Anthropology: Associations and Institutes

Founded in 1902, the American Anthropological Association (AAA) is the world's largest organization of individuals interested in anthropology.

ASnA is the professional association for social anthropologists living and working in Southern Africa. ASnA organises the largest anthropological conference in southern Africa and collaborates with other anthropological organisations across the continent, and world.

The ASA was founded in 1946 to promote the study and teaching of social anthropology, to present the interests of social anthropology and to maintain its professional status. Its aim is to assist in any way possible in planning research, to collate and publish information on social anthropology and to function as a register of social anthropologists.

The AAS represents the profession of Anthropology in Australia. The Society recognises that anthropological work is broad in scope and includes academic research, teaching, consultancies and public commentary.

Founded in 1941, the SfAA aims to promote the investigation of the principles of human behaviour and the application of these principles to contemporary issues and problems. The Society is unique among professional associations in membership and purpose, representing the interests of professionals in a wide range of settings - academia, business, law, health and medicine, government, etc.

The SMA is the world's largest association of professional and practicing medical anthropologists. One of the largest sections of the American Anthropological Association, it serves medical anthropology graduate students, practicing anthropologists, scholars, and scholar activists who address issues of local, national and international health importance.

The core business of the HSRC is to conduct large-scale, policy-relevant, social-scientific projects for public-sector users, non-governmental organisations and international development agencies.

ISCA is a leading centre for anthropological teaching and research in the UK and the world. Originally established as the only centre in the UK specialising in postgraduate teaching and research within the discipline, it continues to supervise large numbers of graduate and research students.

A leading centre for research in socio-cultural anthropology with a focus on the comparative analysis of social change and it is primarily in this domain that its researchers contribute to anthropological theory, though many programmes also have applied significance and political topicality.

For 25 years, researchers from the Institute have scoured the Maluti Mountains of the Free State and the Drakensberg Mountains of Kwazulu-Natal/Eastern Cape, seeking out and analysing rock paintings making it amongst the best understood of the world’s rock arts.

The RAI is the world's longest-established scholarly association dedicated to the furtherance of anthropology (the study of humankind) in its broadest and most inclusive sense.

SAHRA is a statutory organisation established under the National Heritage Resources Act, No 25 of 1999, as the national administrative body responsible for the protection of South Africa’s cultural heritage.

SAHO is the largest independent history education and research institute in the country. It aims to promote history and the arts and to address the bias in written history as represented in South African educational and cultural institutions.