Ethnographer. Educator. Translator. Illustrator. Storyteller.
Julie Gaynes is a PhD Candidate who uses oral history and critical ethnography to document how indigenous knowledge shapes restorative justice systems and women’s solidarity in the Lamaholot region of East Indonesia. She is a cut paper artist and bookmaker who explores collage as a means to co-author cultural narratives.
Literary journalism, cultural studies, and art
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Research
Gaynes conducts oral history research with indigenous communities working to conserve ancestral modes of healing in Indonesia. While initially focused on complex relationships between women healers and clinical health workers in the Solor Archipelago, she has expanded her research to focus on how spirit mediums work alongside village restorative justice systems to resolve psycho-social trauma after periods of violence.
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Art
Gaynes uses printmaking, pastiche, and cut-paper art to empathically connect with distant narrators and to convey the visceral dimensions of her cultural research. She also uses her art practice to document the “reality” of inner demons shaping imaginations, perceptions, and behaviors.
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Writing
Gaynes' short stories and poetry tease apart networks of connection—interpersonal, biological, historical—buried beneath immediate perception and coloring our shared experiences.
