Ara Wilson - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Ara Wilson is a writer. Her work focuses on the feminist

Feminism

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

ethnography

Ethnography

Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...

of globalization through description and analysis of various market economies. Her work examines the cultural, social, and sexual aspects of Bangkok

Bangkok

Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...

economies, as well as illustrating the inaccuracies of Eurocentric

Eurocentrism

Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...

ideology. Between 1988 and 2000, Wilson visited Bangkok on several occasions; including two full years between 1992-1994 doing research for The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City. Wilson’s research is heavily focused on sexual and ethnic identity which “are produced and transformed through the modernity of the non-Western world”. Wilson is currently director of the program in the study of sexualities

Gender identity

A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...

at Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

, where she is also an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies. Wilson has insurmountable experience with non-governmental organizations that deal directly with women’s rights

Women's rights

Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

, as well as sexual rights in Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

Methods of Research

Ara Wilson's Methods for Developing the Intimate Economies of Bangkok

Groups worked with:

Foreign Language Area Studies

The Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships are federally funded academic scholarships designed to provide support and funding to graduate and undergraduate students studying the languages and cultures of specific foreign countries, in particular those in the strategic interest of the United...

(FLAS)

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies

The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies was founded in 1991 by professor Martin Duberman as the first university-based research center in the United States dedicated to the study of historical, cultural, and political issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals and communities...

(clags)

socialist review (a journal)

Non-governmental organizations:

Lesbian group Anjaree

Asian Lesbian Network

The Asian Lesbian Network was formed in March 1986 at the International Lesbian Information Service conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where lesbians from Bangladesh, India, the United States, Japan, and Thailand organized workshops during the conference....

Foundation for Women

Ms. Foundation for Women

The Ms. Foundation for Women, a non-profit organization, was founded in 1973 by Gloria Steinem, Patricia Carbine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Marlo Thomas. Established at the height of the feminist movement, the Ms...

, a multi-issue feminist organization

Wilson got most of her research for The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City from the two years field work she spent in Bangkok from Dec 1992 – Jan 1994, as well as from many of her visits ranging from 1988-2000. During this time, she worked part time in a telecommunications marketing office, which gave her access to social scenes and "participant observations." Like any other ethnographer, Wilson conducted most of her fieldwork alone, relying mostly on informal interviews and day-to-day conversations. Her interviewees were usually ages 20–25, many of Chinese descent, with economic standings ranging from minor royalty to peasants.

Living at the edge of Bangkok's Chinatown

Chinatown

A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...

, Wilson observed Sino-Thai

Thai Chinese

The Thai Chinese are an overseas Chinese community who live in Thailand. Thailand is home to the largest, oldest, most prominent, and most integrated overseas Chinese community in the world with a population of approximately 9.5 million people...

business families, major market areas of the city, the prostitution industry, and the class/gender/sexual dimensions of professional identities in transnational corporations. She gathered information primarily on key intersections of social identity and relationships, by focusing on the behavior of architecture, material objects, primary texts, secondary texts, and especially business press. Specific commercial sites included shophouses, retail stores like the Central Department Store

Central Department Store

Central Department Store is a Thai department store chain, owned by Central Group.- History :Started in 1927, 22-year old Nitiang or Tiang Chirathivat, an immigrant from mainland China, travels the sea and settles down in then Siam and started a store in Bangkok named "Keng Seng Lee" or , which...

, the tourist sex trade of the go-go bars, the popular downtown shopping mall MBK

MBK Center

MBK Center, also known as Mahboonkrong , is a large shopping mall in Bangkok, Thailand. At eight stories high, the center hosts around 2,000 stores and services, including the 4-story Tokyu department store, restaurants and entertainment....

, a telecommunications marketing office, and direct sales such as Amway

Amway

Amway is a direct selling company and manufacturer that uses network marketing to sell a variety of products, primarily in the health, beauty, and home care markets. Amway was founded in 1959 by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos...

and Avon

Avon Products

Avon Products, Inc. is a US cosmetics, perfume and toy seller with markets in over 140 countries across the world and sales of $9.9 billion worldwide as of 2007.-Business Model:...

Works, Publications

BOOKS IN PROGRESS

Sexual Latitudes: The Erotic Politics of Globalization. A feminist analysis of how globalization shapes conditions for transnational sexual politics and practices.

BOOKS

The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the World City. University of California Press, 2004.

