publications

(For more details on my publications, see my CV.)

FILMS
Virtual Cultures in Pandemic Times (Bernard Drax, Director, 2022).

Our Digital Selves (74 minutes, Bernhard Drax, Director, 2018). Here is a link to a discussion I had in the virtual world Sansar with the filmmaker and several participants in the film. As noted below, I discuss this film in my article “Paraethnographic Film: Virtual Enactment and Collaboration in Our Digital Selves,” which includes this supplement which you may find useful if teaching the article.

BOOKS (INCLUDING EDITED VOLUMES)

Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie®. With Braxton Soderman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2024.

Tom Boellstorff and Bill Maurer, editors. Data, Now Bigger and Better! Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press (marketed and distributed by University of Chicago Press), 2015.

Jacinthe Mazzocchetti, Olivier Servais, Tom Boellstorff, and Bill Maurer, editors. Humanités Réticulaires: Nouvelles Technologies, Altérités et Pratiques Ethnographiques en Contextes Globalisés. Louvain-La-Neuve: Academia Bruylant, 2015.

Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. With Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T.L. Taylor. Foreword by George Marcus. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024 (originally published in 2012). One of my favorite reviews of this book was by Michael Fisch in American Ethnologist.

Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015 (originally published in 2008). The second edition of this book includes a new preface. Click here for a larger image of the book’s cover. Winner of the Media Ecology Association’s 2009 Dorothy Lee Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Culture; Honorable Mention for the 2008 PROSE Award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence in Media and Cultural Studies, Association of American Publishers. Some of my favorite reviews of this book include those by Marilyn Strathern in The European Legacy, David Robson in Nature, Paul Manning in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Debbora Battaglia in American Ethnologist, and Adi Kuntsman in Transformative Works and Cultures. This book has now also appeared in a French translation and a Polish translation.

A Coincidence of Desires: Anthropology, Queer Studies, Indonesia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. One of my favorite reviews of this book was by Deb Amory in American Ethnologist.

The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Winner of the 2005 Ruth Benedict Prize, Association for Queer Anthropology. Two of my favorite reviews of this book were by Ara Wilson in GLQ and by Keith Foulcher in Indonesia.

The Gay Archipelago has been translated into Indonesian and published in Indonesia by Q-Munity Press as The Gay Archipelago: Seksualitas dan Bangsa di Indonesia. With their kind permission, the book is here available as a free PDF (klik di sini untuk mendownload buku saya The Gay Archipelago versi PDF, gratis!).

Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language. William L. Leap and Tom Boellstorff, editors. University of Illinois Press, 2004.

RESEARCH ARTICLES, CHAPTERS, REVIEW ESSAYS, AFTERWORDS, AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
Note: The links provided will in most cases provide direct access. If you have a problem with access, please email me.

Paraethnographic Film: Virtual Enactment and Collaboration in Our Digital Selves. Visual Anthropology Review 37 (1): 8–30, 2021. This supplement, which you may find useful if teaching the article, includes three activities that might be of interest.

Rethinking Digital Anthropology (second edition). In Digital Anthropology, Second Edition, edited by Hannah Knox and Haidy Geismar, 44–62. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. In 2023 a wonderful German translation of this article appeared, which you can access here.

Migration, Non-Use, and the “Tumblrpocalypse”: Towards a Unified Theory of Digital Exodus. With Emory James Edwards. Media, Culture, and Society 43 (3): 582–592, 2021.

The Ability of Place: Digital Topographies of the Virtual Human on Ethnographia Island. Current Anthropology 61 (S21): S109-S122, 2020. This article has been reprinted in Spaces of Care. Loraine Gelsthorpe, Perveez Mody, and Brian Sloan, editors. Pp. 243–265. Bloomsbury (Hart Publishing), 2020.

Om Toleran Om: Four Indonesian Reflections on Digital Heterosexism. Media, Culture, and Society 42 (1): 7–24, 2019.

Introduction: Media, Culture, and Change across the Pacific. With Heather A. Horst. Media, Culture, and Society 41 (8), ahead of print, 2019.

Intellivision in the Archive. Play Stuff Blog, the Strong National Museum of Play, 2019.

The Opportunity to Contribute: Disability and the Digital Entrepreneur. Information, Communication, & Society 22 (4): 474–90, 2019.

