Bilinda Straight is a Cultural Anthropologist (Ph.D in Anthropology and Graduate Certificate in Women's Studies, 1997, University of Michigan; M.A. in Anthropology, 1990, University of Michigan; B.A. in Women's Studies and English Literature, summa cum laude, 1987, Lake Erie College).  She works with Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya on issues relating to gender, sexuality, inter-ethnic violence, religion, and material culture. Her first book, Miracles and Extraordinary Experience in Northern Kenya (In Press, University of Pennsylvania Press), critically engages the phenomenological approach within anthropology and anthropology's "sensuous turn" through Samburu miracles and extraordinary experiences. Her second book (in progress), Histories of Sensuous Encounter in Northern Kenya (working title) examines visual and textual representations and experiential understandings of Samburu adornment and sexuality from 1884 to the present. Her recent work on ethnic violence in northern Kenya (based on primary research generously funded by National Science Foundation Grant #0413431) merges a micropolitical approach focused on the gendered dimensions of violence as a cultural form with a critical analysis that both emphasizes and challenges the explanatory power of 'culture' in shaping ethnic conflict.
 
1001 Moore Hall
Departments of Anthropology, and Gender & Women's Studies
Western Michigan University   (email:  Bilinda.Straight@wmich.edu)         
Kalamazoo, MI 49008 (tel: 269-387-0409) ON LEAVE Jan - Dec 2008