About the Journal
Publisher
Open access and peer-reviewed, the AA journal publishes biannually by the Pan African Anthropological Association.
Peer Review
Submission of Paper
The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is usually done by emailing the journal editorial team.
Editorial Assessment
The editorial team checks the paper’s composition and arrangement against the journal’s Author Guidelines to ensure it includes the required sections and stylizations. The editorial team checks that the form is appropriate for the journal and is sufficiently original and exciting. If not, the article may be rejected without being reviewed any further.
Invitation to Reviewers
The editorial team sends invitations to two reviewers. As responses are received, further invitations are issued, if necessary, until the required number of acceptances is obtained – commonly, this is two.
Response to Invitations
Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then accept or decline within a week of receiving the invitation. If possible, when falling, they might also suggest alternative reviewers.
Review is Conducted
The reviewer will be given three weeks to one month to review the paper. The reviewer sets time aside to read the article several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If significant problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the article several times, taking notes to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal’s editorial team within one month and half upon receipt, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.
Journal Evaluates the Reviews
The handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the studies differ widely, the editor may invite an additional reviewer to get a different opinion before deciding.
The Decision is Communicated
The editorial team sends a decision email to the author, including any relevant reviewer comments. The comments are anonymous.
Next Steps
If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for major or minor revision, the handling editor should include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review. If the paper were returned for revision, the reviewers would have another month and a half to complete the second/third revisions (if needed). The reviewers should expect a new version unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested, the handling editor might do this follow-up review.
Open Access Policy
The journal content is published under a CC BY-ND 4.0 License.
Publication Scheduling
Published biannually
General
Abstracting and Indexing Information
Academic Search (AJOL)
FOR AUTHORS
If interested in submitting to this journal, we recommend you review the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies and the Author Guidelines.
FOR LIBRARIANS
We encourage research librarians to list this journal among their library's electronic journal holdings. It may also be worth noting that this journal's open source publishing system is suitable for libraries to host for their faculty members to use with journals they are involved in editing (see AJOL’s website).
