Don Kulick - Taboo: Sex, Identity and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork

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Taboo

Taboo looks at the ethnographer and sexuality in anthropological fieldwork and considers the many roles that erotic subjectivity plays in the production of anthropological knowledge and texts.

In this pioneering volume anthropologists discuss their own sexual and erotic experiences in the field, and use those experiences to reflect on problems with the way anthropology is thought about and practiced. How do the gender roles and sexual identities that anthropologists have in their home societies affect the kinds of sexuality they can express in other cultures? How is the anthropologists sexuality perceived by the people with whom she or he does research? How common is sexual violence and intimidation in the field, and why is its existence virtually unmentioned in anthropology? These are just a few of the questions addressed by the contributions, which will set the agenda for a critical exploration of why and how sexuality and taboos against sex have affected the practice and production of anthropology.

A long-overdue text for all students and lecturers of anthropology and cultural studies, Taboo will also appeal to sociologists, feminist scholars and students of queer theory.

Don Kulick is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stockholm University, Sweden. Margaret Willson is a Lecturer and Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at Western Washington University, USA.

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Sex, identity, and erotic subjectivity in anthropological fieldwork

Edited by

Don Kulick and
Margaret Willson

London and New York

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First published 1995
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

1995 Selection and editorial matter, Don Kulick and
Margaret Willson; individual chapters, the contributors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISBN 0-203-42037-3 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-30693-7 (OEB Format)

ISBN 0-415-08818-6 (hbk)

ISBN 0-415-08819-4 (pbk)

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For
Jonas Schild Tillberg
and
Elizabeth Willson

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Kate Altork is a practicing psychotherapist and cultural anthropologist. She recently completed her Ph.D. thesis, entitled Land Running Through the Bones: An Ethnography of Place (Union Institute, 1994). In 1992, she was awarded the Prize for Poetry from the American Anthropological Associations Society for Humanistic Anthropology. In 1993, she was awarded their Prize for Fiction. She is currently working on a series of essays addressing the intersection of person, place, and passionate attachment.

Evelyn Blackwood is assistant professor of womens studies and anthropology at Purdue University, Indiana. Her previous publications include work on Native American female berdache/two-spirit people and lesbian relations cross-culturally. She is the editor of the volume The Many Faces Of Homosexuality: Anthropological Approaches to Homosexual Behavior (Harrington Park Press, 1986). She is currently working on a monograph about Minangkabau gender, kinship and identity.

Ralph Bolton is professor of anthropology at Pomona College, California, where he teaches courses on human sexuality and AIDS. He is the editor of The AIDS Pandemic: A Global Emergency (Gordon and Breach, 1989) and The Content of Culture (HRAF Press, 1989). He coedited the volumes