forums and activities. SALSA members are collectively responsible for the reputation of the Society and progress of the discipline. SALSA cannot entertain concerns regarding conduct outside its forums.

Definitions

SALSA considers harassment to be bullying, retaliation, plagiarism, and violence based on age, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, language, sexual orientation, gender identities and/or gender expressions, disability, health conditions, socioeconomic class, marital status, domestic status, or parental status (hereafter, simply harassment).

Intimate relations and relationships can be sites of  joy, pleasure, affirmation but also harassment, exploitation, and/or abuse. Intimate relations between instructors and students, professional mentors and mentees, or senior and junior colleagues may lead to exploitation and conflicts of interest. Senior colleagues should avoid relations that lead to harm or may interfere in any way with students and junior colleagues’ welfare.

SALSA members should uphold sound and ethical scholarship and avoid causing harm to others, bearing in mind potential impacts of scholarship on subjects and communities:

• Practice honesty (e.g., by not plagiarizing or fabricating data) and carefully cite the sources – including multilingual sources – of ideas, descriptions, and data. Be mindful of properly citing relevant scholarship published in other languages.
• Conduct field research in ways that preserve opportunities for future researchers who may follow them.
• Make all reasonable efforts to preserve irreplaceable data and documentary materials, and make these available to subject communities.
• Make all reasonable efforts to establish respectful and responsible research outcomes and relations, and including management of research data.
• Strive to follow through on promises made in funded grant proposals and acknowledge the support of research participants, communities, collaborators, and sponsors.
• Maintain responsible relations and uphold the highest ethical standards in research and commitments to communities that are the subject of research, as well as “natural environments”, “biocultural landscapes” in which they are situated.
• Consider instituting and making public a list of literature search engine resources that are available in multiple languages that includes languages beyond SALSA’s official languages, and including resources in Indigenous languages whenever possible.

*By “Living Document” we mean a document that reflects an ongoing discussion within the Society and is subject to further debate and change.