Aims & Scope
As the official Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America (SALSA), Tipití is central to SALSA’s mission of promoting ethical and sound research on issues related to lowland South America, its peoples, and its environments. The main purpose of the journal is to publish high-quality, original anthropological research on lowland South America. Tipití is the only journal dedicated exclusively to the anthropology of lowland South America. As such, the journal serves an international community of scholars interested in the South American lowlands, who also meet at SALSA’s conference and exchange information through SALSA’s electronic discussion list.
Tipití’s geographic scope—the South American lowlands—is one of its distinguishing characteristics. Lowland South America includes all areas of South America that are not considered part of the Andes, including not only the Amazon River basin, but also the Orinoco basin, the tropical coastlands of the Caribbean and northern Pacific, and the grassy lowlands of southern South America. SALSA’s community of scholars consider that these areas and their peoples share many distinguishing features and should be studies as a whole. In this sense, Tipití differs from journals with narrower and broader scopes, such as journals that focus only on the Amazon rainforest, or that cover the entirety of South America or Latin America.
In keeping with the historical emphasis of anthropological research in lowland South America, Tipití mainly publishes anthropological research on indigenous peoples. However, Tipití aspires to incorporate research on nonindigenous and urban peoples of lowland South America, as well as research on environmental, medical, or political issues that are relevant to understanding the life experiences of humans in the South American lowlands.