Kathleen Adams
Professor Emerita
Kathleen Adams (Ph.D., University of Washington) is a socio-cultural anthropologist with field research experience in Indonesia (especially Sulawesi and Alor) and San Juan Capistrano, CA. Dr. Adams's areas of research expertise include the anthropology of tourism, heritage and the politics of identity, ethnographic arts, and museum studies. She enjoys teaching classes on these topics, as well as seminars on globalization, contemporary Southeast Asia, and the anthropology of art. Dr. Adams has received Loyola University's Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence and in 2012 she was named one of the nation's "300 Best Professors" by The Princeton Review.
Publications/Research Listings
Books, Edited Volumes, and Edited Journal Issues:
2023 - The Intersections of Tourism, Migration, and Exile. (Co-edited with Natalia Bloch). Routledge.
2022 - Seni Sebagai Politik: Memahat Ulang Identitas dan Kuasa lewat Pariwisata di Tana Toraja. Indonesian translation of Art as Politics: Re-crafting, Tourism and Power in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. (Anwar Rachman, translator). Makassar, Indonesia: Penerbit Ininnawa (Ininnawa Press).
2020 - Immaterieel erfgoed als toeristische bestemming / Intangible Heritage as a Tourist Destination, Theme issue of Volkskunde (guest coedited with P. Catteeuw, et al.). Vol 121(4).
2019 - Decolonialization and Restitution. Guest co-edited special theme issue of Volkskunde. 120 (3). Co-edited with Jos van Beurden & Paul Catteeuw).
2019 - The Ethnography of Tourism: Edward Bruner and Beyond. (Co-edited with Naomi Leite and Quetzil Castañeda.) Lanham: Lexington Books.
2019 - Indonesia: History, Heritage, Culture. Association for Asian Studies Press.
2011 - Everyday Life in Southeast Asia. (Co-edited with Kathleen Gillogly). Indiana University Press.
2006 - Art as Politics: Re-crafting Identities, Tourism, and Power in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
2000 - Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press. (Co-edited with S. Dickey).
2000 - A Changing Indonesia. Special theme issue of Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science. Vol. 28, No. 2. (Co-edited with Maribeth Erb).
Selected Recent Journal Articles and Book Chapters
2024 - “Like a Bridge over Troubled Water? Fieldwork, Publicly-Engaged Scholarship, and Trafficked Indonesian Mortuary Materials.” Pragmatic Imagination and the New Museum Anthropology (Hodge & Kreps, eds.). Routledge.
2023 - “Problematizing Siloed Mobilities: Tourism, Migration, and Exile.” (with N. Bloch). In Intersections of Tourism, Migration, and Exile. Routledge. Pp. 1-30.
2023 - “Identity - Tourism.” In Encyclopedia of Tourism (2nd Edition) (Jafari & Xiao, eds.). Switzerland: Springer International Reference.
2021 - “Tourism as Industry and Field of Study: Using Research and Education to Address Overtourism.” (with P. Sanchez). In Overtourism and Education: Strategies for Sustainable Futures (Séraphin & Yallop, eds.). Routledge. Adams and Sanchez 2021 pdf
2021 - “Identity, Heritage, and Memorialization: The Toraja Tongkonan of Indonesia.” In Writing Material Culture History, 2nd Ed., (Riello & Gerritsen, eds.). Bloomsbury.
2021 - “(Post-) Pandemic Tourism Resiliency: Southeast Asian Lives and Livelihoods in Limbo.” Co-authored with J. Choe, M. Mostafanezhad, and T. Phi. Tourism Geographies, 23(4): 915-936.
2020 - “What Western Tourism Concepts Obscure: Intersections of Migration and Tourism in Indonesia.” Tourism Geographies, 1-26. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616688.2020.1765010
2020 - “The Politics of Indigeneity and Heritage: Indonesian Mortuary Materials and Museums.” Museum Worlds. 8(1): 68-87.
2020 - “Intangible Heritage as a Tourist Destination: Contributing to Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage through Sustainable Tourism” (with van der Zeijden et al.). Volkskunde 121(4): 519-548.
