Local history, queer modernity: class and the subjective production of Hong Kong gay men
By examining the influences of class on the lives of Hong Kong gay men, Ting-Fai Yu argues for the revitalisation of class as a useful analytic category that not only enables a more grounded understanding of Hong Kong queer culture, but also generates theoretical relevance towards localising queer studies in other East Asian societies.
Lecture by Ting-Fai Yu, IIAS affiliated fellow from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Lunch will be provided. Registration is required.
This paper stems from an ethnographic study that examines the influences of class on the lives of Hong Kong gay men and, in doing so, provides a perspective highlighting how inequalities are reproduced in local queer culture amid proliferating sexual progress. It combines in-depth interview accounts of middle- and working-class Hong Kong gay men between the ages of 20 to 55, with extensive participant observation conducted in a local non-government organisation, social movement events, and other informal community networks.
Analytically anchored in a specific set of compressed economic transformations affecting postwar Hong Kong, this paper understands class as a relatively recent and rapidly changing formation that is linked to an unprecedented condition of upward mobility and the emergence of Hong Kong identity since the 1970s. Although class was not commonly spoken about by the informants, it demonstrates how class difference was nevertheless displaced into other categories of social difference – such as age, generation, race and culture – which have come to inform their struggles and aspirations as queer subjects.
Through discussing two case studies, it reveals the locally specific cultural logics of class relation shaping their class displacements which have, in turn, rendered any resistance impossible. This paper concludes by arguing for the revitalisation of class as a useful analytic category that not only enables a more grounded understanding of Hong Kong queer culture, but also generates theoretical relevance towards localising queer studies in other East Asian societies that went through similar trajectories of economic development.
Ting-Fai Yu received his PhD in gender studies (anthropology) from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2017. He is currently a research fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden, the Netherlands. His work has focused on the intersection of queer sexuality, social inequality and critical methodologies in Asian studies.
Registration (required)
Please register via the webform provided below if you would like to attend this lecture (by Friday 8 June 15:00h if you would like IIAS to provide lunch).
About IIAS Lunch Lectures
Every month, one of the IIAS affiliated fellows will give an informal presentation about his/her work-in-progress for colleagues and others interested. Lunch lectures are sometimes also organised for visiting scholars.
IIAS organises these lectures to provide the research community with an opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and exchange thoughts and ideas. Anyone with an interest in the subject matter at hand is welcome to attend and join the discussion.