Abstract: From the 1960s until 1997, when the Asian economic crisis began in Bangkok, Thailand had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. This talk draws on an ethnographic study during Bangkok's boom years that explores the ways that transnational capital flows are refashioning expressions of gender and sexuality in Thailand. The research concentrates on six modern "markets" -- including Amway and Avon, the go-go bars for sex tourists, and shopping malls -- to chronicle some of the ways that capitalist market economies are embedding themselves in everyday relationships and identities, or "intimate life." The talk outlines Dr. Wilson's innovative approach to the question of how the global economy impacts local life and provides some ethnographic examples from these diverse market sites.
About the Speaker: Ara Wilson is an Assistant Professor of Transnational Feminist Cultural Studies in the Department of Women's Studies at OSU. She has conducted fieldwork in Thailand for many years and has participated in international feminist projects, including attending the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing. In 1999-2000 she was a Rockefeller Fellow at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers University. Among her publications are articles on Avon/Amway in Thailand (_Critique of Anthropology_) and an article on sexual rights in the forthcoming anthology, _Truth Claims: Representation and Human Rights_ (Rutgers).
Sponsored by OSU-WID and the Dept of Women's Studies For an OSU campus map that highlights the Mershon Center, go to <http://www.mershon.ohio-state.edu/location.htm>. For more info, contact Cathy Rakowski at <rakowski.1 at osu.edu>. -- Yoshie
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