Fashioning the Pride: Reading First-Hand Narratives of the Eleventh Kerala Queer Pride Parade in Kollam

BackgroundThere is growing recognition that autistic females present with more diverse gender and sexual identities than their non-autistic counterparts. Likewise, autistic females are also at an increased risk of adverse sexual experiences. As higher rates of sexual victimisation are observed in individuals with diverse sexual identities in the broader population, rates of negative sexual experiences among autistic females remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the representation of gender and sexual diversity within autistic females and examine their rates of regretted, and unwanted, sexual encounters among females with a transgender gender identity and non-heterosexual sexual orientation.MethodsTwo hundred and ninety-five females completed the Sexual Behaviour Scale-III (SBS-III) online. Self-reported gender identity and sexual orientation were compared between 134 autistic (Mage= 26.2 years, SD = 8.7) and 161 non-autistic females (Mage = 22.0 years, SD = 4.6). Differences in the prevalence of negative sexual experiences were compared across diagnosis and each gender identity and sexual orientation label.ResultsAutistic females were more likely to identify with a transgender gender identity (p < .05) and non-heterosexual sexual orientation (p < .007) compared to non-autistic females. Autistic homosexual females were more likely to have experienced a range of negative sexual experiences than autistic heterosexual females (OR ≥ 3.29; p < .01) and were more likely to have experienced unwanted sexual experiences than non-autistic females regardless of sexual orientation (OR ≥ 2.38; p < .05). There were no differences in rates of negative sexual experiences between autistic bisexual and both autistic heterosexual and non-autistic bisexual females. Non-autistic bisexual females (OR = 0.24; p = .018) presented with a reduced risk of regretted sexual experiences than non-autistic heterosexual peers. There were no differences in negative sexual experiences across gender identity in the autistic sample.LimitationsThe use of fixed format response items may have restricted participants’ abilities to provide rich responses pertaining to their sexual identities and nature of negative sexual experiences. The small number of participants who identified as transgender (n = 40) limits the reliability of results pertaining to sexual experiences across gender identity. Moreover, although multiple recruitment methods were used in this study, non-representative may bias estimates of prevalence rates. Thus, the data may not be representative of the broader population.ConclusionsResults indicate that autistic females present with greater diversity in their sexual identities than individuals without autism, with those with a homosexual sexual orientation being at greater risk of experiencing adverse sexual encounters. Findings suggest the importance of increased clinical attention to this diversity and the need to provide support to facilitate the development of a healthy sexual identity and reduce the risks identified in this study.

Public space is constructed as heterosexual space in at least two senses. First, heterosexuality in public is regarded as unproblematic, whereas lesbian and gay identities are policed by subtle or overt means. Second, heterosexuality is not obviously marked in public. In this article these positions are used as a starting point to investigate the complexities of the relationships between heterosexuality, homosexuality and the public and private spheres. Much of the discussion takes as its basis the media coverage of New Zealand's lesbian and gay pride parades. Recent heterosexist discourse in New Zealand implies that gay men and lesbians are leaving the private sphere and are forcing a politicisation of both the public sphere and the metaphorical space of the private, heterosexual mind. A discursive inversion occurs whereby the homosexual subject becomes powerful and tyrannous, and the heterosexual is coerced and oppressed. Crucial to such discourse is a mobilisation of the conservative tendencies of liberalism, and an attendant denial of the privileged position granted to heterosexuality .

The development of personal and social identity have been studied mostly in parallel, leaving a gap in how young people explore who they are as simultaneously an individual and social being. An exploratory convergent mixed-methods design involving latent profile analyses and content analysis was used to examine personal, racial, sexual orientation, and gender identity exploration engagement and identity content among 598 White, heterosexual, cisgender young adults in the U.S. (ages 18 to 25, Mage = 22.0, SDage = 2.2, 298 men). Reports of identity exploration across social and personal domains were not associated, but the meaning of social identity was related to personal identity in ways that suggest active exploration of social identities could be tied to personal identity. Women were more actively exploring gender and sexual orientation identities. Future research should shed light on the complex interplay between social and personal identity development in various social contexts.