2019 - “Returns Unraveled: Reflections on Appropriate Destinies for Museum Objects with Questionable Pasts,” (co-authored by J. van Beurden, K. Adams, & P. Catteeuw). Volkskunde 120 (3): 305-339 (In Dutch & English). pdf
2019 - "Being a Tourist in (my own) Home: Negotiating Identities and Belonging in Indonesian Heritage Tourism." In Leite, Casteneda & Adams (eds.), The Ethnography of Tourism: Edward Bruner and Beyond. Lexington Books/Rowman and Littlefield. pdf
2019 - "Breeding Grounds: On the Emergence of Identity and Borderzones as Key Concepts." In The Ethnography of Tourism: Edward Bruner and Beyond (see above). pdf
2019 - "The Ethnography of Tourism: Encounter, Experience, Emergent Culture." Coauthored with Leite and Castañeda. In The Ethnography of Tourism: Edward Bruner and Beyond (see above). pdf
2018 - "Local Strategies for Economic Survival in Touristically Volatile Times: An Indonesian Case Study of Microvendors, Gendered Cultural Practices, and Resilience." Tourism Culture & Communication 18(4): 287-301. pdf
2018 - “A Room with a View: Local Knowledge and Tourism Entrepreneurship in an Unlikely Indonesian Locale.” Co-authored with Dirk Sandarupa. Asian Journal of Tourism Research. 3(1): 1-26. pdf
2018 - "Leisure in the 'Land of the Walking Dead': Western Mortuary Tourism, the Internet, and Zombie Pop Culture in Toraja, Indonesia." For Leisure and Death, ed. by A. Kaul and J. Skinner. Boulder: Univ. of Colorado Press. pdf
2018 - Revisiting "Wonderful Indonesia": Tourism, Economy, and Society. The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia, ed. by Robert Hefner. Abingdon on Thames: Routledge. pdf
2017 - (with N. Borelli) Analysing Chicago's Mexican Pilsen Neighborhood through the Lens of Competitiveness and Social Cohesion. In Moving Cities: Contested Views on Urban Life, ed. by Ligia Fierro et al. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
2016 - Tourism and Ethnicity in Insular Southeast Asia: Eating, Praying, Loving and Beyond. Asian Journal of Tourism Research 1(1): 1-28.
2015 - Back to the Future? Emergent Visions for Object-Based Teaching in and Beyond the Classroom. Museum Anthropology. Vol 38(2): 88-95. (Guest editor of this special theme issue on object-based teaching.) pdf
2015 - Families, Funerals and Facebook: Reimag(in)ing and Curating Toraja Kin in Translocal Times. TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia. Vol 3: 239-266. pdf
2015 - Identity, Tourism, Invited peer-reviewed contribution for the Encyclopedia of Tourism. Edited by Jafar Jafari and Honggen Xiao. Switzerland: Springer International Reference.
2015 - Identity, Heritage, and Memorialization: The Toraja Tongkonan of Indonesia.” In Giorgio Riello and Anne Gerritsen (eds) Writing Material Culture History. London: Bloomsbury Publishers. pdf
2012 - Love American Style and Divorce Toraja Style: Lessons from a Tale of Mutual Reflexivity in Indonesia. Critical Arts 26(2) May. pdf
2012 - Ethnographic Methods. In Handbook of Research Methods in Tourism: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches, pp 339-351. pdf
2011 - Public Interest Anthropology, Political Market Squares and Re-scripting Dominance: From Swallows to ‘Race’ in San Juan Capistrano, CA. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 3(2):147-169. pdf
2011 - Introduction. In Adams and Gillogly (eds), Everyday Life in Southeast Asia. Indiana Univ. Press.
2011 - Cultivating "Community" in an Indonesian Era of Conflict: Toraja Artistic Strategies for Promoting Peace. In Adams & Gillogly (eds.), Everyday Life in Southeast Asia. Indiana Univ. Press.
2010 - Courting and Consorting with the Global: The Local Politics of an Emerging World Heritage Site in Sulawesi, Indonesia. In V.T. King, M. Parnwell & M. Hitchcock (eds.), Heritage Tourism in Southeast Asia. NIAS Press & Univ. of Hawaii Press. pdf
2008 - The Janus-Faced Character of Tourism in Cuba: Ideological Continuity and Change. (Co-authored with Peter Sanchez). pdf
2008 - Indonesian Souvenirs as Micro-Monuments to Modernity: Hybridization, Deterritorialization and Commoditization. In M. Hitchcock, V. King, and M. Parnwell (eds.), Tourism in South-East Asia: Challenges and New Directions. NIAS Press & Univ. of Hawaii Press. pdf
2006 - Terror and Tourism: Charting the Ambivalent Allure of the Urban Jungle. In C. Minca and T. Oates (eds.), Travels in Paradox: Remapping Tourism. Lanham, MD:Rowman and Littlefield. Pp 205-228.
2005 - Public Interest Anthropology in Heritage Sites: Writing Culture and Righting Wrongs. International Journal of Heritage Studies Vol 11(5):433-439.
2005 - The Genesis of Touristic Imagery: Politics and Poetics in the Creation of a Remote Indonesian Island Destination. Tourist Studies Vol 4(2):115-135.
2005 - Generating Theory, Tourism and "World Heritage" in Indonesia: Ethical Quandaries for Practicing Anthropologists. In Anthropological Contributions to Travel and Tourism: Linking Theory with Practice. Special issue of National Association for the Practice of Anthropology Bulletin. No. 23:45-59.
2004 - Locating Global Legacies in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. Current Issues in Tourism 7(4-5):433-435. pdf
2003 - Cultural Displays and Tourism in Africa and the Americas. Ethnohistory 50(3):567-573.
2003 - Museum/City/Nation: Negotiating Meaning and Identities in Urban Museums in Indonesia and Singapore. In Robbie Goh and Brenda Yeoh (eds.,) Theorizing the Asian City as Text: Urban Landscapes, Cultural Documents, and Interpretative Experiences. Singapore: Singapore University Press. pdf
2003 - Global Cities, Terror and Tourism: The Ambivalent Allure of the Urban Jungle. In R. Bishop, J. Phillips and W. Yeo (eds.), Postcolonial Urbanism: Southeast Asian Cities and Global Processes. London: Routledge.
2003 - The Politics of Heritage in Southeast Asia: Interplaying the Local and the Global. Indonesia and the Malay World. 31(89).
2001 - Danger Zone Tourism: Potentials and Problematics for Tourism in Tumultuous Times. In Peggy Teo, Ho Kong Chong and T.C. Chang (eds.), Interconnected Worlds: Southeast Asia Tourism in the 21st Century. Cambridge: Pergamon Press.
2000 - Introduction: A Changing Indonesia (with Maribeth Erb). Theme Issue: "A Changing Indonesia." Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 28(2):1-10.
2000 - Introduction: Negotiating Homes, Hegemonies, and Politics. (With Sara Dickey). In K. Adams and S. Dickey (eds.), Home and Hegemony. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
2000 - Negotiated Identities: Humor, Kinship Rhetoric and Mythologies of Servitude in South Sulawesi. In K. Adams and S. Dickey (eds.), Home and Hegemony. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
1999 - Identites Ethnique/Identite Nationale dans les Musees d'Indonesie ("Ethnic Identities and National Identity in the Museums of Indonesia"). Theme issue: "Ethnicite, Nation, Musees, en Situation Post-Coloniale." Ethnologie Francaise 29(3):355-364.
1999 - Taming Traditions: Torajan Ethnic Imagery in the Age of Tourism. In C. Fink and J. Forshee (eds), Traders, Travelers and Tourists in Southeast Asia. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies.
1998 - More than an Ethnic Marker: Toraja Art as Identity Negotiator. American Ethnologist 25(3):327-351.
1998 - Domestic Tourism and Nation-Building in South Sulawesi. Indonesia and the Malay World 26(75):77-97.
1997 - Constructing and Contesting Chiefly Authority in Tana Toraja. In G. White and L. Lindstrom (eds.), Chiefs Today: Traditional Pacific Leadership and the Postcolonial State. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.
1997 - Nationalizing the Local and Localizing the Nation: Ceremonials, Monumental Displays and National Memory-Making in Upland Sulawesi, Indonesia. Theme issue: "Public History and National Narrative." Museum Anthropology 21(1):113-130.
1997 - Touting Touristic Primadonas: On Tourism, Ethnic Negotiation and National Integration in Sulawesi Indonesia. In M. Picard and R. Wood (eds.), Tourism, Ethnicity and the State in Asia and the Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
1997 - Ethnic Tourism and the Renegotiation of Tradition in Tana Toraja (Sulawesi, Indonesia). Ethnology 36(4):309-320. pdf