kritisk etnografi – Swedish Journal of Anthropology is an independent journal run by researchers, and as such, it presents a tangible alternative to the business model of commercial publishers. It is owned and published by the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geografi). The journal is peer-reviewed, online, open access without any costs for authors or readers, and publishes original research articles, as well as reports from Swedish anthropological community. kritisk etnografi aims to foster responsible scholarship with global scope, local relevance and public engagement.
The Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (SSAG), founded in the 1870s, is a scholarly society with a long and multifarious history that awards scholarly achievements and funds research projects. SSAG publishes its Yearbook YMER since 1881. Geografiska Annaler was founded in 1919, and since the 1960s it has been split into Physical Geography and Human Geography journals respectively. In 2018 , SSAG founded kritisk etnografi.
The name kritisk etnografi (‘critical ethnography’) signals three things. First, the focus is on ethnography and the ways in which ethnography is conducted, invented and transformed. Swedish anthropology and the SSAG have a longstanding tradition of promoting ethnographic fieldwork as a basis for the discipline. Second, the name aims to promote critical reflections on the craft and practice of ethnography itself. Today when so many disciplines and scholars claim to do “ethnography” the forms and shapes of actual ethnographic work should be subjected to scrutiny and debate. Third, the Swedish name signals that the journal is based on Swedish-based academic anthropology and its many outlooks to the world. The country has well-established and respected anthropological traditions but has so far lacked a journal through which what happens in Swedish anthropology is known.