The Language of Attire in Edith Nesbit’s Bastable Stories Alexandra Jeikner (bio) We added the girls’ striped petticoats. I am sorry their petticoats turn up so constantly in my narrative, but they really are very useful, especially when the band is cut off. —E. Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods 211 The above quoted passage is from an episode in The Wouldbegoods (1901), the second of the three novels about the Bastable children, Dora, Oswald Cecil, Dicky, the twins Alice and Noël, and Horace Octavius, or H. O., whose mother has died and whose father is in a difficult financial situation, having been betrayed by his business partner. The children spend their days more or less unsupervised by adults and try to find hope through various, mostly well-intended attempts to restore the family fortunes. This episode refers to one such attempt, where the children want to provide poor, thirsty travelers with refreshments by setting up the “Benevolent Bar,” with the petticoats creating a protective cover from the sun. Oswald may refer to his sisters’ petticoats as useful, but little scholarly attention has been paid to whether these petticoats also function as more than a useful plot element. Yet reading images of attire in the Bastable stories through reference to Anthony Giddens’s theory of identity indicates a radical subtext contained not only in the references to petticoats, but in all images of underwear and dress, undress and cross-dress.1 Giddens’s theory helps us understand that the Bastable children, living in an era that reminds one of Giddens’s posttraditional society, gradually recognize that the fabric of fin-de-siècle English society is being restructured and identity is not conferred upon them because of their gender, class, or nationality. Recognizing also that they must engage in what Giddens calls a self-reflective endeavor of writing their own identity, they “cut off” the “bands” of adult and social expectations and cross the divide between adult and child, boy and girl, English and non-English. Indeed, through images of attire, Nesbit not only emphasizes the need for a childhood not governed by unyielding social norms, but subversively also hints at the need for an adulthood characterized by more social and political progressiveness. [End Page 21] The lack of scholarly interest in dress images in the Bastable stories is surprising, given the extensive body of literature on the social and psychological significance of attire as well as its function as a medium in the negotiations and expressions of sexual and social identity in both real life and literature.2 When it comes to Nesbit’s novels, though, discussion of dress images is limited to Pamela Richardson’s “Boys, Girls, and Trains: Ambiguous Gender Roles in E. Nesbit’s The Railway Children,” which focuses only on the role of petticoats in that 1906 novel (1905). Richardson’s discussion of how petticoats function in Nesbit’s complex “dissolution of gender boundaries” (97) is highly interesting, but surprisingly, she also cites English author Noel Streatfeild, who in the introduction to Nesbit’s autobiographical Long Ago When I Was Young (1966) claimed that “Nesbit knew perfectly well that at the date when she wrote the book [Railway Children] the girls not only did not wear petticoats but had never seen one” (21). For it is not true that petticoats were no longer fashionable in Edwardian times (Jeikner 65–85), even if Nesbit preferred loose dresses that did not require restrictive underwear in the form of either petticoats or corsets. Indeed, she wanted to be more than a “glorified fashion doll” and rejected not only the petticoat, but also the corset, perceiving “tightly boned and laced underclothing” as preventing her from a “physically active life” (Briggs 67–68). She also dressed her daughter Iris and her adopted daughter Rosamund in Aesthetic fashion, although it made the girls feel uncomfortable because they were “different” (Briggs 213–14). She even encouraged her female friends to dress in nonrestrictive attire, as, for instance, her friend Berta Ruck, to whom she lent a dress in Liberty fashion in 1904 since she “hate[d] blouses and skirts” (Ruck, qtd. in Briggs 240). However, Nesbit’s husband Hubert Bland, English socialist and...

