Sex in the field - the dilemma of whether to cover up or display sexual identities and desires during the course of anthropological fieldwork - is one of the best-kept secrets in the discipline. Contending that the conventional pose of a genderless, asexual, ethnographic researcher is impossible to sustain, this volume brings sex and sexuality into the open as essential components of ethnographic study that must be overtly recognized and proactively addressed. "Sex, Sexuality, and the Anthropologist" recounts the real-life experiences of anthropologists who are forced to acknowledge that their hosts in the field view them as gendered beings in a social context, not as asexual, objective observers. Far from controlling the research environment and defining the terms of interviewer-informant relationships, these researchers find they must engage in a process of negotiating their position - including their sexual position - within the communities they study. Ranging from public baths in Austria to lesbian bars in Taiwan and from Mexico to Nigeria to Finland to Japan, "Sex, Sexuality, and the Anthropologist" raises critical questions about ethnographers' reflexivity, subjectivity, and detachment, confronting the challenge of a holistic approach to the anthropological enterprise.
Fran Markowitz was born and raised in New York City, where she attended Hunter College High School during the 1960s. In the 1970s she studied at Binghamton University and completed a BA in the social sciences. After living several years in Atlanta, Fran went back north as a graduate student to the University of Michigan and in 1987 earned the PhD in Anthropology. She has been teaching anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva, Israel since 1992.
Fran Markowitz has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the U.S. (New York and Chicago), Israel, Russia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, thanks to grants from the National Institutes of Mental Health, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Bi-National US-Israel Science Foundation, and IREX. Her books combine full-bodied ethnography with story-telling and pithy analyses.
In her spare time Fran trims the bougainvillea in her garden, goes for long walks with her little dog Lulu, watches crime dramas, and cooks up a storm.
Stay tuned for her next book, Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope, forthcoming from University of Illinois Press!
