Note: The following text shifts the present-tense material available here through February 2023 into the past tense to preserve the content but to reflect suspension of the journal at that time.

Focus and Scope


Museum Anthropology Review
(MAR) worked to advance research and professional practice within the diverse, international fields of museum anthropology, museum-based folklore studies, and material culture studies and to foster communication within and between them. The journal’s founding commitment to open access publishing was rooted in concerns for equity, inclusion, and the specific interests of the varied communities with whom scholars in these fields work.

In parallel with its open access commitments, MAR strived to reflect a plural, multicentered and international perspective. While reflective of the provincial contexts and social networks out of which the journal emerged, MAR sought to bridge and reflect the different regional and national contexts in its fields. It thus published works in several languages other than English. The journal was also eager to disrupt the scholar/practitioner binary that was particularly pronounced in the museum disciplines. In this context, MAR pioneered the publication of project reports that recorded, and reflected upon, the substantive work of museum-based and museum-related initiatives—endeavors that were central to the praxis of the journal's fields but that were too seldom written about and durably shared.

In addition to peer-reviewed research articles and project reports, MAR also welcomed shorter contributions intended to stimulate debate, promote improved professional practice, and disseminate information on new developments within its fields. Authors considering submission of such essays were encouraged to contact the editor to discuss the scope and form of their submissions. Books, catalogs, exhibitions, online exhibitions, websites, and other media of interest to the journal's fields were also reviewed regularly in MAR. Such reviews were typically solicited by the editorial office, but suggestions of materials appropriate for review were especially welcome. Authors, curators, and other interested parties were encouraged to forward to the editor’s attention press releases and other publicity materials produced by museums staging or hosting special exhibitions. These, together with publisher’s catalogs and direct correspondence, all assisted the editor in identifying materials suitable for review in the journal.


MAR and Open Access


As a free-to-readers, free-to-authors open access journal, MAR was committed to the development of new, more equitable, approaches to scholarly communication. Like other non-commercial open access journals, MAR sought to rewrite the terms under which scholarship was made available in an era of dramatic technological change, breathtaking media consolidation, accelerating corporate enclosure of scholarship and scholarly publishing, deep financial strain in research libraries, and demands by diverse publics for access to knowledge and interpretive work that had often been pursued with public support and that took, in anthropology and folklore studies especially, the life of local communities as its object.

Peer Review Process


The Editor or a member of the journal’s Editorial Board undertook an initial review of articles submitted to MAR. This preliminary review was aimed at determining if the paper's concerns were appropriate to the foci of the journal and if the manuscript was in a form suitable for outside peer-review. A paper might have been returned to its author at this stage or reviews might have been solicited from two or more outside readers with specialist knowledge appropriate to the topic of the submitted paper. Initial editorial review was generally completed within four weeks, with subsequent outside peer-review typically requiring six to ten weeks to accomplish. Authors were notified of the results of the peer-review process as quickly as possible. Articles submitted for publication should not have been previously published or been under concurrent review by another journal or as part of an edited book. The editor was available to consult with potential authors prior to the submission of a manuscript for formal consideration.

In matters of style, including the formatting of citations and references, MAR followed the 17th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style (and its Author-Date system) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Papers requiring notes should have used endnotes rather than footnotes. Article contributions to MAR generally did not exceed 8,000 words, including notes and other elements. Authors wishing to submit longer works were advised to discuss their proposed projects with the editor.

Publication Frequency


Between its founding in 2007 and its suspension in 2023, Museum Anthropology Review
was published twice each year in two numbers. Each volume's first number appeared before midsummer, while its second number should have appeared before year's end.

Archiving


This journal utilized the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries and permitted (and still permits) those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration. More...

CLOCKSS system has permission to ingest, preserve, and serve this Archival Unit.

Indexing


Museum
Anthropology Review was indexed by the Open Folklore Project, Anthropological Literature, Anthropology Plus, and Google Scholar.

Publisher


Museum Anthropology Review
remains a publication of Indiana University Press. Questions about MAR should be directed to the Press.