As an anthropologist of new media, gender, and sexuality, I study how new media technologies such as the cell phone influence the ways people in China create, buy, and sell online affects and intimacies.
Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 2022
Live-streamers in China are predominantly female and heterosexual, so their heterosexual male cou... more Live-streamers in China are predominantly female and heterosexual, so their heterosexual male counterparts barely receives attention. In this paper, we invoke the concept of "emergent masculinities" to critically examine how male live-streamers engage this typically feminine profession. They come in three main types of decreasing prestige: e-sports athletes; shopping guides; and affective entertainers who attract female audiences with friendship and intimacy. This last type enacts a women-pleasing façade that also contradicts the men's own hegemonic masculine upbringing. This tension highlights how China's emergent masculinities develop in conversation with the country's post-feminist sensibilities.
As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet also enables new subjects... more As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet also enables new subjects of affective labour to emerge. Since 2014, young men have been hawking their services as xuni lianren ('virtual lovers') on popular Chinese websites. These men explicitly state that while they neither sell sex nor meet their clients in person, they behave otherwise as actual boyfriends would: over chatting apps, they talk to clients for leisure and provide relief from frustrations accumulated from family, school and work. We frame this study as one of the 'digital housewife', a conceptual figure who produces two use-values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Male virtual lovers, however, commodify even their supposedly inalienable affects, so we argue that they (as digital househusbands) embody digital housewife-ness even more so than Jarrett's original formulation.
Urban spaces in China have traditionally been marked by hetero-patriarchy, making them key sites ... more Urban spaces in China have traditionally been marked by hetero-patriarchy, making them key sites for exploring gendered power relations. Reflecting on the growing importance of companion animals , this study investigates the roles that these animals now play in the lives of unmarried women in urban China. Using transspecies urban theory to examine interview data gathered primarily from Guangzhou, we draw three conclusions. Firstly, as material conditions increasingly define pet keeping, companion animals have become both a class symbol and a safe refuge from the stressful demands of working life. Secondly, as professional Chinese women construct positive intimate relationships with their companions to preserve their autonomy as persons at work, they increasingly turn their backs on traditional marriage and family in an instantiation of 'emer-gent femininity'. Thirdly, pets offer a new venue of online sociality for their owners. By centring women in Chinese urban studies, we argue that companion animals co-construct the living conditions of their urban, female, middle-class owners.
In China, the live-streaming industry boasts 587 million users worth 961 billion yuan in 2020 [Yi... more In China, the live-streaming industry boasts 587 million users worth 961 billion yuan in 2020 [Yimei Zixun (2021, 16 March). 2020–2021 Zhongguo zaixian zhibo hangye niandu yanjiu baogao. https://www.163.com/dy/article/G57R8DN00511A1Q1.html]. With so many live-streamers clamoring for fame and fortune, the sheer competition catalyzes the rise of ‘live-streaming guilds’ (zhibo gonghui) that help members elevate themselves in the performance charts of the various live-streaming apps. In this article, we conducted ethnographic research in one such guild that contracted its business from the live-streaming platform Zhubei. By conceptualizing these guilds as collectives of manipulating ‘algorithmic experts’ [Bishop, S. (2020). Algorithmic experts: Selling algorithmic lore on YouTube. Social Media + Society, 6(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119897323], we argue that they optimize their live-streamers’ performance according to algorithmic parameters that the platforms themselves reveal. However, guilds manipulate audience affects more, going so far as to use heterosexual male workers to masquerade as female live-streamers to entice straight male audience members to tip generously. As such, we challenge the
still-prevalent epistemological assumption that live-streamers work alone, and the received wisdom that platform algorithms are unknown and unknowable.
Beginning in 2014, Chinese Internet-users can purchase care and concern online. Customers can hir... more Beginning in 2014, Chinese Internet-users can purchase care and concern online. Customers can hire both male and female virtual lovers (xuni lianren) to talk to them while the lovers perform character roles of their choice. By examining why female customers consume virtual loving services, we argue that women hire male virtual lovers to assuage the frustrations that they accrue in their daily lives, and not to look for offline romantic partners. Inspired by the concept of ‘emergent masculinity’ (Inhorn & Wentzell, 2011), we coin the term emergent femininity. This term describes how, after a century-long process where the individual breaks free from familial and societal strictures, present-day young and urban Chinese women now exhibit a novel mode of womanhood characterized by historically unprecedented self-confidence, a willingness to openly articulate and purchase what they want, and a high degree of mediatization. Hence, this paper illuminates the appearance of ‘new women’ in China.