The Impact of Mobile Devices on Indonesian Men’s Sexual Communication. With Dédé Oetomo, Kandi Aryani Suwito, and Khanis Suvianita. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Social and Political Affairs, Vol 1: ICoCSPA, 167–172. Surabaya, East Java, Indonesia, 2018.

Sexualities 2038. Sexualities 21 (8): 1385–88, 2018.

Transplatform: Culture, Context, and the Intellivision/Atari VCS Rivalry. With Braxton Soderman. Games & Culture 14 (6): 680–703, 2019.

Beyond the Spectrum: Rethinking Autism. With Heather Thomas. Disability Studies Quarterly 37(1), 2017 (online publication, no page numbers).

Zuckerberg and the Anthropologist: Facebook, Culture, Digital Futures. Culture Digitally, February 27, 2017 (online publication, no page numbers).

Race, Ethnicity, and Our Digital Futures: An Afterword. In Race and Ethnicity in Digital Culture: Our Changing Traditions, Impressions, and Expressions in a Mediated World. Anthony Bak Buccitelli, editor. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger Books. Pp. 371–376.

Preface. In Sexuality and Gender at Home: Experience, Politics, Transgression. Brent Pilkey, Rachael M. Scicluna, Ben Campkin, and Barbara Penner, editors. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Pp. xiv–xvii, 2017.

The View from Lookout Mountain. Culture Digitally, November 10, 2016 (online publication, no page numbers)

For Whom the Ontology Turns: Theorizing the Digital Real. Current Anthropology 57(4):387–407, 2016.

Epilogue. In Mapping Feminist Anthropology in the Twenty-First Century. Ellen Lewin and Leni M. Silverstein, editors. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Pp. 276–284, 2016.

Isochronism as Analytic: Reflections on Rabinow’s Contemporary. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 6(1):377–381, 2016.

Health Care Experiences and Perceptions among People with and without Disabilities. With Heather F. de Vries McClintock, Frances K. Barg, Sam P. Katz, Margaret G. Stineman, Alice Krueger, Patrice M. Colletti, and Hillary R. Bogner. Disability & Health Journal 9(1):74–82, 2016.

Compulsive Creativity: Virtual Worlds, Disability, and Digital Capital. With Donna Z. Davis. International Journal of Communication 10:2096–2118, 2016.

Against State Straightism: Five Principles for Including LGBT Indonesians. E-International Relations, 2016. This article has been translated into Indonesian.

The Digital That Will Be. Part of the series “Digital Ontology” (Hannah Knox and Antonia Walford, editors). Fieldsights—Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology Online, 2016.

Three Real Futures for Virtual Worlds. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 8(2):1–5, 2015.

Audience, Genre, Method, Theory. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 5(2):391–397, 2015.

Queer Futures. Theorizing the Contemporary, Cultural Anthropology Online, 2015. I coedited this special issue with Cymene Howe, coauthored the introduction, “The Production and Reproduction of Queer Anthropology,” with Naisargi N. Dave, and wrote the article “Emergent Coherences.”

Afterword: Reflections on Sexual Rights, Politics, and Sexuality Studies in Indonesia. With Dédé Oetomo. In Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia: Sexual Politics, Health, Diversity and Representations. Linda Rae Bennett and Sharyn Graham Davies, editors. London: Routledge. Pp. 307–317, 2015. In 2018 this appeared in an Indonesian translation.

Decolonizing Transgender: A Roundtable Discussion. With Mauro Cabral, Micha Cárdenas, Trystan Cotten, Eric A. Stanley, Kalaniopua Young, and Aren Z. Aizura. Transgender Studies Quarterly 1(3):419–439, 2014.

Seeing Like a Queer City. In Queer Cities, Queer Cultures. Matt Cook and Jennifer V. Evans, editors. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Pp. 282–291, 2014.

Lessons from the Notion of “Moral Terrorism.” In Feelings at the Margins: Dealing with Violence, Stigma, and Isolation in Indonesia. Thomas Stodulka and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler, editors. Thomas Stodulka and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler, editors. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag. Pp. 148–158, 2014.

Botanical Decolonization: Rethinking Native Plants. With Tomaz Mastnak and Julia Elyachar. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32(2):363–380, 2014.

Trending Ethnography: Notes on Import, Prediction, and Digital Culture. Culture Digitally, January 27, 2014 (online publication, no page numbers).

