Academic Essays

Here you will find formal academic works spanning research articles, commentaries, and book reviews. Material is grouped accordingly to facilitate browsing. See the Public Anthropology page for more accessible, public-oriented writing and media meant for a broader audience.

Research articles

  • “Emergency Rooms.” In Difficult Attachments: Anxieties of Kinship and Care, Edited by Kathryn E. Goldfarb, Sandra Bamford, Rutgers University Press, 2024.

  • “The Sovereignty of Vulnerability.” In Sovereignty Unhinged: An Illustrated Primer for the Study of Present Intensities, Disavowals, and Temporal Derangements, Edited by Deborah A. Thomas, Joseph Masco, Duke University Press, 2023.

  • “Becoming an Operating System: Disability, Difference, and the Ethics of Communication in the United States.” In American Ethnologist, 2021: 139-152.

  • “Proximity to Disability.” In Anthropological Quarterly, 2020: 1453-1481.

  • “Unpacking a National Heroine: Two Kartinis and Their People.” In Appropriating Kartini: Colonial, National, and Transnational Memories of an Indonesian Icon, Edited by Paul Bijl, Grace Chin, ISEAS-Yusuf Ishak Institute, 2020.

  • “How Structuralism Matters.” In Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2016: 61-77.

  • “Demonstrating the Stone Age in Dutch New Guinea.” In From Stone Age to Real Time: Exploring Papuan Temporalities, Mobilities, and Religiosities, Edited by Jenny Munro, Martin Slama, Australian National University Press, 2015.

  • “Kinship and Catastrophe: Global Warming and the Rhetoric of Descent.” In Vital Relations: Modernity and the Persistent Life of Kinship, Edited by Fenella Cannell, Susan McKinnon, SAR Press, 2013.

  • “Living, As It Were, in the Stone Age.” In Indonesia, 2013.

  • “Kinky Empiricism.” In Cultural Anthropology, 2012: 465-79.

  • “Position Paper in The Learning of Mind: How Do You Figure Out What a Mind Is? Play, Creativity, Fiction, and Fantasy. Toward a Theory of Mind.” In Suomen Journal of the Finnish Anthropological Institute, Edited by Tanya Marie Luhrmann, 2011: 39-41.

  • “Laughing at Leviathan: John Furnivall, Dutch New Guinea, and the Ridiculousness of Colonial Rule.” In Clio/Anthropos: Exploring the Boundaries between Anthropology and History, Edited by Andrew Willford, Eric Tagliacozzo, Stanford University Press, 2009: 50-87.

  • “Sympathy, State-building, and the Experience of Empire.” In Cultural Anthropology, 2009: 1-32.

  • “The Enchantments of Secular Belief.” In Religion and Culture Web Forum, University of Chicago Divinity School, Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, 2008.

  • “Why Papua Wants Freedom: The Third Person in Contemporary Nationalism.” In Public Culture, 2008: 361-89.

  • “Der Tanz, Durkheim und das Freimde: Eine Rückkehr zum Comeback der Tradition in Biak (Dance, Durkheim, and the Foreign: Revisiting the Revival of Tradition in Biak).” In Tanz als Anthropologie, Edited by Gabriele Brandstetter, Christoph Wulf, Wilhelm Fink, 2007.

  • “Nationalism and Millenarianism in West Papua: Institutional Power, Interpretive Practice, and the Pursuit of Christian Truth.” In The Limits of Meaning: Case Studies in the Anthropology of Christianity, Edited by Matthew Engelke, Matthew Tomlinson, Berghahn Books, 2006.

  • “The Bible Meets the Idol: Writing and Conversion in Biak.” In The Anthropology of Christianity, Edited by Fenella Cannell, Duke University Press, 2006.

  • “Frontiers of the Lingua Franca: Ideologies of the Linguistic Contact Zone in Dutch New Guinea.” In Ethnos, 2005: 387-412.

