معرفی
Sylvia Tidey is an Associate Professor of Global Studies & Anthropology at the University of Virginia, affiliated with the Department of Anthropology within the Arts & Sciences school. Her research focuses on the ethics of care in family intimacies, particularly in Indonesia, exploring how global health and governance ideologies interact with local practices. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam (2012).
Her specialties include political anthropology, ethics, medical anthropology, corruption studies, and Southeast Asian studies. She examines topics like corruption in Indonesian bureaucracies, HIV/AIDS care decisions among transgender communities, and the intersection of family obligations with governance ethics.
Tidey’s work challenges conventional anti-corruption frameworks by highlighting how care obligations within families and communities often conflict with prescriptive governance models. Her book Ethics or the Right Thing? Corruption, Care, and Family in an Age of Good Governance (2022) analyzes civil servants’ ethical navigation of bureaucratic landscapes in Kupang. She co-hosts the Under the Table: An Anthropology of Corruption Podcast, exploring corruption’s social dimensions.
Her research on HIV/AIDS reveals how biomedical care protocols may conflict with patients’ relational needs, as many Indonesians forego life-saving treatments to avoid jeopardizing family ties. This underscores the disconnect between global health policies and localized conceptions of a ‘life worth living.’
