Stereotypes and cultural imperialism often provide a framework of fixed characteristics for postmodern life, yet fail to address the implications of questions such as, "Where are you from?" Growing Up Transnational challenges the assumptions behind this fixed framework to look at the interconnectivity, conflict, and contradictions within current discussions of identity and kinship.
This collection offers a fresh, feminist perspective on family relations, identity politics, and cultural locations in a global era. Using an interdisciplinary approach from fields including gender studies, postcolonial theory, and literary theory, this volume questions the concept of hybridity and the tangible implications of assumed identities. The rich personal narratives of the authors explore hyphenated identities, hybridized families, and the challenges and rewards of lives on and beyond borders. The result is a new transnational sensibility that explores the redefinition of the self, the family, and the nation.

May Friedman’s research looks at unstable identities, including bodies that do not conform to traditional racial and national or aesthetic lines. Most recently much of May’s research has focused on intersectional approaches to fat studies considering the multiple and fluid experiences of both fat oppression and fat activism. May works at Ryerson University as a faculty member in the School of Social Work and in the Ryerson/York graduate program in Communication and Culture.

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Silvia Schultermandl is an assistant professor in the Department of American Studies at the University of Graz in Austria.

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‘The book puts forth a well-rounded view of family transformation and women’s experiences, in the context of transnationalism…This collection creatively and seamlessly employs a transnational feminist lens in relaying a critical account of  power dynamics in transnational engagements.’

Transnational Social Review, vol 2:2:2012