Welcome to the Anthropozine! DIY Booklets as an Alternative to the Peer‐Reviewed Publication

ABSTRACT Peer‐reviewed publications remain the most accepted form of knowledge production and distribution in academia today. But such formal publications are often deeply exclusionary, especially for undergraduate and early graduate students as well as scholars tackling highly stigmatized subjects. This essay highlights the value of zines—do‐it‐yourself booklets that mix art and text in an eclectic assemblage—as an alternative. Drawing from my personal DIY experiments as well as those of other anthropologists, I make the case that zines offer several advantages when compared to peer‐reviewed publications. First, they are pedagogical tools that invite playful engagement with disciplinary knowledge and theory while also familiarizing early scholars with basic publication processes. Second, they serve to expand and diversify anthropological scholarship by encouraging experimentation with both text and image while also challenging disciplinary norms and conventions. Third, zines are a form of knowledge sharing that generates intimacy through their materiality and tactility—forging connections between the reader and text but also the reader and author. Finally, because zines are self‐published, creators exert considerable control over the production and distribution of the work that is shared, offering specific benefits from the standpoint of the political economy of knowledge production.