Jaida Samudra
Assistant Professor

Dr. Jaida Kim Samudra graduated from the University of California Berkeley with a B.A. in Linguistics. She received her M.A. and Ph.D.  in Anthropology from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her area studies center on Southeast and East Asia, with expertise in Indonesian cultures and Chinese diaspora. Her dissertation, Body and Belonging in a Transnational Indonesian Silat Community, focused on how multi-ethnic and transreligious associations form around popular health and fitness disciplines such as martial arts.  As a medical anthropologist, she is particularly interested in 'energy' healing systems, patients’ articulations of illness and healing, and social and health issues arising from biological determinism.  She is also interested in examining social settings that promote democracy, peace, and creativity, as she wrote about in an early  book,  The Joy of Conversation: The Complete Guide to Salons.  Jaida has been practicing and teaching the White Crane Silat for over 25 years and hopes to start classes in this martial art at UWGB.

E-mail: samudraj@uwgb.edu

Office: Mary Ann Cofrin Hall B308

Phone: 465-2361/465-2355