Developed in 2011, WeChat integrated a digital wallet function two years later. It has since beco... more Developed in 2011, WeChat integrated a digital wallet function two years later. It has since become a seemingly indispensable part of everyday life in China. Armed with this highly versatile app, users can now pay their bills, hail taxis, order food, book hotels, and even give alms to roadside beggars. However, research into WeChat sociality remains largely focused on the cities, and this urban bias obfuscates the social experiences of using WeChat for the vast number of people who still reside in rural regions. This article addresses this lacuna by presenting ethnographic data gathered in the remote mountains of Xishangbanna in Yunnan Province. Using the concept of strangership, we argue ethical ambiguity surrounds WeChat’s arrival. The app affords more contact with the outside world for otherwise-isolated villages, but not all contact with strangers has brought about positive economic and social changes. Would-be adulterers also make use of WeChat to find extramarital lovers. As such, this article contributes to the anthropology of strangership.
Regardless of their sexualities, the Chinese face familial and social expectations to marry the o... more Regardless of their sexualities, the Chinese face familial and social expectations to marry the opposite sex once they reach the appropriate age. Queers deal with this pressure by doing xinghun. While the relational and psycho-social effects of these ‘cooperative marriages’ between knowing gay men and lesbians have been extensively documented, xinghun remains relatively unexamined at the material level. By applying a feminist materialist approach to study how Chinese queers manage xinghun, we found that Chinese queers evaluate potential xinghun partners according to their economic status. To resolve the complications of related issues, Chinese queers spend large sums of money to maximise the chances of their xinghun succeeding. Moreover, in China’s highly patriarchal society, xinghun wives demand economic compensation for their perceived sacrifice. By regarding the transactionalisation of xinghun conjugal bond as part of the meta-changes happening in neoliberal Chinese society, this paper refines our understanding of xinghun beyond the seeming dichotomy between queerness and heteronormativity.
As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet and other social media al... more As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet and other social media also enable new subjects of affective labor to emerge. Since 2014, young men increasingly hawk their services as xuni lianren (virtual lovers) on popular Chinese websites. These men explicitly state that while they neither sell sex nor meet their clients in person, they behave otherwise as actual boyfriends would: over chatting apps, they
talk to clients for leisure, and provide relief from frustrations accumulated from family, school, and work. Using fieldwork data gathered from male virtual lovers, we argue that that their sale of immaterial affective labor substantiates [Virno, P. (2004). A grammar of the multitude: For an analysis of contemporary forms of life. New York: Semiotext(e)] idea of the social factory by demonstrating that social relations are indeed transforming (albeit incompletely) into relations of production.
Recently, the smart phone app Kuaishou emerged in China with more than 400 million registered use... more Recently, the smart phone app Kuaishou emerged in China with more than 400 million registered users. An app where users upload pre-recorded videos and a small number of vetted ones live-stream as zhubos, Kuaishou distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack with the unabashed earthiness of its contents. We have two goals in this article. First, we examine how the app’s performers attract, cultivate and retain their fans to make money off their activities. Second, we treat zhubos as ‘digital housewives’, who produce two use values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Zhubos can earn money from their work, but they ultimately provide highly exploited labour to Kuaishou under a façade of innocuous play. Indeed, by selling their supposedly inalienable affects, zhubos embody ‘digital housewife-ness’ even more so than Jarrett’s original formulation.
Rural youths in China face very limited life opportunities. Urban-biased educational policies hav... more Rural youths in China face very limited life opportunities. Urban-biased educational policies have resulted in an unappealing school environment, where rural students become ‘invisible dropouts’ who physically attend school but have already mentally disengaged. Invoking the Birmingham School’s class-based analyses of youths’
cultural production, we examine how middle school students in rural Zouping, Shandong Province, engage the smart phone video-sharing app Kuaishou to realize their dreams of upward socio-economic mobility as Internet ‘micro-celebrities’ (Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social media. New York: Peter Lang). These students produce a sub-culture centered on the figure of the shehui ren (‘society man’) and his associated values of brute strength and supporting one’s family. We maintain that in an increasingly neoliberal China where family wealth once again conditions social reproduction and the upward social mobility that education affords, the shehui ren criticizes the widening income gap by highlighting alternate venues of socio-economic advancement.
