Citation

Conley R. Polit. Leg. Anthropol. Rev. 2008; 31(1): 28-47.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1555-2934.2008.00003.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines the temporal elements of identity construction, drawing parallels between the construction of ethnographic, legal, and personal identities. The article presents a case of transsexual identity, analyzing how people reference a transsexual in order to illuminate the temporal complexity of gendered identity construction and identity in general. The study consists of a micro-analysis of scientists and lawyers talking about transsexuals in and around a legal trial, and offers a model of identity that allows for disjuncture and incongruence over time. It argues that ethnographic and legal accounts of identity rely on a negotiation between coherence and discontinuity.