Research
Research interests:
Southeast Asia, eastern Indonesia, family, kinship, assisted reproduction, gender, society, social structure, hierarchical structures, complex societies, human evolution, landscape archaeology
Questions concerning kinship, family, and gender are highly relevant in today’s society, as medical technology has made possible types of assisted reproduction, such as mother surrogacy, whose social and legal consequences are still being hotly debated in many parts of the world. This was the focus of my B.A. thesis The Kinship of Asexually Assisted Procreation: a Euro-American perspective on kinship and new reproductive technologies (2008, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, Oxford, not published). Ethnographic accounts of various forms kinship definitions and the possible ways in which kinship can relate to social structure may help promote more informed views and actions in a global context, in particular in relation to assisted reproduction. It is with this prospect in mind that the doctoral study in Indonesia was undertaken 2009-2011 (Lamaholot of East Flores: a study of a boundary community. D.Phil. thesis 2012. Bodleian Library, Oxford). So far anthropological studies have not yet addressed the issue of mother surrogacy from the point of view of comparative kinship. The doctoral project practically examines local notions of kinship and gender among a sub-group of a small Indonesian population on the island of Flores, and social structures that are based on these definitions, such as family, descent groups, household, residence pattern and inheritance. The changing social position of women in relation to that of men is here rooted in a context of recent historical change in social practice and ideology. Kinship features are of great interest in this investigation, since they are closely interwoven with qualities that are central to modes of livelihood, conceptions of life and ideology – a fact that we tend to ignore in our daily life. Gender issues are also deeply embedded within the social development. Both past and present conditions are therefore taken into consideration and viewed from their different social and biological perspectives. Letting the data guiding the analysis and the conclusions has allowed for analysis across cultural, linguistic and administrative borders, and across particular traditions of investigation. Together with disciplines such as law, psychology, sociology, politics and archaeology, specific case studies of this kind can have substantial impact on the wider society and on how we understand, view and treat issues that relate to family, kinship, and gender.
Further information to be added shortly.