This paper offers a critical queer analysis of Star Trek as a history of the future. Juxtaposing ... more This paper offers a critical queer analysis of Star Trek as a history of the future. Juxtaposing two episodes of queerness from Star Trek’s canon with the show’s depiction of gay characters in its latest drama series, the paper unpacks the multiple levels of queerness that are at once facilitated and restricted by the show’s visions of the future. Drawing on discussions of queer futurity, it argues for the usefulness of a queer reparative reading strategy in intervening in heteronormative models of the future and opening up potentialities for queer world-making.
Agamben (1998) famously resurrected the homo sacer figure from obscurity in ancient Roman law. Or... more Agamben (1998) famously resurrected the homo sacer figure from obscurity in ancient Roman law. Originally conceived as a heuristic device, this “sacred man” concept has been applied largely in studies of refugees and prisoners. This article makes use of the concept in the more traditionally anthropological arenas of kinship and marriage. Some Miao in China’s Guizhou province have been branded as “living ghosts”, because their ancestors allegedly betrayed their village to pillaging rebels. We argue that this branding might have reflected not so much the betrayal, but rather longstanding socioeconomic
and political tensions between the Miao and neighbouring ethnic groups. As such, we regard the living ghosts’ origin story more as a social justification of ontological (un)cleanliness that we call “sociodicy of (im)purity”. Lastly, the ghosts’ collective wealth and political influence prevent their complete descent into Agambenian bare life, so this article enriches our understanding of how the homo sacer concept operates empirically.
China's economic liberalization in 1978 created new gendered and sexual subjectivities. This essa... more China's economic liberalization in 1978 created new gendered and sexual subjectivities. This essay examines a new internet meme gaymi (''gay confidante'') and its discursive construction of gay men as genteel embodiments of a women-friendly ''emergent mas-culinity'' (Inhorn and Wentzell, 2011). We argue that firstly, the gaymi discourse actually centers on the women who desire gay male companionship, because it ironically articulates the desires of these women and not those of the men. Secondly, strong links possibly exist between the rise of the gaymi and the popularity of the Korean Wave in China. Hence, the gaymi gestures at intra-Asian cultural globalization.
Inspired by the classical triptych of field, capital, and habitus, Green formulates the sexual fi... more Inspired by the classical triptych of field, capital, and habitus, Green formulates the sexual fields framework to account for the current unprecedented expansion of specialized erotic worlds. In this essay, I analyze fieldwork data to ethnographically map the contours of the sexual field of Taipei's gay Bears. After tracing the origins of the Taiwanese Bear through Japan and ultimately back to the US, I critically examine the interactions of the sexual fields framework's core components. I make two conclusions here. First, Bears accumulate sexual capital through their bodies and the clothes they wear and rely heavily on social media to attain and retain sexual status. Second, while the Bear originally celebrated somatic diversity, interpersonal competition increasingly homogenizes Taipei's Bears attire to reveal the limits of Bear sociability. Through this essay, I contribute to the growing body of sexual fields research.
Recently, Chinese newspapers have captured the attention of their readers with stories of crimina... more Recently, Chinese newspapers have captured the attention of their readers with stories of criminals pillaging graves and murdering people to obtain corpses to sell for use in “ghost marriages” (yinhun, 阴婚). One sensationalistic report even claims that “150,000 yuan (US$22,000) won’t even get you bones”. When the state casts yinhun as a “culturally backward” superstition incongruent with national visions of modernity, how are we to understand the resurgence of this practice? By tracing the history of ghost marriages, we argue that yinhun corpses are simultaneously dead and alive. Adapting Gell’s theory of the agency of art, we maintain that yinhun corpses may be traded as lifeless commodities, but they also possess powerful living agency that critically undergirds the social efficacy of the ghost-marriage ritual. Indeed, these cadavers perform a sort of macabre affective labour that soothes the anxieties of the living. As such, this article deepens our understanding of what we mean by “commodity”.
