Gatty Lecture Series

Join us for a talk by Emi Donald from Cornell University, who will discuss the distinction between tomboy and transman identities in Thailand. Emi Donald is a PhD candidate in History Department at Cornell University.

This Gatty Lecture will take place at the The Kahin Center, 640 Stewart Ave. Lunch will be served. For questions, contact seapgatty@cornell.edu.

About the Talk

This talk will explore and analyze how tomboy (thom in Thai) and transman came to constitute two distinct but bounded modes of embodiment in contemporary Thailand. From the mid-2000s onwards, Thai transmen gained wider social recognition, partly, I argue, by publicly distinguishing themselves from the older idea of thom. For many outspoken transmen celebrities and activists in Thailand, thom was too closely associated with women who “dress as men” but do not desire or strive for the kinds of bodily and social transitions that these high-profile transmen pursued. The distinction hinged upon the body and an individual’s desire or capacity to put the body through changes, particularly hormonal and surgical changes. Produced and circulated through different kinds of knowledge, such as memoir, guidebooks, activist and public health literature, celebrity interviews, as well as academic scholarship, thom and transman were newly defined in the 2010s as not just distinct identities or philosophies of self, but as fundamentally different bodies, different material modes of inhabiting and knowing the body. As distinct as these bodies were and remain, however, they often travel together, bound up in the narratives of life and discovery that people tell about themselves. I describe this conceptual copresence as the (un)binding relationship between thom and trans bodies; thom and transman are bound to each other in experience and personal history but also repel each other according to newly founded modes of knowing the body.

About the Speaker

Emi Donald is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Cornell University. Their dissertation traces the historical foundations of Thailand’s contemporary LGBTQ+ movement by focusing on the public representation, activist agendas, and life stories of Thai thom (tomboys), women-loving-women feminists, and transmen. Donald also writes and teaches on topics related to colonial and nationalist regimes of gender and sexuality, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements in Asia, and public history and archival praxis in the Global South.

Talk by Abdul Haque Chang (Social Sciences, Institute of Business Administration, Karachi)

This talk shows how in Sindh, the state of environmental exception has become the norm for governance (as in Agamben's formulation regarding the suspension of law). Specifically, this state of exception refers to a situation where necessity takes precedence over the law, resulting in a gap in the legal system. As a result, a zone of indistinction exists where environmental exception has become Pakistan's governance paradigm in Sindh. Through ethnographic experiences from the Indus Delta, coastal areas of Sindh, urban housing projects, and the land acquisition of Indigenous inhabitants by housing tycoons, this study illustrates how ecological martyrdom is occurring in Sindh due to environmental exception. This study demonstrates how the debates surrounding man-made and nature-based climate change should be located within the broader context of state governance policies in Pakistan, particularly regarding their effects on Sindh. The discussion highlights how the experiences and histories of local communities, along with the processes of urban development in Karachi and Sindh, have impacted specific populations in the pursuit of creating a utopian urban infrastructure that benefits other populations in Pakistan.

Abdul Haque Chang is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) in Karachi, Pakistan. His ethnographic research focuses on religion, Sufism, music, and environmental anthropology in Sindh, Pakistan, and Java, Indonesia. He is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the concept of "environmental exception" in Sindh, specifically regarding the practice of sacrifice in the context of environmental degradation. Chang has conducted ethnographic research on Sufi music in Sindh, particularly on Shah Jo Raag, a Sufi musical tradition. He studies Javanese Sufism in Indonesia through his project "Jathilan: Performativity and the (Re)Production of Javanese Sacrality." This project highlights how Javanese performance art challenges gender norms and serves as a form of cultural resistance.

The undergraduate minor in Latin American Studies spans across disciplines and allows you to explore the history, culture, government, politics, economy and languages of Latin America and the Caribbean. Qualifying courses can be found in many of the colleges.

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The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. Students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

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The Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Awards fund international fieldwork to help Cornell students complete their dissertations. Through a generous gift from Amit Bhatia, this funding opportunity annually supports at least six PhD students who have passed the A exam. Recipients hold the title of Amit Bhatia ’01 Global PhD Research Scholars. All disciplines and research topics are welcome. The award provides $10,000 to be used by the end of the sixth PhD year for international travel, living expenses, and research expenses. Applications are due March 7, 2025.

The Einaudi Dissertation Proposal Development Program supports 12 students over the course of a year to participate in seminars, workshops, and mentoring sessions and receive up to $5,000 for summer research. Applicants’ research projects must focus on global issues, but the proposed research setting may be international or domestic. In addition to six weeks of summer research, the program includes community-building and mentoring events. Applications are due by March 2, 2025.

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