As 2022 draws to a close, we approach the end of our time as the editors of Cultural Anthropology. It seems like only a short while ago that we published our first message to you, laying out our plans for the journal. At that point, we had already been working for a year, redesigning a more accessible SCA website, preparing to publish the journal using Open Journal Systems (OJS), and reviewing material for our first issues. The four years that have passed since then have been filled with many unexpected and challenging events, and we have done our best to respond to them. In the time remaining to us, we would like to thank Kate Herman, Jessica Lockrem, and Marcel LaFlamme for the amazing work that they have done as our Managing Editors. It is no exaggeration to say that without their dedication, none of this could have been accomplished. Thanks too, to Steven Gonzales, Matthew Sebastian, Erin Gould, Petra Dreiser, Michelle Beckett, and Chris Cott for the significant contributions that they made to the journal and the editors’ fora. We also want to express our gratitude to all the reviewers and especially the members of our editorial board whose careful readings, perceptive recommendations, and thoughtful advice kept us on the path. And, of course, our sincere thanks to the authors who chose to share their brilliant work in the pages of Cultural Anthropology and in the timely collections in Hot Spots, Theorizing the Contemporary, Fictions, and the COVID-19 special series. It has been a true pleasure and great honor to work with all of you.

We leave the journal in the able hands of the incoming editorial collective, excited to see what they will accomplish in the coming years. At the same time, we enjoin all of you to support them as you have supported us. These are uncertain times for academic publishing, and the future of the open access project that we have given our time to over the past five years is far from secure. We invite you to join the community of scholars, librarians, activists, and others who are working to make sure that anthropological knowledge reaches the widest possible audience and welcomes the broadest possible participation. To this end, we urge you to push AAA to take the value of open access publishing and this journal seriously, to encourage your universities to do what they can to support us, and to continue to give SCA the gifts of your financial support and, above all, your creative work.

With gratitude,

Chris Nelson, Heather Paxson, Brad Weiss