Popular US queer discourses endow gay men and lesbians with the ability to determine the queernes... more Popular US queer discourses endow gay men and lesbians with the ability to determine the queerness of another person with a mere glance. Although the same discourses construct this queer-detecting "gaydar" as an inborn talent, I argue that it is, in fact, a form of "skilled vision" (Grasseni 2004, 2007) that anyone can acquire through sufficient socialization with gay men and lesbians. As much as it is about looking, it is equally about being looked at. In this article, I illustrate the cultural workings of gaydar using ethnographic data gathered during ongoing fieldwork among Taipei's gay "Bears." After tracing the origins of the Taiwanese Bear through Japan and ultimately back to the US, I critically examine how Taipei's Bears embody Bearness through their clothes and bodily movements. I draw two conclusions. First, while the Bear originally celebrated somatic diversity, interpersonal competition increasingly homogenizes Taipei's Bears' attire to reveal the limits of Bear sociability. Second, gaydar remains important to the majority of gay men who dress more subtly, as the ways they look convey their interest in the men that they encounter. [
Since its independence in 1965, Singapore has been trying to unify its diverse ethnic, linguistic... more Since its independence in 1965, Singapore has been trying to unify its diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities under one coherent national identity. Queer Singaporeans, however, suffer from a double alienation from the nation. While socially ostracised by the existing anti-sodomy Section 377A and the queer-unfriendly state policies that it justifies, they also suffer from that inability to identify with the nation called the ‘Great Affective Divide’. In this essay, I aim to achieve two goals. Firstly, I invoke the idea of cultural citizenship as I ethnographically investigate the efforts that queer Singaporeans make to overcome their national estrangement, particularly an event called ‘Pink Dot’. While such efforts do not receive universal support from queers, they are essential in the development of a better understanding of it means to be citizens of Singapore. Secondly, rather than wanting to remain socially marginal and critical of the norm, queers actually express their desire for national inclusion through Pink Dot. Yet, I argue that it would be erroneous to read this desire as ‘homonationalism’. As such, Pink Dot provides a fertile example that counters the conventional view within Queer Studies that queers always resist the hetero-patriarchal norm.
Once considered the Asian country least likely to have any positive LGBT developments (Leong 1997... more Once considered the Asian country least likely to have any positive LGBT developments (Leong 1997), Singapore has witnessed a number of such advances in the last decade. Invoking the ideas of cultural and sexual citizenship to critically frame my examination of a failed gay pride parade and an immensely successful rally for the freedom to love called “Pink Dot,” I make two assertions. First, I maintain that attempts at asserting one’s citizenship succeed more often when they take into account the country’s communitarian ideals. Second, I argue that Singaporeans once gave the state the right to determine the contours of their citizenship, but now take full advantage of every single loosening of the state’s rules. This study illuminates the processes of queer cultural citizen-making in Singapore.
Since the mid-1990s, Singapore’s Chinatown has been serving as the country’s de facto gay distric... more Since the mid-1990s, Singapore’s Chinatown has been serving as the country’s de facto gay district. Gay businesses thrive in one of Singapore’s most socially conservative neighbourhoods, because the state allows relative free rein on the usage of preserved buildings after conserving the ethnic enclave as a bastion of Chineseness. Invoking Lefebvrian spatial concepts, I argue that the uneasy interface between moral conservatism and economic neoliberalism opened up intersticial spaces of business opportunities. Gay entrepreneurs took advantage of these spaces and their thriving businesses became the cluster today. I further maintain that as spaces of social interactions for gay men and lesbians, these enterprises help develop Singaporean queer identities. Yet, they simultaneously retard the country’s nascent LGBT rights movement by remaining largely closeted. By granting access to privatised consumption without challenging the heteronormative status quo of Singaporean society, gay Chinatown buttresses homonationalism (Kulick, 2009; Puar, 2007).
Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 2022
Live-streamers in China are predominantly female and heterosexual, so their heterosexual male cou... more Live-streamers in China are predominantly female and heterosexual, so their heterosexual male counterparts barely receives attention. In this paper, we invoke the concept of "emergent masculinities" to critically examine how male live-streamers engage this typically feminine profession. They come in three main types of decreasing prestige: e-sports athletes; shopping guides; and affective entertainers who attract female audiences with friendship and intimacy. This last type enacts a women-pleasing façade that also contradicts the men's own hegemonic masculine upbringing. This tension highlights how China's emergent masculinities develop in conversation with the country's post-feminist sensibilities.
