Queer Tongzhi China

This book brings together some of the most exciting, original and cutting-edge work being conducted on contemporary queer China. The volume includes original essays by some of the most prolific and central queer activists and artists in the PRC, placing their writing alongside work by emergent and established scholars from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. The book offers unique perspectives by presenting primary accounts of the creative and multi-faceted strategies that activists and community organizers have developed in their various activities. The volume also presents rich, empirical evidence of every-day queer lives across China, offering a unique record not only of cosmopolitan community and activist perspectives but also of voices and experiences from a broad range of locations and identifications. As a whole it offers invaluable insights into sexual and gender diversity in China today. Queer/Tongzhi China thus breathes as it speaks, providing through its diverse approaches a different understanding of queer China than standard mono-ethnographies or social-scientific documentaries.

This very timely, well-written and insightful exploration of gay identity & queer activism in the PRC today is more than a study of `queer China' through the lens of male homosexuality; it also examines identity, power and governmentality in contemporary China, as shaped by China's historical conditions and contemporary situations.

This is the first ethnographic study of lala (lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) communities and politics in China, focusing on the city of Shanghai. Based on several years of in-depth interviews, the volume concentrates on lalas' everyday struggle to reconcile same-sex desire with a dominant rhetoric of family harmony and compulsory marriage, all within a culture denying women’s active and legitimate sexual agency. Lucetta Yip Lo Kam reads discourses on homophobia in China, including the rhetoric of "Chinese tolerance" and considers the heteronormative demands imposed on tongzhi subjects. She treats "the politics of public correctness" as a newly emerging tongzhi practice developed from the culturally specific, Chinese forms of regulation that inform tongzhi survival strategies and self-identification. Alternating between Kam's own queer biography and her extensive ethnographic findings, this text offers a contemporary portrait of female tongzhi communities and politics in urban China, making an invaluable contribution to global discussions and international debates on same-sex intimacies, homophobia, coming-out politics, and sexual governance.

This book analyses queer cultural production in contemporary China to map the broad social transformations in gender, sexuality and desire. It examines queer literature and visual cultures in China’s post-Mao and postsocialist era to show how these diverse cultural forms and practices not only function as context-specific and culturally sensitive forms of social activism but also produce distinct types of gender and sexual subjectivities unique to China’s postsocialist conditions. From poetry to papercutting art, from ‘comrade/gay literature’ to girls’ love fan fiction, from lesbian films to activist documentaries, and from a drag show in Shanghai to a public performance of a same-sex wedding in Beijing, the book reveals a queer China in all its ideological complexity and creative energy. Empirically rich and methodologically eclectic, Queer China skilfully weaves together historical and archival research, textual and discourse analysis, along with interviews and ethnography. Breaking new ground and bringing a non-Western perspective to the fore, this transdisciplinary work contributes to multiple academic fields including literary and cultural studies, media and communication studies, film and screen studies, contemporary art, theatre and performance studies, gender and sexuality studies, China/Asia and Global South studies, cultural history and cultural geography, political theory and the study of social movements.

This book presents a groundbreaking exploration of masculinities and homosexualities amongst Chinese gay men. It provides a sociological account of masculinity, desire, sexuality, identity and citizenship in contemporary Chinese societies, and within the constellation of global culture. Kong reports the results of an extensive ethnographic study of contemporary Chinese gay men in a wide range of different locations including mainland China, Hong Kong and the Chinese overseas community in London, showing how Chinese gay men live their everyday lives. Relating Chinese male homosexuality to the extensive social and cultural theories on gender, sexuality and the body, postcolonialism and globalisation, the book examines the idea of queer space and numerous 'queer flows' – of capital, bodies, ideas, images, and commodities – around the world. The book concludes that different gay male identities – such as the conspicuously consuming memba in Hong Kong, the urban tongzhi, the 'money boy' in China and the feminised 'golden boy' in London – emerge in different locations, and are all caught up in the transnational flow of queer cultures which are at once local and global.

For researchers, activists, and sociologists, Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies examines Chinese societies where the family-kinship system, rather than an sexuality, is taken as the basis of an individual's identity to help you understand the variations of same-sex erotica in different Chinese societies. Examining past and present treatment of the subject, including instances of discrimination against homosexuals, this interesting book explores same-sex eroticism in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and explains the variations of categories and experiences of tongzhi in these countries. Discussing political movements for gay/lesbian/bi rights and the societal implications of same-sex eroticism, this intelligent book provides you with a clear background of the attitudes and meanings behind negative stereotypes in these countries and around the world. Tongzhi will help you comprehend how culture influences identity and demonstrates how you can develop relevant strategies for successful tongzhi activist movements. To view an excerpt online, find the book in our QuickSearch catalog at www.HaworthPress.com.

This book examines different forms and practices of queer media, that is, the films, websites, zines, and film festivals produced by, for, and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in China in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It traces how queer communities have emerged in urban China and identifies the pivotal role that community media have played in the process. It also explores how these media shape community cultures and perform the role of social and cultural activism in a country where queer identities have only recently emerged and explicit forms of social activism are under serious political constraints. Importantly, because queer media is ‘niche’ and ‘narrowcasting’ rather than ‘broadcasting’ and ‘mass communication,’ the subject compels a rethinking of some often-taken-for-granted assumptions about how media relates to the state, the market, and individuals. Overall, the book reveals a great deal about queer communities and identities, queer activism, and about media and social and political attitudes in China.