This article explores how the boundaries of lesbian and gay citizenship are set by parents in relation to the public/private dimensions of space. We analysed 46 in-depth interviews carried out in Italy in the period 2006–2008 with mothers and fathers who described themselves as accepting their sons’ and daughters’ gay and lesbian identity. We show that parents tend to fight for rights confined to the private dimension whereas both the public dimension and the dividing lines between public and private represent problematic areas. Parents do not expect having to deal with the issue of sexual orientation in the public sphere, implicitly supporting its characterisation as a heteronormative space. Pride parades are a case in point. As emerged in the interviews, most of the parents do not see their participation in parades as undermining the heteronormative family model, but rather as a way of legitimising it. Through the mediation of heterosexual parents, there is a process of familisation of citizenship rights for gay and lesbian people, which is reinforced by parents who belong to parents of gay and lesbian associations. Though discourses on normalisation prevail, the Pride parade is a setting of potential tensions allowing debate on sexual citizenship to enter the public arena.

The Belgrade Pride Parade has been associated with numerous acts of violence and vandalism since the first gay march in 2001. Although it seems that in the last couple of years the attitude towards the parade and human rights in Serbia has improved, the public discourse remains deeply imbued in national myths and stereotypes that instigate homophobia and contribute to the perception of homosexuality as deviance. This study examined public reactions to the 2016 Belgrade Pride Parade in order to outline how the Pride Parade, and by extension homosexuals and homosexuality, are viewed and represented by the commenters on some of the most visited online multimedia portals in Serbia. The online comments (approximately 500 comments) were considered as a web-based corpus and observed and analysed from a perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The use of online comments as corpus in this study is encouraged by multidisciplinary approaches and studies. Suzanne R. McMillen, for instance, shows in her research that online comments represent important spaces for debate and discussion and that they are an important form of public expression. They are also, according to the author (McMillen, 2013), reliable and trustworthy sources because the anonymous commenters are less inhibited and tend to be more honest while communicating online. Van Dijk’s framework adopted from Politics, ideology and discourse (van Dijk, 2006) was used to detect discursive structures within the online comments in an attempt to discover the underlying ideologies. The macro strategies of ''positive self-representation'' and ''negative other- representation'' plus the other 9 specific strategies were used for the evaluation of attitudes and opinions on the Pride Parade, homosexuals and homosexuality. The study ultimately showed how homophobic speech in the public discourse was distorted and presented as ''non-ideological common sense'' (Fairclough, 1995).

W. E. B. Du Bois provides a thesis on Black masculinity formation that includes primary traits of this social identity and dynamics that can engender or stymie its development. Yet his framework does not directly reference sexual minorities. This study considers whether and how Du Bois’s framework on masculinity is germane to the experiences of young Black people with diverse sexual identities by assessing whether they recount similar tropes and features. The analysis is theoretically informed by a New Millennium Du Boisian Mode of Inquiry and a qualitative analysis for 168 young Black persons who reside in the South. Three themes emerge that adopt, amplify, and adapt dimensions of Du Bois’s thesis and demonstrate that key aspects of his framework resonate with Black persons excluded from his original work. Despite nuanced sexual identities, it was common for individuals to espouse Du Bosian tenets associated with Black masculinity such as a protector/provider trope, respectability, racial pride, educational attainment, economic mobility, and self-help as well as concerns about racism. These findings inform research on expectations about masculinity into which many men are generally socialized as well as possible hierarchies among intersecting social identities.