As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet also enables new subjects... more As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet also enables new subjects of affective labour to emerge. Since 2014, young men have been hawking their services as xuni lianren ('virtual lovers') on popular Chinese websites. These men explicitly state that while they neither sell sex nor meet their clients in person, they behave otherwise as actual boyfriends would: over chatting apps, they talk to clients for leisure and provide relief from frustrations accumulated from family, school and work. We frame this study as one of the 'digital housewife', a conceptual figure who produces two use-values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Male virtual lovers, however, commodify even their supposedly inalienable affects, so we argue that they (as digital househusbands) embody digital housewife-ness even more so than Jarrett's original formulation.
Urban spaces in China have traditionally been marked by hetero-patriarchy, making them key sites ... more Urban spaces in China have traditionally been marked by hetero-patriarchy, making them key sites for exploring gendered power relations. Reflecting on the growing importance of companion animals , this study investigates the roles that these animals now play in the lives of unmarried women in urban China. Using transspecies urban theory to examine interview data gathered primarily from Guangzhou, we draw three conclusions. Firstly, as material conditions increasingly define pet keeping, companion animals have become both a class symbol and a safe refuge from the stressful demands of working life. Secondly, as professional Chinese women construct positive intimate relationships with their companions to preserve their autonomy as persons at work, they increasingly turn their backs on traditional marriage and family in an instantiation of 'emer-gent femininity'. Thirdly, pets offer a new venue of online sociality for their owners. By centring women in Chinese urban studies, we argue that companion animals co-construct the living conditions of their urban, female, middle-class owners.
In China, the live-streaming industry boasts 587 million users worth 961 billion yuan in 2020 [Yi... more In China, the live-streaming industry boasts 587 million users worth 961 billion yuan in 2020 [Yimei Zixun (2021, 16 March). 2020–2021 Zhongguo zaixian zhibo hangye niandu yanjiu baogao. https://www.163.com/dy/article/G57R8DN00511A1Q1.html]. With so many live-streamers clamoring for fame and fortune, the sheer competition catalyzes the rise of ‘live-streaming guilds’ (zhibo gonghui) that help members elevate themselves in the performance charts of the various live-streaming apps. In this article, we conducted ethnographic research in one such guild that contracted its business from the live-streaming platform Zhubei. By conceptualizing these guilds as collectives of manipulating ‘algorithmic experts’ [Bishop, S. (2020). Algorithmic experts: Selling algorithmic lore on YouTube. Social Media + Society, 6(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119897323], we argue that they optimize their live-streamers’ performance according to algorithmic parameters that the platforms themselves reveal. However, guilds manipulate audience affects more, going so far as to use heterosexual male workers to masquerade as female live-streamers to entice straight male audience members to tip generously. As such, we challenge the
still-prevalent epistemological assumption that live-streamers work alone, and the received wisdom that platform algorithms are unknown and unknowable.
Beginning in 2014, Chinese Internet-users can purchase care and concern online. Customers can hir... more Beginning in 2014, Chinese Internet-users can purchase care and concern online. Customers can hire both male and female virtual lovers (xuni lianren) to talk to them while the lovers perform character roles of their choice. By examining why female customers consume virtual loving services, we argue that women hire male virtual lovers to assuage the frustrations that they accrue in their daily lives, and not to look for offline romantic partners. Inspired by the concept of ‘emergent masculinity’ (Inhorn & Wentzell, 2011), we coin the term emergent femininity. This term describes how, after a century-long process where the individual breaks free from familial and societal strictures, present-day young and urban Chinese women now exhibit a novel mode of womanhood characterized by historically unprecedented self-confidence, a willingness to openly articulate and purchase what they want, and a high degree of mediatization. Hence, this paper illuminates the appearance of ‘new women’ in China.
