Thomas P. Gibson : Faculty & Staff : Department of Anthropology : University of Rochester

Professor Gibson received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. Before coming to Rochester, he taught at Manchester and Cambridge Universities. He has carried out fieldwork in the Philippines (1979-81, 1985) and Indonesia (1988, 1989, 2000, 2006), and library research in the Netherlands (1994). Support for his research was provided by a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and by a Fulbright Fellowship. His work on the Philippines was published in a series of articles and in a monograph, Sacrifice and Sharing in the Philippine Highlands: Religion and Society among the Buid of Mindoro (Athlone Press 1986). His work on Indonesia has appeared in a series of articles and in a series of monographs, the first two of which have appeared as And the Sun Pursued the Moon: Symbolic Knowledge and Traditional Authority Among the Makassar (Hawaii 2005) and Islamic Narrative and Authority in Southeast Asia from the 16th to the 21st Centuries (Palgrave 2007). A third monograph, Ritual and Self-Knowledge in Southeast Asia, will analyze the relationship between the twelve different models of the polity outlined in the first two volumes and the equally diverse models of the inner self embedded in life-cycle rituals. A final volume will contain annotated translations of the myths, oral epics and written chronicles that formed the basis for the analyses carried out in the first three monographs.

Curriculum Vitae

HIGHER EDUCATION

1983

Ph.D., Social Anthropology, London School of Economics

Dissertation: Religion, Kinship and Society Among the Buid of Mondoro, Philippines

1978

B.Sc., Social Anthropology with First Class Honours, London School of Economics

ACADEMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS

2005 - 2008 Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester 2001 - 2002 Visiting Fellow, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University 1995 - 2001 Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester

List of Current Courses

ANT 264: Islam and Global Politics

List of Past Courses

ANT 104: Contemporary Issues and Anthropology
ANT 202: Modern Social Theory: Key Texts and Issues
ANT 203: Ritual, Myth and Scripture

PUBLICATIONS

2007	Islamic Narrative and Authority in Southeast Asia from the 16th to the 21st Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Press
2005	And The Sun Pursued the Moon: Symbolic Knowledge and Traditional Authority Among The Makassar. University of Hawaii Press
1986	Sacrifice and Sharing in the Philippine Highlands: Religion and Society among the Buid of Mindoro. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No. 58 London: The Athlone Press

MONOGRAPHS IN PREPARATION

	Ritual and Self Knowledge in Southeast Asia. Manuscript completed.
	War and Peace in Southeast Asia. Manuscript completed.
	Narratives of Authority and Rebellion: Makassar Texts, Translations and Commentaries. In progress.

SELECTED ARTICLES

2005	“From humility to lordship in Island Southeast Asia.” In (eds) Thomas Widlok and Wolde Gossa Tadesse Property and Equality Volume II: Encapsulation, Commercialisation, Discrimination. New York: Berghahn Books.
2000	“Islam and the spirit cults in New Order Indonesia: global flows vs. local knowledge.” Indonesia 69: 41-70.
1995	“Having your house and eating it: houses and siblings in Ara, South Sulawesi.” In (eds) Janet Carsten and Stephen Hugh-Jones About the House: Buildings, Groups, and Categories in Holistic Perspective. Essays on an idea by C. Lévi-Strauss. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1994	“Childhood, colonialism and fieldwork among the Buid of the Philippines and the Konjo of Indonesia.” In (eds) Jeannine Koubi and Josiane Massard, Enfants et sociétés d’Asie du Sud-Est. Paris: L’Harmattan.
1994	“Ritual and revolution: contesting the state in central Indonesia.” In Social Analysis 35: 61-83.
1994	“Concluding reflections on units of analysis in the study of the official and the popular.” In Social Analysis 35: 157-164.
1990	“Raiding, trading and tribal autonomy in insular Southeast Asia.” In The Anthropology of War (ed) Jonathan Haas. New York: Cambridge University Press.
1989	“Collective ritual as a model for corporate economic activity among the Buid of Mindoro.” In Changing Lives, Changing Rites: Ritual and Social Dynamics in Philippine and Indonesian Uplands (eds) Susan D. Russell and Clark E. Cunningham. Michigan Studies of South and Southeast Asia, No. 1. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies.
1989	“Symbolic representations of tranquility and aggression among the Buid.” In Societies at Peace (eds) Roy Willis and Signe Howell. London: Routledge.
1988	“Meat sharing as political ritual: forms of transaction vs modes of subsistence.” In Hunters and Gatherers, Vol. II: Property, Power and Ideology (eds) T. Ingold, D. Riches and J. Woodburn. London: Berg Publishers.
1985	“The sharing of substance versus the sharing of activity among the Buid.” Man 20 (3): 391-411.

RESEARCH

My current research concerns the implications of end of the Cold War for relations between the developed "north" and Islamic "south".

1994 Archival research at the Royal Institute of Linguistics and Anthropology in Leiden and at the Royal Institute for the Tropics in Amsterdam on the relation between Dutch colonial policy and the development of religious nationalism in Indonesia, under a grant from the Fulbright Commission. 1988, 1989, 2000 Ethnographic fieldwork in Ara, a village in South Sulawesi, Indonesia on the anthropology of knowledge, ranging from boat building to ritual, myth and Islam. 1985 Archival research at the National Archives in Washington D.C. on American colonial policy toward tribal societies in the Philippines. 1979-1981, 1985 Ethnographic fieldwork among the Buid, a group of shifting cultivators in Mindoro, Philippines, on the political implications of ritual and material transactions.