Kathleen M. Adams

Kathleen M. Adams is a cultural anthropologist and Professor at Loyola University Chicago, and an Adjunct Curator at the Field Museum of Natural History. Her books include Art as Politics: Re-crafting Identities, Tourism and Power in Tana Toraja, Indonesia, Everyday Life in Southeast Asia (With K. Gillogly), Indonesia: History, Heritage, Culture, Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia (with S. Dickey), and The Ethnography of Tourism: Edward Bruner and Beyond (with N. Leite and Q. Casteneda). Adams is best known for her research on cultural transformations in island Southeast Asia, especially Toraja society in Indonesia), and her contributions to critical tourism studies, heritage studies, and museum studies.

A former Fulbright recipient, Adams received a B.A. in anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.A./Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at the University of Washington. Adams previously held the Mouat Family Endowed Chair for Junior Facultyat Beloit College in Wisconsin, and was visiting professor at Loyola University Chicago's John Felice Rome Center, Ateneo de Manila University, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, the National University of Singapore and on several University of Virginia Semester at Sea voyages.

Adams' book on the politics of art and tourism in Sulawesi (Indonesia) won the Alpha Sigma Nu award as the best social science book published in 2007–2009 by faculty at Jesuit institutions. A past Fulbright awardee (1984–85) and Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship (1999) recipient, Adams' work has been supported by the American Philosophical Society and other foundations. She received Loyola University's 2016 Sujack Master Researcher Award, Loyola University Chicago's 2007 Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence, and recognition by Princeton Review as one of the "300 best professors" in the US and Canada in 2012.

• 2019 "Indonesia: History, Heritage, Culture Key Issues in Asian Studies Series. Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies Press.
• 2019 "The Ethnography of Tourism: Edward Bruner and Beyond (Co-edited with N. Leite and Q. Casteneda. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
• 2018 "Revisiting "Wonderful Indonesia": Tourism, Economy, and Society". The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Indonesia, ed. by Robert Hefner. Abingdon on Thames: Routledge.
• 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.
• 2018 "A Room with a View: Local Knowledge and Tourism Entrepreneurship in an Unlikely Indonesian Locale.” (with D. Sandarupa), Asian Journal of Tourism Research. 3(1): 1-26.
• 2018 "Leisure in the 'Land of the Walking Dead': Western Mortuary Tourism, the Internet, and Zombie Pop Culture in Toraja, Indonesia." In Leisure and Death: An Anthropological Tour of Risk, Death and Dying, ed. by A. Kaul and J. Skinner. Boulder: Univ. of Colorado Press.
• 2015 "Families, Funerals and Facebook: Reimag(in)ing and Curating Toraja Kin in Translocal Times.” TRaNS: Trans –Regional and –National Studies of Southeast Asia, 3(2).
• 2015 Guest Editor of Special Issue "Back to the Future? Emergent Visions for Object-Based Teaching in and Beyond the Classroom.” Museum Anthropology, Vol 38(2).
• 2012"Love American Style and Divorce Toraja Style: Lessons from a Tale of Mutual Reflexivity in Indonesia,” Critical Arts 26(2).
• 2011 Everyday Life in Southeast Asia. Indiana University Press. (With Kathleen Gillogly).
• 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 Hawai'i Press.
• 2008 “The Janus-Faced Character of Tourism in Cuba: Ideological Continuity and Change.” Annals of Tourism Research, 35(1):27-46. Co-authored with Peter Sanchez.
• 2006 Art as Politics: Re-crafting Identities, Tourism, and Power in Tana Toraja, Indonesia. University of Hawaii Press. (Winner of the 2009 Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities Alpha Sigma Nu National Book Award, best in Social Sciences 2007-2009)
• 2005 “Public Interest Anthropology in Heritage Sites: Writing Culture and Righting Wrongs.” International Journal of Heritage Studies, 11(5):433-439.
• 2005 “Generating Theory, Tourism & “World Heritage” in Indonesia: Ethical Quandaries for Practicing Anthropologists.” National Association for the Practice of Anthropology Bulletin, 23:45-59. Part of a Special Issue on “Anthropological Contributions to Travel & Tourism: Linking Theory with Practice.”
• 2004“The Genesis of Touristic Imagery: Politics and Poetics in the Creation of a Remote Indonesian Island Destination.”Tourist Studies, 4(2):115-135.
• 2000 Home and Hegemony: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia. University of Michigan Press. (With Sara Dickey).

• "A Short Interview With Kathleen Adams" (PDF). Education about Asia. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
• "Kathleen Adams, Antropolog AS yang Jatuh Hati pada Indonesia". Voice of America. Retrieved 24 November 2013.
• "Kathleen Adams over 'Langzame Museologie'". Retrieved 22 October 2019.