Gender, power and matrilineal kinship:
Minangkabau of West Sumatra:

I have conducted field work in West Sumatra since 1989, in both rural and urban settings. My research on the matrilineal Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia, examines how rural people are coping with the dramatic political and economic changes occuring in Indonesia today. I examine households, matrilineal kinship, and agricultural relations to demonstrate how women and men negotiate gender and power within the context of local culture, state political processes, and Islamic ideologies about gender. I also examine the way matrilineal practices enable Minangkabau women to reconstitute shifting social processes and ideologies to maintain their power and control within the household and kin group.

Woman-headed households in agrarian societies: Not just a passing phase. In Gender at Work in Economic Life. Society for Economic Anthropology Monographs, vol. 20. Gracia Clark, ed., pp. 41-59. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press. 2003.

Representing women: The politics of Minangkabau adat writing. Journal of Asian Studies 60(1): 125-149. 2001.

Big houses and small houses: Doing matriliny in West Sumatra. Ethnos 64(1): 32-56. 1999.

Webs of Power: Women, Kin and Community in a Sumatran Village.Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Purchase online at: Webs of Power (Rowman & Littlefield, Inc.) Or Amazon.com

Webs of Power offers a fresh perspective on women in Southeast Asia. Focusing on one rural Minangkabau village, the book provides vital insights into the gendered processes of post-coloniality. The Minangkabau living in West Sumatra are the largest matrilineal group in the world. They have intrigued generations of scholars because they are matrilineal and Islamic. By exploring the contestations and accommodations women and men make with state and Islamic ideologies, Webs of Power discloses the processes at the heart of globalization as well as the complexities of kinship and power in a rural agricultural community. The book challenges conventional thinking about matriliny, showing the prominence of senior women in all aspects of village life. Click for more Photos

Marriage and the “missing” Man:

I have published on and continue to formulate a major critique of matrilineal theory, matrifocality and marriage, using data on Afro-Caribbean and Minangkabau forms of kinship as well as women’s same-sex relationships to demonstrate the heteronormative underpinnings of kinship theory and the continued presence of the Patriarchal Man in anthropological theory.

Wedding bell blues: Marriage, missing men, and matrifocal follies. American Ethnologist 32(1): 3-19. 2005.

Women’s same-sex sexualities:

My research focuses on women’s sexualities outside the West and has been key in bringing to light many of the lesbian and women’s same-sex relations that are practised throughout the world currently and in the past. I have been particularly interested in the relation between women’s sexualities and their social and historical contexts, as well as the problem of the invisibility of women’s same-sex relations in anthropology and theory more broadly, the difficulties of labelling “other” sexualities, and the differences in sexual understandings and practices produced by culturally specific categories of “gender.” Together with Dr. Saskia E. Wieringa, we produced the first collection of essays devoted to women’s same-sex sexualities and transgender practices outside the “West,” Female Desires. This book won the Ruth Benedict award. My recent work investigates how the intersection of local, state, transnational, and religious processes generate new understandings of gender and sexuality, particularly in Indonesia.

Female Desires: Same-Sex Relations and Transgender Practices Across Cultures. WINNER OF THE RUTH BENEDICT PRIZE for an outstanding work on a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender topic in anthropology. Purchase online at: Amazon.com Table of Contents

Four members of a Chinese sisterhood, Shiquao, China

photo by permission of Ruthanne Lum McCunn, author of The Moon Pearl

Mati women, Suriname, South America

photo by permission of Gloria Wekker

Motsoalle (special friend), Lesotho, south Africa

photo by permission of Kendall,
published in Female Desires, 1999.

Reading sexuality across cultures: Anthropology and theories of sexuality. In Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology. Ellen Lewin and William Leap, eds., pp. 69-92. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2002.

Culture and women’s sexualities. Journal of Social Issues 56(2): 223-238. 2000.

Cross-cultural lesbian studies: Problems and possibilities. In The New Lesbian Studies: Into the Twenty-First Century. Bonnie Zimmerman and Toni McNaron, eds., pp. 194-200. New York: The Feminist Press. 1996.

Breaking the mirror: The construction of lesbianism and the anthropological discourse on homosexuality. Journal of Homosexuality 11(3/4): 1-17. 1986.

Transgendered subjectivities, FTM and female masculinities:

My early work included a study of female two-spirits in Native American tribes historically. That work examined the intersections of gender identity and sexuality as well as the relation between two-spirit identities and gender inequalities. Other writings critique the anthropological theories and representations of two-spirit people.

Native American genders and sexualities: Beyond anthropological models and misrepresentations. In Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality and Spirituality. Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas and Sabine Lang, eds., pp. 284-294. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois Press. 1997.

Sexuality and gender in certain Native American tribes: The case of cross-gender females. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 10(1):27-42. 1984.

My current work on female masculinities and sexualities in Indonesia focuses on the intersections of the state, Islam and the transnational lesbian and gay movement in the production and redefinition of tomboi identity and women’s sexualities more broadly. I am also researching the colonial and post-colonial influences on transgender practices in Indonesia. This research is funded in part by a Fulbright grant, the Placek Development Award of the American Psychological Foundation, and a fellowship from the Center for Humanistic Studies, Purdue University.

Transnational sexualities in one place: Indonesian readings. Gender & Society 19(2): 221-242. 2005.

Gender transgression in colonial and post-colonial Indonesia. Journal of Asian Studies 64(4) (November 2005).

Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing masculinity and erotic desire. Cultural Anthropology: 13(4): 491-521. 1998.

Transnational sexualities:

Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia, edited by Saskia E. Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood and Abha Bhaiya (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Available in paperback April 2009. The anthology is a unique collection of writings by both academic and activist scholars on women’s same-sex sexualities and female masculinities in Asia.

While the number of works on globalization and sexualities has expanded in the past 10 years, only this collection makes a sustained effort to examine the processes particular to women’s sexualities and female masculinities in the context of globalization. The chapters in this book demonstrate not only the impact of processes of nation-building, citizenship, and transnational flows of knowledge in the production of sexualities and genders, but also the significance of historical and cultural specificities in the construction and transformation of sexual subjectivities. You can view the table of contents.

Research and Teaching Opportunities

I am very interested in working with students who are thinking about doing research on lesbian or queer sexualities and transgender practices, as well as students who are interested more broadly in questions of gender, kinship, or globalization. Please feel free to contact me whether you are a prospective student or would like to discuss your research topic with me.

Please note that Purdue University offers excellent teaching assistantships to qualified graduate students, so consider Purdue as you look at graduate programs. Purdue Graduate School

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