|
Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category |  | Author: David Valentine
Publisher: Duke University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $17.38
as of 9/3/2010 19:09 CDT details
You Save: $6.57 (27%)
Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0822338696
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.768
EAN: 9780822338697
ASIN: 0822338696
Publication Date: December 31, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
| | |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Imagining Transgender is an ethnography of the emergence and institutionalization of transgender as a category of collective identity and political activism. Embraced by activists in the early 1990s to advocate for gender-variant people, the category quickly gained momentum in public health, social service, scholarly, and legislative contexts. Working as a safer-sex activist in Manhattan during the late 1990s, David Valentine conducted ethnographic research among mostly male-to-female transgender-identified people at drag balls, support groups, cross-dresser organizations, clinics, bars, and clubs. However, he found that many of those labeled “transgender” by activists did not know the term or resisted its use. Instead, they self-identified as “gay,” a category of sexual rather than gendered identity and one rejected in turn by the activists who claimed these subjects as transgender. Valentine analyzes the reasons for and potential consequences of this difference, and how social theory is implicated in it.Valentine argues that “transgender” has been adopted so rapidly in the contemporary United States because it clarifies a model of gender and sexuality that has been gaining traction within feminism, psychiatry, and mainstream gay and lesbian politics since the 1970s: a paradigm in which gender and sexuality are distinct arenas of human experience. This distinction and the identity categories based on it erase the experiences of some gender-variant people—particularly poor persons of color—who conceive of gender and sexuality in other terms. While recognizing the important advances transgender has facilitated, Valentine argues that a broad vision of social justice must include, simultaneously, an attentiveness to the politics of language and a recognition of how social theoretical models and broader political economies are embedded in the day-to-day politics of identity.
|
| Customer Reviews:
The World of Transgender May 17, 2009
Amos Lassen (Little Rock, Arkansas)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Valentine, David. "Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category", Duke University Press, 2007.
The World of Transgender
Amos Lassen
Transgender has now emerged as a category of both political activism and collective identity. This began in the 1990's and gained momentum in the fields of public health, social service, education and government. The book looks at the range of political and value questions. It chronicles and documents the transgender movement and as a category and field of knowledge, activism and power. It also makes us think about the ways we think about identity, gender, sexuality and politics.
David Valentine happened to be doing anthropological field work in New York when the term "transgender" first began to be widely used. Because of that we are now able to read his ethnographic insight into what transgender is and means. We are presently experiencing a shift in what the Western world views of gender and identity. Valentine conducted ethnographic research among mostly male-to-female "transgender identified people" at various venues--clubs, bars, organizations, support groups and the like and he found that many of the people who were labeled by activists as transgender were not familiar with the term and did not use it. Rather they self-identified as gay, a sexual category that does not include gender. He looks at the differences between the terms and what those differences could potentially mean and how social theory is involved.
Valentine claims that the term "transgender" came into use so quickly and it clarifies gender and not sexuality like the term "gay" does. We see a paradigm in which gender and sexuality are different and distinct and are considered differently by different groups of people. He advocates social justice which must include attentiveness to the politics of language as well as an understanding and recognition of how some social theoretical models and political economies function in daily politics.
The book is not only important ethnographically but theoretically and historically. His look at transgender as a category is both fascinating and astonishing. He dissects the concept and we get many meanings and nuances of the term, We are, in turn, forced to look at how we feel about gender. Valentine writes beautifully and his look at people and society and the creation and shaping of identity is a must-read. This is our world now and everyone is entitled to live in it.
An astonishing and astute study May 27, 2008
William O. Beeman (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
David Valentine has already won severa; prizes for this book, and no wonder. His book is an astonishing look at the idea of transgender--as a category. Smug Americans msy think they know what transgender is, but as Professor Valentine unpacks this concept, the reader is treated to a myriad of meanings and nuances that show the amazing variety to be found in human gender. In looking at transgender, Valentine forces all readers to consider what normal gender definitions are. This healthy self-reflective exercise should help everyone to broaden their minds--and their categories. It is beautifully written, and hard to lay down once started. Though I am a colleague of the author, I am no less impressed by this work.
A Different World October 12, 2007
Alistair Boddy-Evans (Scotland)
6 out of 12 found this review helpful
If you're intrigued about people and society, how different groups form, how identity is shaped and created, read this. Anthropology isn't just about societies in the so-called Third World; it's about the so-called civilized world too, as Dr Valentine shows. Read it and be intrigued.
|
|
|
CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON THIS SITE COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED ‘AS IS’ AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME. | |
