Student Paper
competition

Winners of the annual NWAC Student Paper Competition will receive the opportunity to publish their papers in JONA. Runner-up papers of the annual Student Paper Competition will be published in the annual NWAC Proceedings coordinated by JONA. This helps to serve as a learning experience for students about the process and expectations of submitting a paper for publication. We encourage students who are doing research on anthropological topics pertaining to the Pacific Northwest to submit a paper. 

**JONA is not affiliated with NWAC aside from publishing the Conference Proceedings and Student Paper Competition winners**

Spreading research across the Northwest

Beginning in 1968, the Journal of Northwest Anthropology (JONA) began publishing the abstracts from the Northwest Anthropological Conference, a tradition that continues to this day. Also published were the titles of papers from the first 20 years of the conference, which began in 1948. The purpose of publishing abstracts of papers from the annual conference was explained by Roderick Sprague in Northwest Anthropological Research Notes (which later became JONA) Volume 2, Number 1:

The dissemination of information concerning unpublished research continues to be one of the primary concerns of the editors of NARN. One major source of such information can be found in the papers presented at the annual meeting of the Northwest Anthropological Conference. After 21 years of existence, this annual conference still remains as an informal, no-dues-collecting association—a structural feature that has been overwhelmingly reaffirmed by the membership on several occasions. This informal structure represents the strength of the organization but also produces its major weakness—the lack of a uniform system for the reproduction of the annual sets of abstracts. The annual publication of the abstracts in NARN... will give wider distribution to these abstracts without formalizing the structure of the conference itself.

Abstracts from past conferences

  • 77th NWAC 2024 - Portland, Oregon

  • 76th NWAC 2023 - Spokane, Washington

    Hosted by Eastern Washington University

  • 75th NWAC 2022 - Virtual

  • 74th NWAC 2021 - Virtual

  • 73rd NWAC 2020 - Cancelled

  • 72nd NWAC 2019 - Kennewick, Washington

  • 71st NWAC 2018 - Boise, Idaho
    Hosted by Boise State University Department of Anthropology and the Idaho State Historical Society

  • 70th NWAC 2017 - Spokane, Washington
    Hosted by Eastern Washington University Department of Geography and Anthropology

  • 69th NWAC 2016 - Tacoma, Washington
    Hosted by Washington State Parks and Recreation Commissons

  • 68th NWAC 2015 - Eugene, Oregon
    Hosted by University of Oregon's Anthropology Department and the Museum of Natural and Cultural History

  • 67th NWAC 2014 - Bellingham, Washington
    Hosted by Western Washington University

  • 66th NWAC 2013 - Portland, Oregon
    Hosted by Portland State University