Susanne Kuehling

Research interests

• Gift exchange
• Place
• Personhood
• Migration
• Gender
• Ethics
• Oceania (Melanesia, Micronesia)

Susanne Kuehling has an interest in matrilineal small-scale societies who have a preference for matrilocal residence. For her field work (1992-1994, 1997, 2004), she has lived on the small islands of Dobu (Papua New Guinea) and Woleai (Micronesia). While her monograph about Dobu island exchange discusses the underlying ethics that motivate sharing and hiding practice, her more recent research focussed on the relations between islanders and their land in Micronesia and included migrant communities in urban settings of Micronesia (Guam and Saipan). Her fields of interest are gender, language, exchange, landscape, qualitative research methods, the history of anthropology, and, of course, the regions of Melanesia and Micronesia and she is teaching a variety of courses, including Anthropology of Gender, Ethnography of New Guinea and Micronesia, Anthropology of Landscape, Qualitative Methods, and the History of Anthropology.

Voices of Kula documents the 2016 and 2018 research expeditions of two anthropologists and a group of Islanders from Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea. The aim of the research was to explore the traditional gift exchange process known as kula, wherein participants exchange shell values with one another along an island route known as the Kula Ring. An additional aim was to examine areas of concern amongst kula participants and address the breakdown of established exchange rules and activity.

Project Coordinator and Research: Susanne Kuehling
Camera, Sound, and Editing: Gina Knapp

Let's Play Kula is a educational documentary intended to teach young students about the kula exchange.

Executive Producer: Susanne Kuehling
Book, Camera, Sound, and Editing: Gina Knapp