Satan at the Center and Double Rhizomes: Discussing Spheres and beyond with Peter Sloterdijk. Los Angeles Review of Books, January 14, 2014 (online publication, no page numbers).

An Afterword in Four Binarisms. In The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. Mark Grimshaw, editor. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 739–745, 2014.

Making Big Data, in Theory. First Monday 18(10), 2013 (online publication, no page numbers). This article has been translated into German.

Words with Friends: Writing Collaboratively Online. With Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T.L. Taylor. ACM Interactions 20(5):58–61, 2013.

Final report: Landscaping Mobile Social Media and Mobile Payments in Indonesia, 2013.

Digital Anthropology. In Oxford Bibliographies in Anthropology. John Jackson, editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.

Foreword to Virtual Environments and Cultures (Urte Undine Frömming, editor; Peter Lang), pp. 17–20, 2013.

Rethinking Digital Anthropology. In Digital Anthropology. Heather A. Horst and Daniel Miller, editors. Pp. 39–60. London: Berg, 2012.

Some Notes on New Frontiers of Sexuality and Globalisation. In Understanding Global Sexualities: New Frontiers. Peter Aggleton, Paul Boyce, Henrietta Moore, and Richard Parker, editors. Pp. 171–185. London: Routledge, 2012.

Afterword: Consuming the Digital. In The Routledge Companion to Digital Consumption. Russell W. Belk and Rosa Llamas, editors. Pp, 415-420. London: Routledge, 2012.

An Afterword in Three Postcards. In The Immersive Internet: Reflections on the Entangling of the Virtual with Society, Politics and the Economy. Pp. 247–252. Dominic Power and Robin Tiegland, editors. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The Politics of Similitude: Global Sexuality Activism, Ethnography, and the Western Subject. Transcriptions 2:22–39, 2012.

But Do Not Identify As Gay: A Proleptic Genealogy of the MSM Category. Cultural Anthropology 26(2):287–312, 2011.

Placing the Virtual Body: Avatar, Chora, Cypherg. In A Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment. Frances E. Mascia-Lees, Editor. Pp. 504–520. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Afterword: Virtual Worlds and the Research Question. In Creating Second Lives: Reading and Writing Virtual Communities. Astrid Ensslin and Eben Muse, editors. Pp. 212–217. London: Routledge, 2011.

Queer Techne. In Queer Methods and Methodologies: Intersecting Queer Theories and Social Science Research. Kath Browne and Catherine J. Nash, editors. Pp. 215–230. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2010.

Culture of the Cloud. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 2(5):3–9, 2010.

A Typology of Ethnographic Scales for Virtual Worlds. In Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. William Sims Bainbridge, editor. Pp. 123–134. London: Springer, 2009.

Virtual Worlds and Futures of Anthropology. AnthroNotes, the Museum of Natural History Publication for Educators 30(1):1–5, 2009. This article has been reprinted in Explorations in Cultural Anthropology. Colleen Boyd and Luke Eric Lassiter, editors. Pp. 387–393. Altamira Press, 2011. This article has been translated into Danish.

Figures of Indonesian Modernity. With Joshua Barker, Johan Lindquist, Chris Brown, Aryo Danusiri, Dadi Darmadi, Sheri Gibbings, Jesse Grayman, James Hoesterey, Carla Jones, Doreen Lee, Daromir Rudnyckyj, Rachel Silvey, and Karen Strassler. Indonesia 87:35–72, 2009.

Nuri’s Testimony: HIV/AIDS in Indonesia and Bare Knowledge. American Ethnologist 36(2):351–363, 2009.

Method and the Virtual: Anecdote, Analogy, Culture. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research 1(3):4–7, 2009.

Crafty Knowledges. PoLAR: The Political and Legal Anthropology Review 31(1):96–101, 2008.

Queer Studies in the House of Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 36:17–35, 2007.

When Marriage Falls: Queer Coincidences in Straight Time. GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 13(2/3):227–248, 2007.

Gay dan Lesbian Indonesia dan Gagasan Nasionalisme (Indonesian translation and reprint of Gay and Lesbian Indonesians, and the Idea of the Nation). Antropologi Indonesia (the flagship anthropology journal in Indonesia) 30(1):1–6, 2007.

From West Indies to East Indies: Archipelagic Interchanges. Anthropological Forum 16(3):229–240, 2006.