Author's Introduction Our article outlines the need to bring together the literatures on personal and cultural identity – which have thus far been disconnected from one another. As one develops a sense of personal identity (e.g., goals, values, and beliefs), does one also develop a sense of cultural identity (e.g., how the individual and the group are prioritized, as well as attachment to and affiliation with one's ethnic, cultural, and national group)? This question is becoming increasingly important as Western countries become more and more diverse and multicultural, and as the world becomes more and more international and global. Individuals of European descent in the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, for example, are no longer insulated from other cultural streams. A generation ago, White Americans, for example, held dominion over the United States and over what ‘American culture’ was. With the advent of mass immigration of ethnic and cultural minorities, as well as globalizing technologies such as email, video conferencing, instant messaging, and virtual chatrooms, we are no longer insulated by our borders. Each of us is a citizen of the world, and this is becoming truer and truer over time. Thus, cultural identity and personal identity are increasingly likely to be related – and the ways in which they influence one another needs to be studied. How does my cultural position in my society (and in the world) influence who I am as a person? How do my cultural beliefs and worldviews influence my personal goals, values, and beliefs? Author Recommends Côté, James E., and Levine, Charles G. (2002). Identity formation, agency and culture: A social psychological synthesis . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. This book discusses personal identity within the context of culture, and it clearly sets the stage for a discussion of how personal identity is affected by cultural processes. Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. (2002). The psychology of globalization. American Psychologist , 57 , 774–783. This article discusses the ways in which globalization affects the personal and cultural identities of people around the world. In particular, the article stresses that individuals will be exposed to various cultural streams even if they never leave their countries of origin and do not come into direct contact with people from other parts of the world. The mass exportation of Western television programs, music, dress styles, fashion, and beliefs is leading people to ‘acculturate’ to Western values and behaviors. Bosma, Harke A., and Kunnen, E. Saskia. (2001). Determinants and mechanisms in ego identity development: A review and synthesis. Developmental Review , 21 , 39–66. This article reviews the ways in which personal identity is developed in ‘individualist’ and ‘collectivist’ contexts. In more individualistic contexts, personal identity is developed through active exploration of different alternatives, commitment to one or more of these, and an in‐depth evaluation of the commitment that has been made. In more collectivistic contexts, personal identity is developed through identification with the goals, values, and beliefs of significant others. This article was one of the first to address personal identity more broadly than through a Western lens. Matsumoto, David. (2003). The discrepancy between consensual‐level culture and individual‐level culture. Culture and Psychology , 9 , 89–95. This article argues that individualism and collectivism (and related constructs such as independence and interdependence) operate differently at the between‐individual level than at the between‐culture level. When studying the interface between personal identity and cultural identity, only individual‐level conceptions of cultural identity should be used. National‐level differences in cultural identity constructs tend to be fairly small – suggesting that most of the differences are between individual people. Schwartz, Seth J., Luyckx, Koen, and Vignoles, Vivian L. (editors, forthcoming). Handbook of identity theory and research . New York, NY: Springer. This forthcoming handbook will consist of state‐of‐the‐art summaries and reviews from some of the leading identity scholars in the world. Chapters will focus on many different domains of identity, including personal and cultural identity but also including national, religious/spiritual, sexual, gender, social, and vocational identity. The book will be an important resource both for students and for professors interested in the field of identity. Sample Syllabus Please add all or a portion of a syllabus that might adopt your article and present it in a broader context to the classroom. Eg. Topics for Lecture &amp; Discussion Week 1 – Overview (What is Identity) Cote, James E. 1996. Sociological perspectives on identity formation: The culture‐identity link and identity capital. Journal of Adolescence . 19: 417–428. A framework for understanding identity formation in an interdisciplinary fashion by addressing the relationship between culture and identity. Grotevant, Harold D. 1987. Toward a process model of identity formation. Journal of Adolescent Research . 2: 203–222. Proposes a model for conceptualizing identity formation that is developmental, contextual and life‐span in scope. Four major components are as follows: individual characteristics, contexts of development, identity process in specific domains, and interdependencies among the identity domains. Weeks 2–4 Neo‐Eriksonian Identity Perspectives (Identity Status, Identity Style, Et Cetera) Berzonsky, Michael D. 1989. Identity style: Conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Adolescent Research . 4: 268–282. A conceptualization of three styles of personal problem solving and decision making – and information orientation that actively seeks and evaluates information, a normative orientation that focuses on internalized conventions, and a diffuse orientation that avoids action until affective cues dictate behavioral reactions. This study measures a validity of a self‐report measure of these styles. Meeus, Wim. 1996. Toward a psychosocial analysis of adolescent identity: An evaluation of the epigenetic theory (Erikson) and the identity status model (Marcia). Hurrelmann, Klaus (Ed.); Hamilton, Stephen F (Ed). (1996). Social problems and social contexts in adolescence: Perspectives across boundaries . (pp. 83–104). xiv, 299 pp. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter. This chapter discusses Erikson's identity theory and Marcia's identity status model, with application to adolescent identity. The author evaluates their empirical validity. Weeks 5–7 Social Identity Perspectives Worchel, Stephen; Morales, J. Francisco; Paez, Dario; Deschamps, Jean‐Claude (Eds.). 1998. Social identity: International perspectives. Social identity: International perspectives. xix, 263 pp. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. This books brings together the latest empirical and theoretical findings in the field of

