Kathleen M. Adams, PhD
Faculty Emerita, Department of Anthropology
2023
Intersections of Tourism, Migration and Exile
Coedited by Natalia Bloch and Kathleen M. Adams. Routledge.
(ISBN: 9781032022802)
Published December 30, 2022 by Routledge
274 Pages 5 B/W Illustrations
This book challenges the classic – and often tacit – compartmentalization of tourism, migration, and refugee studies by exploring the intersections of these forms of spatial mobility: each prompts distinctive images and moral reactions, yet they often intertwine, overlap, and influence one another.
2022
Kesenian Sebagai Politik: Memahat Ulang Identitas dan Kuasa Lewat Pariwisata di Tana Toraja.
(Indonesian translation of Art as Politics…). Makassar: Penerbit Ininnawa (Ininnawa Press)
2019
The Ethnography of Tourism
Co-edited with Naomi Leite and Quetzil Castañeda
(ISBN: 978-1-4985-1633-4)
Lanham: Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield.
2020 winner of the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group’s Bruner Book Award.
Synopsis:
What does it mean to study tourism ethnographically? How has the ethnography of tourism changed from the 1970s to today? What theories, themes, and concepts drive contemporary research? Thirteen leading anthropologists of tourism address these questions and provide a critical introduction to the state of the art. Focusing on the experience-near, interpretive-humanistic approach to tourism studies widely associated with anthropologist Edward Bruner, the contributors draw on their fieldwork to illustrate and build upon key concepts in tourism ethnography, from experience, encounter, and emergent culture to authenticity, narrative, contested sites, the borderzone, embodiment, identity, and mobility. With its comprehensive introductory chapter, keyword-based organization, and engaging style, The Ethnography of Tourism will appeal to anthropology and tourism studies students, as well as to scholars in both fields and beyond.
Indonesia: History, Heritage, Culture
(ISBN: 978-0-924-304-89-7)
Synopsis:
Indonesia: History, Heritage, Culture offers a concise, engaging introduction to the historical, political and cultural dynamics of Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation and home to the world’s largest and most diverse Muslim population. Interweaving brief, anthropologically-informed stories of aspects of everyday life in Indonesia with broader historical accounts of this region, Indonesia: History, Heritage, Culture provides textured insights into this vibrant and dynamic archipelago.
Inter-cultural encounters and exchanges as well as globalization are central to Indonesia’s story. Adams organizes the book historically, yet each chapter spotlights how the past resonates in contemporary times. Each chapter open with an image or object that lends insights into a particular era in Indonesia’s history. Chapters highlight Indonesia’s natural landscape, linguistic and cultural diversity, prehistory, eras of Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic influence, as well as Chinese and European precolonial trade dynamics. Also addressed are the rise of Dutch colonialism in the archipelago, the Japanese Occupation during World War II, and the struggle for Indonesian independence. Additional chapters cover Indonesia’s more recent periods of Guided Democracy, the New Order, and Reformasi, and the final chapter reflects on Indonesia’s current challenges and promises for the future.
Everyday Life in Southeast Asia
(ISBN: 978-0-253-22321-0)
Edited by Katleen M. Adams and Kathleen Gillogly
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Synopsis:
This lively survey of the peoples, cultures, and societies of Southeast Asia introduces a region of tremendous geographic, linguistic, historical, and religious diversity. Encompassing both mainland and island countries, these engaging essays describe personhood and identity, family and household organization, nation-states, religion, popular culture and the arts, the legacies of war and recovery, globalization, and the environment. Throughout, the focus is on the daily lives and experiences of ordinary people. Most of the essays are original to this volume, while a few are widely taught classics. All were chosen for their timeliness and interest, and are ideally suited for the classroom.
According to Project Muse this book was the #1 most downloaded of all the thousands of academic books in their project since they began tracking.
Art as Politics: Re-Crafting Identities, Tourism, and Power in Tana Toraja, Indonesia
(ISBN: 0-8248-3072-5)
University of Hawaii Press: 2006 (August)
Synopsis:
This book explores the intersection of art, identity politics, and tourism in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Based on long-term ethnographic research from the 1980s to the present, the book offers a nuanced portrayal of the Sadan Toraja, a predominantly Christian minority group in the world's most populous Muslim country. Celebrated in anthropological and tourism literatures for their spectacular traditional houses, sculpted effigies of the dead, and pageantry-filled funeral rituals, the Toraja have entered an era of accelerated engagement with the global economy marked by on-going struggles over identity, religion, and social relations.
In her engaging account, Kathleen Adams chronicles how various Toraja individuals and groups have drawn upon artistically-embellished traditional objects as well as monumental displays, museums, UNESCO ideas about word heritage, and the World Wide Web to shore up or realign aspects of a cultural heritage perceived to be under threat. She also considers how outsiders be they tourists, art collectors, members of rival ethnic groups, or government officials have appropriated and reframed Toraja art objects for their own purposes. Her account illustrates how art can serve as a catalyst in identity politics, especially in the context of tourism and social upheaval.
Ultimately, this insightful work prompts readers to rethink persistent and pernicious popular assumptions that tourism invariably brings a loss of agency to local communities or that tourist art is a compromised form of expression. Art as Politics promises to be a favorite with students and scholars of anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, ethnic relations, art, and Asian studies.
35 illus., 15 in color
This book received the 2009 Alpha Sigma Nu Award as best book published in the Social Sciences for three previous years.
Home and Hegemony
(ISBN: 978-0-472-11106-0)
University of Michigan Press: 2000
Synopsis:
In the intimate context of domestic service, power relations take on one of their most personalized forms. Domestic servants and their employers must formulate their political identities in relationship to each other, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes challenging broader social hierarchies such as those based on class, caste or rank, gender, race and ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, and kinship relations.