East Indies/West Indies: Comparative Archipelagoes. With David Murray and Kathryn Robinson. Anthropological Forum 16(3):219–227, 2006.

Domesticating Islam: Sexuality, Gender, and the Limits of Pluralism. Law and Social Inquiry 31(4):1035–1053, 2006.

Gay and Lesbian Indonesians, and the Idea of the Nation. Social Analysis 50(1):158–163, 2006. This article has been reprinted in Identifying with Freedom: Indonesia after Suharto. Tony Day, editor. Pp. 19–27. Berghahn Books, 2007.

Queer Studies under Ethnography’s Sign. GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 12(4):627–639, 2006.

A Ludicrous Discipline? Ethnography and Game Studies. Games and Culture 1(1):29–35, 2006.

Between Religion and Desire: Being Muslim and Gay in Indonesia. American Anthropologist 107(4):575–585, 2005. This article has been reprinted in Sexualities in Anthropology: A Reader, edited by Andrew P. Lyons and Harriet D. Lyons, Blackwell (2011), Religion and LGBTQ Sexualities: Critical Essays, edited by Stephen Hunt, Ashgate (2015), and Gender and Sexuality in Islam, edited by Omnia El Shakry, Routledge (2016). This article also appeared in Indonesian translation in Jurnal Gandrung 1(1):67–108, 2010; you can access the translated article here.

Playing Back the Nation: Waria, Indonesian Transvestites. Cultural Anthropology 19(2):159–195, 2004.

Zines and Zones of Desire: Mass Mediated Love, National Romance, and Sexual Citizenship in Gay Indonesia. Journal of Asian Studies 63(2):367–402, 2004. This article has been reprinted in Media, Erotics, and Transnational Asia, edited by Purnima Mankekar and Louisa Schein, Duke University Press (2012).

Gay Language and Indonesia: Registering Belonging. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 14(2):248–268, 2004.

The Emergence of Political Homophobia in Indonesia: Masculinity and National Belonging. Ethnos 69(4):465–486, 2004. This article has been reprinted in Homophobias: Lust and Loathing across Time and Space, edited by David Murray, Duke University Press (2009). This book received the edited volume Ruth Benedict Prize in 2010 from the Association for Queer Anthropology.

Bodies of Emotion: Rethinking Culture and Emotion through Southeast Asia. With Johan Lindquist. Ethnos 69(4):437–444, 2004.

Dubbing Culture: Indonesian Gay and Lesbi Subjectivities and Ethnography in an Already Globalized World. American Ethnologist 30(2):225–242, 2003. This article has been reprinted in The Anthropology of Globalization, Second Edition, edited by Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, Blackwell (2007, pp. 303-333), and in Cosmopatriots: Globalization, Patriotism, and Cosmopolitanism in Contemporary Asian Culture, edited by Jeroen de Kloet and Edwin Jurriëns, Rodopi (2008, pp. 41-73).

“Authentic, of Course!” Gay Language in Indonesia and Cultures of Belonging. In Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language. William L. Leap and Tom Boellstorff, editors. Pp. 181–201. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

Introduction: Globalization and “New” Articulations of Same-sex Desire. In Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language. William L. Leap and Tom Boellstorff, editors. Pp. 1–21. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004.

I Knew It Was Me: Mass Media, “Globalization,” and Lesbian and Gay Indonesians. In Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia. Audrey Yue, Fran Martin and Chris Berry, editors. Pp. 21–51. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Ethnolocality. Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 3(1):24–48, 2002.

Gay and Lesbi Subjectivities, National Belonging, and the New Indonesia. In Women in Indonesia: Gender, Equity and Development. Kathryn Robinson and Sharon Bessel, editors. Pp. 92–99. Singapore: Institute for Southeast Asia Studies Press, 2002.

A New Archipelago Concept for the Era Reformasi? Anthropologi Indonesia 63:109–116, 2000.

The Perfect Path: Gay Men, Marriage, Indonesia. GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 5(4):475–510, 1999. This article has been reprinted in Postcolonial and Queer Theories: Intersections and Essays, edited by John C. Hawley, Greenwood Press (2001, 19-46), and in Queer Studies: an Interdisciplinary Reader, edited by Robert Corber and Steve Valocchi, Blackwell (2002, 218-236).

Queer Science Indeed. With Lawrence Cohen. Scientific American 277(4):113–115.

