Description: This book offers 14 interdisciplinary studies on transgender identities and relevant non-normative forms of gender and sexuality among Pacific Islanders. One of the goals of the editors is to show that the transgender issues can garner academic discussions without being overly simplistic or particularistic. Essays point readers to the fact that different social configurations, cultural dynamics, and historical trajectories, particularly in reference to colonialism, have generated different ways of being transgender across Pacific Island societies, while at the same time these differences are overlaid with commonalities and predictabilities.
Brief description: Niko Besnier is professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Amsterdam.
Review Quotes: Recipient of 2015 ICAS Book Prize Reading Committee Edited Volume Accolade (Social Sciences)-- "International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS)"