Sexual consent is an ongoing agreement to engage in sexual behavior, requiring individuals to provide consent when sexual behavior is desired and seek consent from partners. While many initiate sexual activity during adolescence, adolescents remain mostly absent from the sexual consent literature. No work has explored consent cognitions and behaviors across adolescents of diverse gender and sexual identities. The current study explores differences in consent-seeking behaviors and consent cognitions across diverse youth and investigates links between consent cognitions and behaviors. We recruited U.S. adolescents (n = 833, age 14-16, M age = 15; 43% White, 17% Black, 17% Asian, 13% Latine) using social media. Participants represent diverse gender and sexual identities (52% cisgender girl, 27% cisgender boy, 21% gender minority; 45% heterosexual, 28% bisexual, 11% gay/lesbian, 16% another sexual minority identity). On average, participants reported high consent self-efficacy, positive consent attitudes, and frequent ongoing consent behaviors. Cisgender boys and heterosexual youth were less likely to report consistent consent-seeking behaviors and reported less positive attitudes towards consent compared to their peers. Positive attitudes towards consent and consent-seeking self-efficacy were both associated with a greater likelihood of consistent consent-seeking behavior. Results highlight the importance of promoting healthy consent practices among adolescents.

Globally, sex research has largely centred on Western contexts and has often overlooked women’s sexuality. In China, there is a dearth of literature on women’s sexual health and behaviours, especially those of sexual and gender minorities. This mixed-methods study addresses this gap by investigating the sexual health, behaviours, and lived experiences of Chinese women with diverse sexual identities. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted in 2021, followed by qualitative interviews in 2022-2023. Overall, 509 women aged 18-56 years participated in the survey, including 250 cisgender heterosexual women, 186 cisgender sexual minority women, and 73 transgender women or individuals assigned female at birth who identify as nonbinary. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 participants (5 cis-heterosexual women, 18 sexual minority women, 2 transgender women, and 8 nonbinary individuals). Quantitative findings indicated that cis-heterosexual women tended to confirm their sexual identities at an earlier age but initiated sexual practices later than minority participants. Regarding safer sex behaviours, consistent condom use was more prevalent among cis-heterosexual women. In contrast, sexual minority participants, reflecting the diversity of their sexual practices, more often adopted women-controlled safer sex strategies, such as cleaning before sex. Four overarching themes were developed, including 1) women’s sexuality has long been invisible but is changing; 2) diverse sexual identities and complex sexual practices; 3) bond between sex and self-worth; and 4) disparities in safer sex awareness and practice. These findings underscore the crucial role of sexual identity and cultural context in the articulation and experiences of women’s sexuality and sexual health.

