AA Workflow Router (amanthro-workflow)

The orchestrator for an American Anthropologist submission. Figure out the stage, the subfield, and the section type, then send the user to the matching skill. AA is the four-field AAA flagship — the router's first job is to make sure the work reads as anthropology that speaks across subfields, with reflexivity and an ethics of care built in from the start, not bolted on.

When to trigger

• Starting a new AA paper and unsure where to begin
• Mid-project and unsure which skill applies next
• Deciding which section fits (full Research Article vs. a shorter forum/commentary)
• Returning with a decision letter (route to amanthro-rebuttal)

First questions: subfield and section

Situation	Section	Route to
Full original study, broad anthropological significance	Research Article (≤ 8,000 words)	normal pipeline below
Multi-voice debate on a pressing issue	Vital Topics Forum	amanthro-topic-selection + amanthro-writing-style
Anthropology produced outside the US/Anglophone center	World Anthropologies	amanthro-topic-selection + amanthro-literature-positioning
Engaged / activist / publicly-facing work	Public Anthropologies	amanthro-topic-selection + amanthro-transparency-and-data
Image / sound / film / installation as argument	Multimodal Anthropologies	amanthro-tables-figures + amanthro-writing-style
Assessing 2–5 recent books	Review Essay (≤ 5,000 words)	amanthro-literature-positioning

AA spans four fields: sociocultural, archaeology, biological/physical, linguistic, plus reflexive/public anthropology. The methods and the transparency/ethics demands differ by subfield — name yours before routing (see amanthro-research-design).

Routing map (stage → skill)

Idea / fit / section?            → amanthro-topic-selection
Where does it sit in the field?  → amanthro-literature-positioning
What's the conceptual argument?  → amanthro-theory-building
Is the fieldwork/design sound?   → amanthro-research-design
Is the analysis/inference sound? → amanthro-data-analysis
Are ethnographic exhibits clear? → amanthro-tables-figures
Does it read across the fields?  → amanthro-writing-style
Ethics, consent, accountability? → amanthro-transparency-and-data
How will it be judged?           → amanthro-review-process
Ready to submit?                 → amanthro-submission
Got an R&R / decision?           → amanthro-rebuttal

Default order

topic-selection → literature-positioning → theory-building → research-design → data-analysis → tables-figures → writing-style → transparency-and-data → review-process → submission → rebuttal

Iterate: most ethnographic papers loop theory ↔ fieldwork ↔ interpretation many times, and the ethics-and-accountability check (amanthro-transparency-and-data) should run early and again before submission — consent and community accountability are designed in, not added at the end.

Four-field routing check

Before selecting the next skill, force a one-minute AA fit check:

Check	Pass condition	Route if weak
Reach	A reader in another subfield (e.g., an archaeologist reading a linguistic paper) can state why it matters to anthropology.	amanthro-topic-selection
Mode honesty	The method (ethnographic, archival, material, lab, computational) is defended in its own idiom, not forced into a quantitative template.	amanthro-research-design
Reflexivity	Positionality and the author's relationship to the field/community are made explicit.	amanthro-theory-building
Ethics of care	Consent, anonymization, community accountability, and heritage/repatriation obligations have an explicit plan.	amanthro-transparency-and-data

If the paper fails the reach check, do not route to writing-style — it needs a fit or theory repair, because AA reviewers reject technically clean subfield papers that never become anthropological claims.

Anti-patterns

• Treating AA like a single-subfield outlet — the contribution should reach four-field anthropology
• Forcing ethnographic/interpretive work into a hypothesis-test template (AA judges each mode on its own terms)
• Confusing AA with its AAA siblings: it is not American Ethnologist (sociocultural) or Cultural Anthropology, and not Current Anthropology with its CA✩ comment format
• Deferring ethics, consent, and anonymization to the end (they are design decisions)

Output format

【Stage】idea / positioning / theory / design / analysis / exhibits / writing / ethics / review / submit / rebut
【Subfield】sociocultural / archaeology / biological / linguistic / reflexive-public
【Section】Research Article / Vital Topics Forum / World / Public / Multimodal / Review Essay
【Route to】amanthro-<skill>
【Why】one line
【Then】the next skill after that

Supplementary resources

• ../../resources/external_tools.md — anthropology data sources, archives, CAQDAS, lab/quant tooling by subfield
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official AA / AAA / Wiley URLs behind every fact in this pack