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Taboo looks at the ethnographer and sexuality in anthropological fieldwork and considers the many roles that sexuality plays in the anthropological production of knowledge and texts. How does the sexual identity that anthropologists have in their "home" society affect the kind of sexuality they are allowed to express in other cultures? How is the anthropologists' sexuality perceived by the people with whom he or she does research? How common is sexual violence and intimidation in the field and why is its existence virtually unmentioned in anthropology? These are but a few of the questions to be confronted, exploring from differing perspectives the depth of the influence this tabooed topic has on the entire practice and production of anthropology.
A long-overdue text for all students and lecturers of anthropology, many post-fieldwork readers will find a resonance of issues they have previously faced (or tried to avoid) and those who are still to undertake fieldwork will find articles that refer to other kinds of personal and professional experience as well as providing invaluable preparations for coping in the field.
List of contents
Notes on contributors, Preface, Introduction The sexual life of anthropologists: erotic subjectivity and ethnographic work, 1 Lovers in the field: sex, dominance, and the female anthropologist, 2 Falling in love with an-Other lesbian: reflections on identity in fieldwork, 3 The penetrating intellect: on being white, straight, and male in Korea, 4 Walking the fire line: the erotic dimension of the fieldwork experience, 5 Tricks, friends, and lovers: erotic encounters in the field, 6 My ‘chastity belt’: avoiding seduction in Tonga, 7 Fear and loving in the West Indies: research from the heart (as well as the head), 8 Rape in the field: reflections from a survivor, Afterword Perspective and difference: sexualization, the field, and the ethnographer, Index
About the author
Margaret Willson, Don Kulick
Summary
A look at sexuality in anthropological fieldwork. The author looks at how the anthropologists sexual identity in their 'home' society affects the kind of sexuality they are allowed to express in other cultures.
