Passing: An Alternative History of Identity

by Lipika Pelham

Overview

A slave woman in 1840s America dresses as a white, disabled man to escape to freedom, while a twenty-first-century black rights activist is 'cancelled' for denying her whiteness. A Victorian explorer disguises himself as a Muslim in Arabia's forbidden holy city. A trans man claiming to have been assigned male at birth is exposed and murdered by bigots in 1993. Today, Japanese untouchables leave home and change their name. All of them have "passed," performing or claiming an identity that society hasn't assigned or recognized as theirs. For as long as we've drawn lines describing ourselves and each other, people have naturally fallen or deliberately stepped between them. What do their stories--in life and in art--tell us about the changing meanings of identity? About our need for labels, despite their obvious limitations? Lipika Pelham reflects on tales of fluidity and transformation, including her own. From Pope Joan to Parasite, Brazil to Bangladesh, London to Liberia, Passing is a fascinating, timely history of the self.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781787386198
Publisher:	Hurst
Publication date:	12/01/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	37 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Lipika Pelham worked in the BBC newsroom for over a decade, and has reported from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Having made several award-winning documentary films, she now writes and produces independent programs for the BBC. Lipika is the author of Jerusalem on the Amstel, also available from OUP, and The Unlikely Settler.

Editorial Reviews

"A fascinating and engrossing exploration of racial passing and fluid racial identity from an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist."— Cosmopolitan UK

"Thoroughly elevates the complex reality of day-to-day identity dynamics, tracing their rich historical origins and posing pertinent questions for the future."— Koa Beck, author of White Feminism

"[Offers] long histories, with much to say about the present."— BBC History Magazine

"Pelham, a writer with a flair for capturing complex sensitivities, has produced a provocative, engaging history that doesn't balk at considering the fierce contemporary debate surrounding gender identity, or what happens when passing becomes trespassing, AKA cultural appropriation."— The Observer

"This remarkable book merges perceptive understanding of sociopolitical identity problems facing many who are disempowered and marginalized owing to skin-colour, sexuality, gender, caste, class or religion."— Morning Star

"A profound and heartfelt meditation on the cost of self-effacement and the need to forge a new sense of self from the debris of our atavisms."— Aatish Taseer, author of The Twice-Born; The Temple-Goers; and Stranger to History

"A gripping account of how a person can be liberated by taking on another identity, or indeed how their own existence exposes the artificial boundaries of otherness. With compassion, honesty, and a storyteller's eye for beauty in meaning, Pelham destigmatizes and viscerally recreates these crossings to another shore."— Medina Tenour Whiteman, author of The Invisible Muslim

"Expertly navigating themes of identity, boundaries and belonging, Pelham combines moving storytelling with patient writing to create a truly transformative experience."— David Lammy MP, author of Tribes: How Our Need to Belong Can Make or Break Society

From the Publisher