Defiant Bodies

"Defiant Bodies honors the erotic autonomy and radical defiance of queer and trans people in the Caribbean. Through a fierce investigation into Caribbean sexual politics, the book offers an eloquent ethnographic study featuring engagement with Caribbean LGBTQ+ activists and careful critiques of human rights discourses. Ultimately, Nikoli Attai reveals the complex ways that queer people make community and create unexpected pathways for space and liberation in the region. Defiant Bodies is an outstanding contribution to the field of Caribbean queer and sexuality studies!" ~Angelique V. Nixon, author of Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture

"In Defiant Bodies, we finally have a book that centers trans Caribbean experiences, voices, and agency. Focusing on the lived experiences of Caribbean sexual and gender minorities, this book is a signal intervention because of its focus on resilience and agency rather than death and abjection. Attai embraces our 'unruly' and 'disruptive' trans and queer cousins, revealing their everyday experiences and resistance, as they create a 'politics of hope' for themselves that benefits us all." ~Rosamond S. King, author of Island Bodies: Transgressive Sexualities in the Caribbean Imagination