How are aesthetics and ethics related to the practical realities of the global fashion industry? Both have played an important role in academic fashion studies to this point, but they are most often discussed in the context of abstract phenomena such as modernity and capitalism, or identity issues such as sexuality, class and gender. The essays in this volume strive instead to show how the realities of the global fashion industry have important and pertinent aesthetic and ethical consequences. This collection provides critical and philosophical analysis of the interplay of aesthetics and ethics within the global fashion industry. Characterized by an increasingly fast spinning production, the industry is highly exploitative in terms of environment and labor force: underpaid textile workers, retailers working under brutal competition from the mass-merchandise discounters, young designers, seamstresses and curators often working for free, and a vast body of aspiring models. In addition, fashion-related aesthetic ideals are becoming more influential than ever in directing consumers in their social and personal identification processes and bodily practices with sometimes fatal consequences. Covering a wide range of subjects such as fashion’s highly problematic production and consumption practices, the possibility of producing and consuming fashion ethically, fashion’s intimate connection with nature and technology, Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics highlights the powerful aesthetical presence of fashion in relation to its ethical premises and often problematic outcomes.

This article shares conversational research (Thomson et al., 2012) that we undertook with parents in one of children’s primary education settings: the home. We investigated the question: what are the comfort levels of families, with young children, as they encounter picturebooks featuring diverse gender and sexual identities? Over the past 10 years in Canada, including New Brunswick, these picturebooks have increased in production (Bouchey, 2021; Miller Oke, 2019) complexity (Sullivan &amp; Urraro, 2017) and circulation. Yet some educators in the early years of school remain uncomfortable reading these texts with young children, their concerns, in part, related to imagined backlash from heteronormative families (Goldstein 2021) and deeply entrenched constructs of childhood innocence (Kintner-Duffy et al., 2012; Martino &amp; Cumming-Potvin, 2011, 2016; Robinson, 2013). Scholarship and our research confirm that most children know and can communicate their sex and gender identities by two years of age (Pastel et al, 2019; Stevenson, 2019) and are able to engage critically with picturebooks featuring diverse gender and sexual identities as they get older. Through our conversations with mothers, we learned that all families were comfortable with each picturebook category presented: gender expression, gender identity, gender harassment, and family composition. Interpreting our conversations through Queer Theory (Butler, 1990, 1993), we also learned how particular picturebooks serve as entry points to family discussions about diverse gender and sexual identities and how important access to diverse picturebooks is to provide these opportunities. Specifically, each of the nine mothers shared picturebooks that supported their child/children/families with being and knowing related to gender variance, who you can love, and/ or what games, hobbies and clothes are acceptable.

In his Retour à Reims (2010), Didier Eribon draws on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and on his own earlier work on gay identity to offer a moving and insightful account of his social trajectory and of the issues of class, education and sexual identity that trajectory raises. Throughout this autobiographical account, Eribon stresses the centrality of affect and emotion to social and sexual identity, and the feelings of shame, disgust, frustration and rejection that marked his and his parents’ relationship to their working-class identity. In so doing, he draws on two different and potentially contradictory theoretical traditions: Eve Sedgwick’s work on shame and queer identity and Bourdieu’s emphasis on the centrality of affect to the workings of the class habitus. This article examines the tensions or potential contradictions between these two traditions, questioning, in particular, Bourdieu’s insistence on the immediate, pre-reflexive way in which working-class subjects allegedly invest in and come to love their social identity and destiny. Focusing on those episodes in Retour à Reims which suggest that Eribon’s parents had a far more contradictory relationship to working-class identity than Bourdieu’s theory would suggest, the article calls for a reformulation of certain of the key tenets of Bourdieusian sociology. This involves drawing on the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty as a means of thinking through the mind–body dualism that underpins Bourdieu’s concept of habitus. The article concludes that the work of Beverley Skeggs on class and gender offers a more fruitful way of theorising the relationships between class, affect, social identity and political or social change.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is prevalent among young individuals (i.e., age 25 and lower), and a growing body of literature demonstrates high rates of IPV among LGBTQ+ individuals. The current study explores how sexual and gender identity influences IPV risk among college students. The study uses data from the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment III (ACHA-NCHA III) Spring 2021 administration to examine the effects of gender and sexual identity on risk of physical, emotional, and sexual IPV victimization, as well as overall IPV risk. The ACHA-NCHA III data are based on a national sample of 96,489 college students and includes measures of various lifestyle factors, which allowed for the inclusion of several known correlates of IPV victimization (e.g., substance use, Greek affiliation, and disability status). Findings suggest that IPV risk varies across gender and sexual identity with evidence highlighting higher risk among individuals whose gender identity clearly conflicts with traditional gender norms (e.g., transwomen). Results also show higher risk among bisexual or pansexual women, compared to heterosexual and lesbian women. Overall, the current work highlights the importance of disaggregating IPV types when exploring victimization risk, as well as the need to explore the impact of diverse gender and sexual identities on IPV experiences. These findings present implications for culturally specific programming and services for victims who are LGBTQ+.

