Overview: Jessica Barnes is an advocate for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and has supported a resolution calling on the the American Anthropological Association (AAA) to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
Barnes is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environment & Sustainability at the University of South Carolina (South Carolina).
Endorsing BDS
During the 2017 AAA elections, Barnes was endorsed as a candidate by the Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions as a result of her support for BDS.
Barnes is a signatory to an October 2014 statement calling on the AAA to boycott Israeli academic institutions.
In June of 2016, the AAA announced that a resolution to boycott Israeli universities was defeated but that there are “other actions planned."
The AAA vote on the anti-Israel resolution took place from April 15 to May 31, 2016, with approximately half of the AAA membership voting on the resolution. Of the half that voted concerning the resolution, 50.4% voted against it, meaning that only one quarter of AAA’s membership — at most — voted in favor of the resolution.