Organizational Aims

The GlOCAL began with motives to address a multiplicity of concerns on language and culture in and for a set of Global regions. The specific motives for organizing the GLOCAL, are as follows:

• Significant voids exist in the study of Linguistics and Anthropology, with respect to Global regions, which can be effectively addressed by facilitating the building of a network of Anthropological Linguistics and Linguistic organization such as The GLOCAL.

• Methodology Anthropology, and Scholars in these fields, through an overarching on Linguistic Anthropology must convey to the ethical level, and ethical practice must materialize in the implementation of methodology and method.

• Conferences and meetings which inspire progressive, methodologically ethical and sound, yet epistemologically entrepreneurial, work and thought on Linguistic Anthropology, for all Global regions, have not as yet been extensively attempted.

• Significant communicative channels must be opened for the transfer of understandings of Linguistic Anthropology, between Global academics, students, and institutions, and those in other parts of the globe. Thus far, this has presented a significant impediment in the development of the scholarship of Linguistic Anthropology in and for regions globally, where the pioneering work of The GLOCAL requires greater channels for exposure and scrutiny.

• Significant communicative channels must be opened for the transfer of understandings of Linguistic Anthropology, between Global academics, students, and institutions, and those in other parts of the globe. Thus far, this has presented a significant impediment in the development of the scholarship of Linguistic Anthropology in and for regions globally, where the pioneering work of The GLOCAL requires greater channels for exposure and scrutiny.

• The progress of cornerstone organizations in Linguistic Anthropology, notably those in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and both within and outside of academia, which have thus far created significant space for the study and pursuit of Linguistic Anthropology / Anthropological Linguistics, through publications and collaborations, requires recognition. Without the pioneering efforts of these institutions, departments, publications, and processes, as well as the people within these, the study of Linguistic Anthropology would not have advanced as it has.

• Many social, cultural, and linguistic bodies Globally remain hidden, and only through increased interaction between those highly versed with these cultures and languages and those outside, both of whom have specific expertise, can an increasingly effective Linguistic Anthropology be undertaken.

• Interactional spaces between Global communities and those who pursue ethnographies in and on these regions, must be opened.

Interactions and collaborations between experts in respective global localities and linguistic and cultural communities of interest globally who can provide immense ethnographic resource, can be highly fruitful. Similarly, researchers and theorists in respective regions globally intending to develop work on Linguistic Anthropology can benefit well through these collaborations with those knowledgeable in the field.

Organizations and bodies such as the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, the Journal for Linguistic Anthropology, the Annual Review of Anthropology, and the Journal of Anthropological Theory, have opened up very significant academic and sociolinguistic spaces, by creating, extending, and sustaining, the scholarship of Linguistic Anthropology. These organizations can increasingly contribute to a larger global outreach, through their shared knowledge, while also receiving much input from a larger global network. Through The GLOCAL, higher institutions and their affiliates, and organizations in general, globally, can further develop programs and scholarship in Linguistic Anthropology, and can effectively access and can further contribute to the networks that these above bodies have solidified. The GLOCAL aims to further bridge these major bodies in Linguistic Anthropology with the world.

Procedural Aims

Significantly, a large population within academic society in institutions in respective Global region requires guidance in the study of Linguistic Anthropology. Here, access to experts has been impeded. Similarly, experts in the field frequently have limited access to these populations with rich data. As such, the procedural aims of the SOAS GLOCAL are as follows:

• To elicit new understandings of Linguistic Anthropology, by centering research and rhetoric on global contexts, and a network of related fields.

• To contribute significantly to the advanced efforts of other global societies and organizations in Linguistic Anthropology, such as the SLA (Society for Linguistic Anthropology), The JLA (the Journal for Linguistic Anthropology), the AAA (the American Anthropological Association), The JAT (the Journal of Anthropological theory), the Annual Review of Anthropology, and others.

• To strengthen conceptions of, and interest in, the Linguistic Anthropology of the world, and to increasingly connect scholars working in and on respective global regions with those in other regions.