Ara Wilson, Director of the Study of Sexualities; Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Cultural Anthropology

Office Location:	210 East Duke Building
Office Phone:	(919) 684-9179
Email Address:
Web Page:	http://fds.duke.edu/db/aas/WomensStudies/faculty/ara.wilson
Office Hours:	Tuesday 1 -2:00

Curriculum Vitae

• PhD The Graduate School of the City University of New York (CUNY) 1997
• BA Vassar College 1984

Specialties:

Globalization

Sexuality

Asia

Research Interests:

My work contributes to the feminist ethnography of globalization by providing theoretically engaged descriptions of transnational sites and processes. My approach combines attention to political economy, critical studies of culture, and post-colonial critiques of Eurocentrism. I use long term fieldwork in Bangkok, Thailand to explore how sexuality, gender and ethnicity are produced and transformed through the modernity of the non-Western world. I am working to develop ways to analyze gender/sexuality at a global scale, in part by studying such international events as the 1995 Beijing UN Conference on Women or the World Social Forum. This research is part of a current book project, Sexual Latitudes, that considers the implication of globalization as a stage for sexual politics. I am also in the early phases of a project on medical tourism to Thailand.

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1.  The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in The Global City. University of California, 2004. [html]
2. "Medical Tourism in Bangkok." Asian Biotech. Edited by Aihwa Ong and Nancy Chen.  ( 2010.).
3. "NGOs as Erotic Sites." Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance. Edited by Amy Lind.  (January, 2010.).