The Association for Political and Legal Anthropology (APLA) is a division of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) dedicated to studying and promoting anthropological approaches to law, political systems, and governmental authority. As anthropological subdisciplines, legal and political anthropology have promoted ethnographic research and theoretical contributions to understanding law's relationship to culture and power. They are also concerned with the cultures of legal and political institutions.

APLA members share interests in issues such as nationalism, citizenship, political and legal processes, the state, civil society, colonialism and postcolonial public spheres, multiculturalism, globalization, and immigration. Within the context of political and legal anthropology, scholars situate law and politics in a cultural and historical context and explore the meanings of law in everyday life. Legal and political anthropologists are concerned ...