ARTICLES AND ESSAYS IN PROCESS AND UNDER REVIEW

“The Beckoning Lady: Transnational Flows of Sacred and Economic Power in the Markets of Bangkok.” In preparation.
Guest editor of “Neoliberal Networking: The Global Assemblages of Direct Sales.” Themed issue in preparation for Identities.
“NGOs as Erotic Sites.” Under review for proposed anthology, Queering Development, ed., Amy Lind. (2010).
“Asian Modernity: Diasporic Agents And Trans-Asian Flows In Thailand.” In Everyday International Political Economy: Non-Elite Agency in the Transformation of the World Economy, ed. J.M. Hobson and L. Seabrooke. Under review at Cambridge University Press.

ARTICLES AND ESSAYS

“Feminism in the Space of the World Social Forum.” Forthcoming, special issue of Journal of International Women’s Studies. 2007.
“Queering Asia.” Intersections 14, 2006. http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue14/wilson.html
“Plural Economies and Gendered Resistance in Bangkok.” In On the Edges of Development, eds. Kum-Kum Bhavnani and John Foran, eds. London: Zed Press, forthcoming. 2008.
“Intra-Asian Circuits and the Problem of Global Queer.” Conference Archives of the Sexualities, Genders & Rights in Asia 1st International Conference of Asian Queer Studies, at http://bangkok2005.anu.edu.au/papers/Wilson.pdf.
“Bangkok, the Bubble City.” In Wounded Cities: Destruction and Reconstruction in a Globalized World. Eds. Jane Schneider and Ida Susser. pp. 203–226. Oxford: Berg Press, 2003.
“The Transnational Geography of Sexual Rights.” In Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights. Eds. Mark Philip Bradley and Patrice Petro. pp. 253–265. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.
“The Empire of Direct Sales and the Making of Thai Entrepreneurs.” Critique of Anthropology 19(4) 1999: 401-422.
Co-author with S. Kasmir, “Introduction.” Critique of Anthropology 19(4) 1999: 376-378.
“Decentralization and the Avon Lady in Bangkok, Thailand.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review. May 21(1) 1998: 77-83.
“Report: Lesbian Visibility and Sexual Rights at Beijing.” Signs 22 (autumn) 1996: 214-218.
“When Sex is a Job: An Interview with Chantawipa Apisuk of Empower.” In Sondra Zeidenstein and K. Moore, eds., Learning about Sexuality. pp. 333–342. NY: The Population Council, 1996.
Co-author, “Introduction: Questioning Science.” Socialist Review Special Issue (summer), 1992.
“American Catalogues of Asian Brides.” In Johnnetta Cole, ed., Anthropology for the Nineties. pp. 114–125. NY: The Free Press, 1988.

REVIEWS, ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES, AND PROFESSIONAL PUBLICATIONS

“Thailand and Sex Tourism.” The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, Eds. Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming.
“Global Politics and the Feminist Question.” ebr (Electronic Book Review) online at http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/writingpostfeminism/reconfiguredrip. March 2006.
“The Intimacy of Globalization.” Anthropology News, February 2005, p. 41.
Review of Romance on the Global Stage by Nicole Constable. American Anthropologist 106 (4) 2004.
“Gender and Globalization.” Humanities Exchange. Ohio State University, vol. 17, 11, 2002.
“Patriarchy: Feminist Theory.” Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women. Cheris Kramarae, Dale Spender, eds. New York/London: Routledge Press, vol 3, 1493–1497, 2000.
Invited Comments on Graham Fordham, “Northern Thai Male Culture and the Assessment of HIV Risk.” Crossroads 12 (1) 1998: 128-130.
“Sexualities.” Reading Women’s Lives: An Introduction to Women’s Studies. Needham Heights: Pearson Custom Publishing, 1998.
Co-author with A. Livingston, “International Perspectives.” Reading Women’s Lives: An Introduction to Women’s Studies. Needham Heights: Pearson Custom Publishing, 1997.
Review of The Woman in the Body by Emily Martin. Socialist Review 89/3 (autumn) 1989.

WORLD WIDE WEB

1970s Lesbian Feminism. 1999. Some pages co-authored with Kate Bedford.
Select Bibliography on Prostitution in Thailand. On the Southeast Asia/Resources for Teachers WebPage: http://topaz.kenyon.edu/projects/seasem/webbiblio/biblio-frameset.htm 1998.

Methods of Research

Works, Publications

See also