A pioneering ethnography of the national landscape (read Archipelago), Tom Boellstorff offers a new spin on the local and the global, supplies a refreshing new reading of gay subjectivities, and through metaphor, delivers a richly embroidered, linguistically textualized contribution to the literature on sexuality in one Islamic nation (Geoffrey C. Gunn Journal of Contemporary Asia )

A cogent and well-argued examination . . . one that may remain applicable to Indonesian social life for many years. (Matthew Kennedy Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide )

The Gay Archipelago is an important and timely discussion and analysis of how nation, belonging, desire, subjectivity and geography all intersect in Indonesia. The book provides a truly intimate engagement in the lifeworlds of gay and lesbi folk, and tells us much about how contemporary Indonesian culture is both changed, challenged and transformed through its archipelagic logic. (Baden Offord Inside Indonesia )

This book is timely, emphasizing changing forms of social life in an era of globalization. . . . [T]his is a stimulating and challenging book to read. (Abraham D. Lavender American Anthropologist )

Boellstorff's discussion is permeated by a moving sense of validation of the communities he is studying. . . . Anyone with a serious interest in Indonesian culture would do well to seek it out and read it for him or herself. (Keith Foulcher Indonesia )

[A] fascinating and ambitious study. . . . The Gay Archipelago is a refreshing and brave work that should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in the relationship between human sexuality and cultural interchange beyond the well-trodden path of conventional paradigms. (Elisabeth Lund Engerbretsen Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute )

The Gay Archipelago is a landmark book, both for studies of Indonesia and for studies of comparative sexualities. Tom Boellstorff manages to integrate grounded narratives of personal experience in larger theoretical notions of identity and nation, and in so doing to develop perhaps the most sophisticated case study yet written of the ways in which sexual subjectivities reflect, and help shape, national identity. (Dennis Altman, author of "Global Sex" and "Gore Vidal's America" )