The Council on Heritage and the Anthropology of Tourism sponsors two separate book prizes: 1) the Nelson Graburn Book Prize for an author’s first book in the anthropology of tourism and/or heritage, broadly conceived, and 2) the Ed Bruner Book Prize for an author’s second or subsequent book in the anthropology of tourism and/or heritage.
To be eligible, books nominated this year must have been published between April 2024 and March 2025. Self-nominations are welcome. Nominees are expected to attend the 2025 AAA annual meetings in New Orleans, LA. Books must be available in English.
Please submit the following to erica@livingheritageanthropology.org:
- The name of the author;
- The book to be considered;
- The publisher information;
- Information for whom to contact at the press for review copies;
- Remember to indicate which prize (1st or subsequent publication).
The deadline for nominations is March 1st, 2025.
Previous winners are expected to serve as reviewers for the book prize during the following year.
Past Winners
Nelson Graburn Book Prize
Prior to 2025, the Graburn Prize was awarded by the Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group (ATIG):
- (2023/2024 winner) The Ends of Paradise: Race, Extraction, and the Struggle for Black Life in Honduras, by Christopher A. Loperena. Stanford University Press, 2022.
- (2022 winner) Behind the Big House: Reconciling Slavery, Race, and Heritage in the U.S. South, by Jodi Skipper. University of Iowa Press, 2022.
- (2021 winner) Stuck with Tourism: Space, Power, and Labor in Contemporary Yucatán, by Matilde Córdoba Azcárate. University of California Press, 2020.
- (2020 winner) Destination Anthropocene: Science and Tourism in The Bahamas, by Amelia Moore. University of California Press, 2019.
- (2019 co-winner) Pursuit of Happiness: Black Women, Diasporic Dreams, and the Politics of Emotional Transnationalism, by Bianca C. Williams. Duke University Press, 2018.
- (2019 co-winner) Ethno-erotic Economies: Sexuality, Money, and Belonging in Kenya, by George Paul Meiu. The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
- (2018 co-winner) Tourism and Informal Encounters in Cuba, by Valerio Simoni. Berghahn Books, 2016.
- (2018 co-winner) Unorthodox Kin: Portuguese Marranos and the Global Search for Belonging, by Naomi Leite. University of California Press, 2017.
Edward M. Bruner Book Prize
Prior to 2025, the Bruner Prize was awarded by the Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group (ATIG):
- (2023/2024 winner) Intersections of Tourism, Migration, and Exile, edited by Natalia Bloch and Kathleen M. Adams. Routledge, 2023.
- (2022 winner) Voluntourism and Multispecies Collaboration: Life, Death, and Conservation in the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, by Keri Vacanti Brondo. The University of Arizona Press, 2021.
- (2021 winner) Indigenous Dispossession: Housing and Maya Indebtedness in Mexico, by M. Bianet Castellanos. Stanford University Press, 2020.
- (2020 co-winner) Leisure and Death: An Anthropological Tour of Risk, Death, and Dying, edited by Adam Kaul and Jonathan Skinner. University Press of Colorado, 2018.
- (2020 co-winner) The Ethnography of Tourism: Ed Bruner and Beyond, edited by Naomi M. Leite, Quetzil E. Castañeda, and Kathleen M. Adams. Rowman and Littlefield, 2019.
- (2019 co-winner) Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal, by Mark Liechty. University of California Press, 2017.
- (2019 co-winner) Dream Trippers: Global Daoism and the Predicament of Modern Spirituality, by David A. Palmer and Elijah Siegler. University of California Press, 2017.
- (2018 co-winner) Apprenticeship Pilgrimage: Developing Expertise through Travel and Training, by Lauren Miller Griffith and Jonathan S. Marion. Rowman and Littlefield, 2017.
- (2018 co-winner) Tourism and Memories of Home: Migrants, Displaced People, Exiles and Diasporic Communities, edited by Sabine Marschall. Channel View Publications, 2017.