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James L. Peacock is Kenan Professor of Anthropology, Professor
of Comparative Literature, and Director, University Center
for International Studies at the University of North Caroline
at Chapel Hill. He received his B.A. in Psychology from
Duke University and his Ph.D. in Social anthropology from
Harvard. His fieldwork includes studies of proletarian culture
in Surabaja, Indonesia, of Muslim fundamentalism in Southeast
Asia, and of Primitive Baptists in Appalachia.
In addition to his academic work, Dr. Peacock was chair
of the Anthropology Department from 1975-1980 and 1990-91,
and Chair of the Faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill, 1991-1994.
He was President of the American Anthropological Association
form 1993-1995. In 1995, he was inducted into the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. The American Anthropological
Association awarded him the prestigious Boas Award in 2002.
Selected Publications
The Anthropological Lens. Cambridge University Press,
2001. (Revision in press.)
Pilgrims of Paradox. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institutions, 1989.
Muslim Puritans. University of California Press,
1978.
Rites of Modernization. University of Chicago Press,
1968
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Globalization, Place-based Identity, and Conflict Resolution
in Southeast Asia and at World Peace Centers
The area I wish to explore, in research and in writing,
is the relationship among globalization, place-based identity,
and conflict. Place-identity is the key variable. On the
one hand, identity with place, whether a region or a country,
is often associated with particularistic identities such
as ethnic and religious and frequently generates conflict
through a defense of bounded entities. On the other hand,
globalization allegedly corrodes place-identity. The question
I propose to address is: What effects do conscious efforts
at promoting globalization have on place-based identities?
I plan to work on two case studies in approaching this
question: Southeast Asia and the new Rotary International
Peace Centers. My regional focus will be Singapore, an intentionally
multicultural state, with possible comparison to neighboring
Thailand and Indonesia . I have previously researched the
Muslim movements Muhammadiyya, in Indonesia, and Ahmadiyya,
in Singapore. Globalization is explicitly an aim of Singapore,
whose society includes Malays, Indians, and smaller minorities
such as Arabs in addition to the Chinese majority. Religious
pluralism--Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism and
Islam-accompanies this ethnic diversity. Globalization also
seems to be a specific aim of the Peace Centers, located
around the world (in North Carolina and California in the
United States, and in Argentina, Japan, England, Australia,
and France). Each center exemplifies links between peace
studies and globalization. Drawing on these two cases--
the one regional, the other global-- I will explore the
relationship between globalization and conflict among particularized
identities, asking how globalization might, at least in
some cases, diminish conflict just as it seems itself to
have become a target, as in the attack on the World Trade
Center or the battles in Seattle.
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Kenan
Professor of Anthropology 
