University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Southeast Asian Studies

Katherine Bowie (PhD University of Chicago 1988) is Professor of Anthropology and current Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Professor Bowie previously served as the Center Director from 2001 to 2002. She has conducted extensive research in Thailand for over 30 years. Combining oral histories, participant-observation and interviews with archival sources, her work explores Thai peasant history, political economy, and social movements. Her current research focusses on gender and religion. She teaches courses on cultural anthropology, political anthropology, historical anthropology, Theravada Buddhism and mainland Southeast Asian societies. She has served as a Fulbright Scholar and as an Eisenhower Fellow, both in Thailand. She is Past-President of the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (MCAA) and an active member of the Council of Thai Studies (COTS).
For more information please visit Professor Bowie's Department of Anthropology homepage.

Courses Recently Taught:
     Anthro 330: Peoples and Cultures of Mainland Southeast
     Asia Anthro 350: Political Anthropology
     Anthro 424: History and Anthropology
     Anthro 490: Anthropological Approaches to Theravada Buddhism
     Anthro 690: Women and Buddhism
     Anthro 860: Fundamentals of Social Theory
     Anthro 940 Anthropology of the State
     Anthro 940: Gender and Politics

Selected Publications:

Rituals of National Loyalty book cover image

▪2011. “Polluted Identities: Ethnic Diversity and the Constitution of Northern Thai Beliefs on Gender.” Southeast Asian Historiography, Unravelling the Myths: Essays in honour of Barend Jan Terweil. Edited by Volker Grabowsky. River Books Press. Pp. 112-127.

▪2010. “Women’s Suffrage in Thailand: A Southeast Asian Historiographical Challenge.” Comparative Studies in Society and History. Volume 52 /4 (December): 708 -741.

▪2008. “Vote Buying and Village Outrage in an Election in Northern Thailand: Recent Legal Reforms in Historical Context.” Journal of Asian Studies. 67/2 (May):469-511.

▪2008. “Standing in the Shadows: Of Matrilocality and the Role of Women in a Village Election in Northern Thailand.” American Ethnologist. 35/1: 136-153.

▪2006. "Of Corvee and Slavery: Historical Intricacies of the Division of Labor and State Power in Northern Thailand." Labor in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Society of Economic Anthropology Monograph Series Volume 22. Edited by E. Paul Durrenberger and Judith E. Marti. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Pp. 245-264.

▪2005. "The State and the Right Wing: The Village Scout Movement in Thailand.” In Social Movements: An Anthropological Reader. Edited by June Nash. Blackwell Press. Pp. 46-65.

▪2000. "Ethnic Heterogeneity and Elephants in Nineteenth Century Lanna Statecraft." Civility and Savagery: Social Identity in Tai States. Edited by Andrew Turton. London: Curzon Press. pp.330-348.

▪1998. Voices from the Thai Countryside: The Necklace and Other Short Stories of Samruam Singh. Revised edition. Edited and translated by Katherine A. Bowie. Madison, Wisconsin: Center of Southeast Asia Publication Series. Monograph #17.

▪1998. "The Alchemy of Charity: Of Class and Buddhism in Northern Thailand." American Anthropologist. 100/2: 469-481.

▪1997. Rituals of National Loyalty: An Anthropology of the State and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand. New York: Columbia University Press.

▪1996. "Slavery in Nineteenth Century Northern Thailand: Archival Anecdotes and Village Voices." In State Power and Culture in Thailand, E. Paul Durrenberger, eds. Yale University Southeast Asia Monograph #44. Pp. 100-138.

▪1993. "Cloth and the Fabric of Northern Thai Society in the Nineteenth Century: From Peasants in Cotton to Lords in Silks." American Ethnologist, 20/1 (February): 138-158.

▪1992. "Unraveling the Myth of the Subsistence Economy: The Case of Textile Production in Nineteenth Century Northern Thailand." Journal of Asian Studies. 51/4 (November): 797-823.

		Center For Southeast Asian Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison