IMAGINED, DESIRED: Coming of Age with Queer Ethnographies

In this review I introduce readers to three exemplary ethnographies. All three contribute not only to anthropological and queer studies literatures but also to discourses and critiques of globalization, transnationalism, and neoliberalism. Further, these works destabilize notions of what constitutes ethnography in the general field of queer studies and demonstrate that queer anthropology is imperative to consider in present and future developments in queer theory, methods, and analyses. These texts argue that it is time to move beyond the search for that which is “queer” as emerging from “tradition.” They demonstrate that social constructions of queer subjectivities are ever-changing and emerging in contemporary historical contexts, often in relation to the nation-state and against hegemonic Euro-American notions of what is considered “queer.”