EDITED JOURNAL ISSUES
American Anthropologist, Volumes 110 through 114 (2007–2012).

Virtual Issue: The Anthropology of Language (first ever virtual issue of American Anthropologist), first published June 2011.

The Researcher’s Toolbox, Part I. Tom Boellstorff, Celia Pearce, Dmitri Williams, Thomas Malaby, Elizabeth Dean, and Tracy Tuten, editors. Theme issue of Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (Volume 3, Number 1, 2010).

East Indies/West Indies: Comparative Archipelagos. Tom Boellstorff, Kathryn Robinson, and David Murray, editors. Theme issue of Anthropological Forum (Volume 16, Number 3, November 2006).

Bodies of Emotion. Tom Boellstorff and Johan Lindquist, editors. Theme issue of Ethnos (Volume 69, Number 4, December 2004).

“FROM THE EDITOR” ESSAYS
From June 2007–June 2012, I was Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. As part of this work, I wrote “From the Editor” essays that touched on some topic of broad interest to anthropologists.

Anatomy of an Article: The Peer-Review Process as Method. With Neha Vora. American Anthropologist 114(4):578–582, 2012.

Editorship, Value, and American Anthropology. American Anthropologist 114(4):567–570, 2012.

Why the AAA Needs Gold Open Access. American Anthropologist 114(3):389–393, 2012.

Anthropologies and Americas. American Anthropologist 114(2):181–183, 2012.

Visions of Government Funding for American Anthropology. American Anthropologist 114(1):1–4, 2012.

Three Comments on Anthropology and Science. American Anthropologist 113(4):541–544, 2011.

Submission and Acceptance: Where, Why, and How to Publish Your Article. American Anthropologist 113(3):383–388, 2011. This article has been reprinted in How to Get Published in Anthropology: A Guide for Students and Young Professionals. Jason E. Miller and Oona Schmid, editors. Pp. 38–48. Altamira Press, 2011.

Publishing and Publics. American Anthropologist 113(3):381–382, 2011.

Editor, Writer, Teacher, Colleague. American Anthropologist 113(2):197–199, 2011.

An Open Letter to the Search Committee: Three Tips for Choosing the New Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist. American Anthropologist 113(1):1–3, 2011.

Journals, Genre, and Value. American Anthropologist 112(4):509–511, 2010.

How to Get an Article Accepted at American Anthropologist (or Anywhere), Part 2. American Anthropologist 112(3):353–356, 2010.

Field Work. American Anthropologist 112(2):177–179, 2010.

Three Tips for Making Peer Review Work for You. American Anthropologist 112(1):1–4, 2010.

Crisis. American Anthropologist 111(4):405–406, 2009.

The Next Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist Is… American Anthropologist 111(3):263–265, 2009.

Review. American Anthropologist 111(2):131–133, 2009.

Access. American Anthropologist 111(1):1–4, 2009.

Acceptance and Rejection. American Anthropologist 110(4):409–411, 2008.

How to Get an Article Accepted at American Anthropologist (or Anywhere). American Anthropologist 110(3):281–283, 2008.

Intersections and Conversations. American Anthropologist 110(2):169–170, 2008.

Anthropological Innovations. American Anthropologist 110(1):1–3, 2008.

SELECTED SINGLE-BOOK ESSAYS AND COMMENTARIES
Here are a few of my single-book essays and commentaries that touch on larger themes that may be of general interest. For a full listing of my single-book essays and commentaries, see my CV.

Human No More: Digital Subjectivities, Unhuman Subjects, and the End of Anthropology. Comparative Studies in Society and History 56(2):539–541, 2014.

Cultural Travel and Migrancy: The Artistic Representation of Globalization in the Electronic Media of West Java. American Anthropologist 108(4):881–882, 2006.

Death of the Father: An Anthropology of the End in Political Authority. POLAR (Political and Legal Anthropology Review) 29(1):151–153, 2006.

Remembering Anthropology’s Sexuality. Current Anthropology 47(2):397–398, 2006.

Diagnosing Difference: Anthropology’s Heteronormativity. American Ethnologist 32(1):37–38, 2005.

Out in Theory: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Anthropology. American Anthropologist 107(1):155–156, 2005.

The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. American Anthropologist 105(2):422–423, 2003.

Genders and Sexualities in Modern Thailand. American Ethnologist 28(2):492–493, 2001.