Evelyn Blackwood

Associate Professor of Anthropology Office: STON 313
Office Phone: (765) 496-1728
Email: blackwood@purdue.edu

Specialization:

Gender and sexuality, kinship, emerging identities, globalization and sexuality, political economy, transnational feminisms, feminist theory, women’s same-sex relations, lesbian and transgender studies, Island Southeast Asia, Islam.

Courses: Undergraduate

Anth 230: Gender Across Cultures (Fall ’09)
Anth 482: Sexual Diversity in Global Perspective (Spring ’10)

Graduate

Anth 505: Culture and Society (Spring ’10)
Anth 609/620: Special Topics in Cultural Anthropology: Self, Identity and Agency (Fall ’09) 

Dr. Blackwood’s work investigates the intersections of local, state, transnational, and religious processes with individual conceptions and experiences of gender and sexuality, particularly in Indonesia. One aspect of this work focuses on the matrilineal Minangkabau of West Sumatra, Indonesia, where she examined how rural people are coping with the dramatic political and economic changes occuring in Indonesia today. Work on the Minangkabau examines household, kin, and agricultural relations to demonstrate how women and men negotiate gender and power within the context of local culture, state political processes, and Islamic ideologies about gender. Dr. Blackwood has also written a major critique of matrilineal theory, using data on women’s same-sex relationships to demonstrate the heteronormative underpinnings of kinship theory.

Dr. Blackwood maintains an on-going research program on the social and historical contexts of female same-sex relations outside the West. This work includes a study of female two-spirits in Native American tribes historically and colonial gender transgressors in Indonesia, as well as a critique of anthropological theories and representations of same-sex sexualities. Currently her research examines the impact of state, Islamic and transnational lesbian and gay discourses on the development of queer subjectivities, with reference to Indonesia and Southeast Asia more generally.

Dr. Blackwood is the author of a monograph on the Minangkabau and has written numerous book chapters and articles for academic journals in anthropology, Asian Studies and women’s studies. Together with Dr. Saskia Wieringa, Dr. Blackwood has produced two collections of essays devoted to women’s same-sex sexualities and transgender practices, the award-winning anthology Female Desires (1999) and Women’s Sexualities and Masculinities in a Globalizing Asia (2007). She received a Fulbright Senior Fellowship award for research in Indonesia in 2001 as well as other smaller grants and regularly presents papers at international conferences. She has served on the boards of the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society and the Association of Feminist Anthropology and is currently AFA treasurer. At Purdue she has served as Associate Director of Women’s Studies (2005-2007), chair of Anthropology, and University Senator. In addition to teaching both anthropology and women’s studies courses, Dr. Blackwood has twice been nominated for a teaching award in the Department in the past five years. Dr. Blackwood supervises several graduate students in the areas of sexuality, kinship, and identity. Please see the link to her research group.

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