The editors frame this volume as a sequel to the 1998 Constructing Collective Identities and Shaping Public Spheres, edited by Luis Roniger and Mario Sznajder, and with good reason. The current volume presents a broad cross section of work that fills out themes broached in the earlier book, investigating the practices, discourses, and social networks that shape social identities at regional and national levels. The book is arranged in three thematic sections based roughly on the spatial, sociological, and discursive elements of power relations and collective identity formation. The essays themselves, originally presented as papers at the 1997 Congress of Americanists held in Quito, cover much of continental Hispanic America from early colonial times to the recent past and include contributions from both senior analysts and younger scholars. Indeed, the sheer range of topics and approaches limits the ability of contributors to engage each other in historiographic or analytic terms. Nevertheless, an emphasis on the public character of identity formation provides a common point of departure, and a very fruitful one at that.One of the book’s strengths is an insistence on conceptualizing the public sphere as an arena in which power relations and sociocultural solidarities are formed and manifested. María Elena Martínez’s essay on the regulation of space in colonial Puebla, Mexico, Cristina Escobar’s analysis of bullfight festivities in twentieth-century Colombia as mechanisms of landowner paternalism, and Anath Ariel de Vidas’s piece on Teenek (Huastec) concepts of Indianness are particularly noteworthy examples of how the authors have problematized identity formation by investigating the unfolding of power relations in the public gaze. Other essays investigate how social networks establish and reproduce social solidarities, political power, or both. In this vein, Tamar Herzog examines a social organization in the colonial Americas composed of real or imagined natives of Navarro, and Zacarias Moutoukias discusses the merchant guild of Buenos Aires at the turn of the nineteenth century. Other essays place a greater emphasis on the relationship between “the political” and the formation of national or social identities—such as Claudio Lomnitz’s discussion of the presidential persona or Charles Cutter’s examination of how the legal system of colonial New Mexico helped shape the social categories that its inhabitants recognized. Taken as a whole, these contributions offer tantalizing insights into the cultural logic behind identity formation over the long term and in multiple contexts.As with most collections of essays, the degree to which individual contributions fit within the editors’ scheme varies. Thematic heterodoxy is particularly apparent, for example, in the relative lack of explicit reference to the public sphere, despite the editors’ having foregrounded it in the introduction. Even the essays that do turn their attention to the public sphere do not subject it to analysis in its own right à la Habermas. With a few exceptions (such as François-Xavier Guerra’s treatment of Spanish American independence), most of the essays disregard the class-specific nature of the public sphere and do not investigate how public spheres may be established, modified, or undermined. Moreover, much of what goes on in a (multiclass?) public sphere goes unaddressed. Also, the book’s emphasis on identity and publicness would seem to call for some consideration of religious practice or collective religiosity, or at least how these things informed identity formation. With the exception of essays by Herzog, Claudia García, and Adina Cimet, however, most contributions eschew a direct engagement with the intersection of identity and religiosity.But these are minor quibbles. In a more substantive sense, The Collective and the Public is a welcome addition to recent scholarship that seeks to expand the analytical boundaries of “the political” and understand the interaction between the realms of politics and identity. The papers in this volume add yet more evidence to the contention that that cultural understandings are complexly interrelated with categories built around ethnicity, class, nationality, and so on—social markers that were once taken to be self-evident and transhistorical.