Ara Wilson, Associate Professor of Women's Studies and Cultural Anthropology  

Ara Wilson

Office Location: 210 B East Duke Building
Email Address: ara.wilson@duke.edu

Mailing Address

Education:
Ph.D., City University of New York, 1997
M.Phil., City University of New York, 1992
B.A., Vassar College, 1984

Curriculum Vitae

Expertise:
Globalization
Sexuality
Asia

Current projects: Sexual Latitudes: The Erotic Politics of Globalization (book),

Market Shrines in Bangkok,

Medical Tourism

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

  1. Wilson, A, The intimate economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, tycoons, and Avon ladies in the global city (July, 2004), University of California [html]  [abs].
  2. A. Wilson, Anthropology and the Political Philsophy of Hardt and Negri: Introduction, Special Theme Issue on Hardt & Negri, edited by Ara Wilson, Focaal (2012) [Wilson Focaal Introduction 2012].
  3. Wilson, A, Medical Tourism in Bangkok, in Asian Biotech, edited by Ong, A; Chen, N (2010), Duke UP .
  4. Wilson, A, NGOs as Erotic Sites, in Development, Sexual Rights and Global Governance, edited by Lind, A (January, 2010), Routledge .
  5. Wilson, A, Feminism in the space of the world social forum, special issue on the World Social Forum, Journal of International Women's Studies, vol. 8 no. 3 (April, 2007), pp. 10-27 [index.htm%3E]  [abs].

Research Description: 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.

Areas of Interest:
Globalization + Transnationalism
UN, NGO, Human Rights, Sexual Rights, Women's Rights
Cultural Political Economy
Gender + Sexuality
Feminist, Queer, Postcolonial Theory

Bio/Profile
Sexuality Studies Provisional Website