  • “Nationalism and Millenarianism in West Papua: Institutional Power, Interpretive Practice, and the Pursuit of Christian Truth.” In Social Movements: An Anthropological Reader, Edited by June Nash, Blackwell, 2005: 146-168.

  • “Laughing at Leviathan: John Furnivall, Dutch New Guinea, and the Ridiculousness of Colonial Rule.” In Southeast Asia over Three Generations, Edited by James T. Siegel, Audrey Kahin, Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2003: 27-46.

  • Rutherford, Danilyn and Mote, Octovianus “From Irian Jaya to Papua: The Limits of Primordialism in Indonesia’s Troubled East.” In Indonesia, 2001: 115-140.

  • “Intimacy and Alienation: Money and the Foreign in Biak.” In Public Culture, 2001: 299-32.

  • “The Foreignness of Power: Alterity and Subversion in Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony” and Beyond.” In Modernism/Modernity, 2001: 303-313.

  • “Waiting for the End in Biak: Violence, Order, and a Flag Raising.” In Violence and the State in Indonesia, Edited by Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2001: 189-212.

  • “The White Edge of the Margin: Textuality and Authority in Biak, Irian Jaya, Indonesia.” In American Ethnologist, 1999: 312-339.

  • “Fishing for the Foreign: A Magical Practice from Biak.” In Irian Jaya: Religion and Ritual. Indonesian Heritage, Edited by James J. Fox, Didier Millet, 1998: 94-95.

  • “Irian Jaya: Wor.” In Indonesian Languages and Literature, Indonesian Heritage, Edited by John McGlynn, Goenawan Mohamad, Didier Millet, 1998: 58-59.

  • “Love, Violence, and Foreign Wealth: Kinship and History in Biak, Irian Jaya.” In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1998: 257-81.

  • “Trekking to New Guinea: Dutch Colonial Fantasies of a Virgin Land 1900-1940.” In Domesticating the Empire: Race, Gender and Family Life in French and Dutch Colonialism, Edited by Frances Gouda, Julia Clancy-Smith, University of Virginia Press, 1998: 255-271.

  • “Waiting for the End in Biak: Violence, Order, and a Flag Raising.” In Indonesia, 1998: 39-59.

  • “Music of Biak, Irian Jaya: Wor, Church Songs, Yospan.” In Music of Indonesia, Edited by Philip Yampolsky, Smithsonian Institute/Folkways Records, 1996.

  • “Of Birds and Gifts: Reviving Tradition on an Indonesian Frontier.” In Cultural Anthropology, 1996: 577-616.

  • “Unpacking a National Heroine: Two Kartinis and Their People.” In Indonesia, 1993: 23-41.

Commentaries

  • “The Price of Wealth: Scarcity and Abundance in an Unequal World.” In Current Anthropology, 2025.

  • Rutherford, Danilyn and Prince, Jordi Armani Rivera “Writing in Community: Relationship Building and Accountability in Knowledge Production.” In American Anthropologist, 2025: 1–20.

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  • “Cultures of Fermentation: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 24.” In Current Anthropology, 2021: S193–S206.

  • “Engaged Anthropology.” In Handbook to Cultural Anthropology, Edited by Lisa Cliggett, Lene Pedersen, SAGE Publications, 2021.

  • “Towards an Anthropological Understanding of Masculinity, Maleness, and Violence: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 23.” In Current Anthropology, 2021: S1–S4.

  • “Disability Worlds: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 21.” In Current Anthropology, 2020.

  • “Funding Anthropological Research in the Age of Covid-19.” In American Ethnologist Website, Edited by Veena Das, Naveeda Khan, 2020.

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  • “Cultures of Militarism: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 19.” In Current Anthropology, 2019: S1–S2.

  • “Patchy Anthropocene: Frenzies and Afterlives of Violent Simplifications: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 20.” In Current Anthropology, 2019: S183–S185.

  • “The Benefits of Modesty.” In Brain and Behavioral Sciences, 2019.

