Queer parenthood: It's multifaceted. It's complex. And it is constantly changing, as laws and culture shift around us. What's in a Name? reflects on this complexity through the voices of nonbiological/non-gestational queer mothers/parents who explore our experiences parenting across our different social and familial locations. The authors have all taken different routes to parenting, live in different countries, and understand our relationships to parenting through our own personal experiences. What we share is a commitment to parenting beyond the limits of biology, and of building families that are drawn together and maintained by the love and labour of parenting. The fifteen essays in this book address three key moments in our parenting journeys. First, we examine the routes we took to parenting, with many of us specifically focusing on the experience of being the "other" mother while our partners were pregnant, and the particular fears, anxieties, and triumphs that come with it. Second, we locate ourselves "in the thick of it" as parents, where the experiences shared among parents are colored by our particular experiences as nonbiological/non-gestational mothers/parents. Finally, we reflect on our identities, including the identity of "mother," and how those grow, shift, and develop throughout our parenting journeys.

In the early 1990s anthropologist John Sherry lived with Leroy Jackson and Adella Begaye, leaders of Din CARE, a Navajo organization dedicated to protecting the environment and its links to Navajo culture. "Land, Wind, and Hard Words" is his account of the founding, activities, and evolution of Din CARE, whose original mission was to protect the Navajo forest from the ravages of industrial logging. Sherry's intimate account of the daily lives of this group of activists reminds us of the threats facing local communities and the people trying to defend them. Not least among these threats are the many demands of the "outside world." From meetings with lawyers or do-gooder environmentalists to the cutthroat world of fundraising, every encounter with outsiders affects the work, draining time and resources away from direct participation with the community and even affecting the way activists think.