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  • “Empiricism.” In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Edited by Hilary Callan, Wiley-Blackwell, 2018.

  • “The Anthropology of Corruption: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 18.” In Current Anthropology, 2018: S1–S3.

  • “Human Colonization of Asia in the Late Pleistocene: Wenner-Gren Symposium Supplement 17.” In Current Anthropology, 2017: S371–S372.

  • “Affect Theory and the Empirical.” In Annual Review of Anthropology, 2016: 18.1–18.16.

  • “The Art of Noticing.” In SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2016: 575–621.

  • “Introduction: About Time.” In Anthropological Quarterly, 2015: 241–250.

  • “Real Food.” In Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2015: 541–546.

  • “Both Places at Once.” In Producing Indonesia: The State of the Field of Indonesian Studies, Edited by Eric Tagliacozzo, Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2014.

  • “Affect: Provocation.” In Cultural Anthropology Online, 2013.

  • “Commentary: What Affect Produces.” In American Ethnologist, 2012: 688–691.

  • “In Defense of Ambivalence.” In Michigan Discussions in Anthropology, 2010.

  • “Kinship, Capital, and the Unsettling of Assumptions: Contemporary Anthropology and the Study of Family Enterprise and Entrepreneurship.” In Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence, and Growth, Edited by Alex Stewart, Emerald Group Publishing, 2010: 277–283.

  • “An Absence of Belief?.” In The Immanent Frame: Secularism, Religion, and the Public Sphere, SSRC, 2009.

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  • “Viewing Areas: A Review Essay.” In Indonesia, 2004: 181–187.

  • “Ethnography without Culture? Modernity and Marginality in the Anthropology of Indonesia.” In Reviews in Anthropology, 2003: 91–108.

  • “After Syncretism: The Anthropology of Islam and Christianity in Southeast Asia.” In Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2002: 196–205.

  • “Remembering Sam Kapissa.” In Inside Indonesia, 2001.

Reviews

  • “Review of Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp, Disability Worlds.” In Reviews in Anthropology, 2024.

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  • “Review of Sophie Chao, In the Shadow of the Palms: More-than-Human Becomings in West Papua.” In Journal of Asian Studies, 2024: 198–200.

  • “Review of Rudolf Mrazek, The Complete Lives of Camp People: Colonialism, Fascism, Concentrated Modernity.” In SOJOURN: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 2021: 550–552.

  • “Review of Mary Margaret Steedly, Rifle Reports: A Story of Indonesian Independence.” In PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 2014.

  • “Review of Pieter Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice: Decolonization and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua.” In Indonesia, 2010: 173–184.

  • “Review of Tanya Murray Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics.” In Pacific Affairs, 2010.

  • “Review of Elizabeth Povinelli, The Empire of Love: Towards a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality.” In Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2008: 709–710.

  • “Review of Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Sumatran Sultanate and Colonial State: Jambi and the Rise of Dutch Imperialism, 1830–1907.” In Journal of Asian History, 2006: 111–113.

  • “Review of Gregory Forth, ed., Guardians of the Land: Louis Fontijne’s Study of a Colonial District in Eastern Indonesia.” In Indonesia, 2006: 141–145.

  • “Review of Tom Boellstorff, The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia.” In Nations and Nationalism, 2006: 172–174.

  • “Review of Clive Moore, New Guinea: Crossing Boundaries and History.” In Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2005: 136–138.

  • “Review of Webb Keane, Signs of Recognition: Powers and Hazards of Representation in an Indonesian Society.” In Indonesia, 1998: 197–203.

  • “Review of Frances Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942.” In American Anthropologist, 1997: 28–29.

  • “Review of R. H. Barnes, Sea Hunters of Indonesia.” In Indonesia, 1997: 149–152.

  • “Review of Adrian Vickers, ed., Being Modern in Bali.” In Indonesia, 1996: 125–131.

  • “Review of Julie Wheelwright, Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage.” In Antara Kita, 1994: 15–18.
Danilyn Rutherford