Developed in 2011, WeChat integrated a digital wallet function two years later. It has since beco... more Developed in 2011, WeChat integrated a digital wallet function two years later. It has since become a seemingly indispensable part of everyday life in China. Armed with this highly versatile app, users can now pay their bills, hail taxis, order food, book hotels, and even give alms to roadside beggars. However, research into WeChat sociality remains largely focused on the cities, and this urban bias obfuscates the social experiences of using WeChat for the vast number of people who still reside in rural regions. This article addresses this lacuna by presenting ethnographic data gathered in the remote mountains of Xishangbanna in Yunnan Province. Using the concept of strangership, we argue ethical ambiguity surrounds WeChat’s arrival. The app affords more contact with the outside world for otherwise-isolated villages, but not all contact with strangers has brought about positive economic and social changes. Would-be adulterers also make use of WeChat to find extramarital lovers. As such, this article contributes to the anthropology of strangership.
Regardless of their sexualities, the Chinese face familial and social expectations to marry the o... more Regardless of their sexualities, the Chinese face familial and social expectations to marry the opposite sex once they reach the appropriate age. Queers deal with this pressure by doing xinghun. While the relational and psycho-social effects of these ‘cooperative marriages’ between knowing gay men and lesbians have been extensively documented, xinghun remains relatively unexamined at the material level. By applying a feminist materialist approach to study how Chinese queers manage xinghun, we found that Chinese queers evaluate potential xinghun partners according to their economic status. To resolve the complications of related issues, Chinese queers spend large sums of money to maximise the chances of their xinghun succeeding. Moreover, in China’s highly patriarchal society, xinghun wives demand economic compensation for their perceived sacrifice. By regarding the transactionalisation of xinghun conjugal bond as part of the meta-changes happening in neoliberal Chinese society, this paper refines our understanding of xinghun beyond the seeming dichotomy between queerness and heteronormativity.
As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet and other social media al... more As China continues to neoliberalize in the new millennium, the Internet and other social media also enable new subjects of affective labor to emerge. Since 2014, young men increasingly hawk their services as xuni lianren (virtual lovers) on popular Chinese websites. These men explicitly state that while they neither sell sex nor meet their clients in person, they behave otherwise as actual boyfriends would: over chatting apps, they
talk to clients for leisure, and provide relief from frustrations accumulated from family, school, and work. Using fieldwork data gathered from male virtual lovers, we argue that that their sale of immaterial affective labor substantiates [Virno, P. (2004). A grammar of the multitude: For an analysis of contemporary forms of life. New York: Semiotext(e)] idea of the social factory by demonstrating that social relations are indeed transforming (albeit incompletely) into relations of production.
Recently, the smart phone app Kuaishou emerged in China with more than 400 million registered use... more Recently, the smart phone app Kuaishou emerged in China with more than 400 million registered users. An app where users upload pre-recorded videos and a small number of vetted ones live-stream as zhubos, Kuaishou distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack with the unabashed earthiness of its contents. We have two goals in this article. First, we examine how the app’s performers attract, cultivate and retain their fans to make money off their activities. Second, we treat zhubos as ‘digital housewives’, who produce two use values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Zhubos can earn money from their work, but they ultimately provide highly exploited labour to Kuaishou under a façade of innocuous play. Indeed, by selling their supposedly inalienable affects, zhubos embody ‘digital housewife-ness’ even more so than Jarrett’s original formulation.
Rural youths in China face very limited life opportunities. Urban-biased educational policies hav... more Rural youths in China face very limited life opportunities. Urban-biased educational policies have resulted in an unappealing school environment, where rural students become ‘invisible dropouts’ who physically attend school but have already mentally disengaged. Invoking the Birmingham School’s class-based analyses of youths’
cultural production, we examine how middle school students in rural Zouping, Shandong Province, engage the smart phone video-sharing app Kuaishou to realize their dreams of upward socio-economic mobility as Internet ‘micro-celebrities’ (Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social media. New York: Peter Lang). These students produce a sub-culture centered on the figure of the shehui ren (‘society man’) and his associated values of brute strength and supporting one’s family. We maintain that in an increasingly neoliberal China where family wealth once again conditions social reproduction and the upward social mobility that education affords, the shehui ren criticizes the widening income gap by highlighting alternate venues of socio-economic advancement.
This paper offers a critical queer analysis of Star Trek as a history of the future. Juxtaposing ... more This paper offers a critical queer analysis of Star Trek as a history of the future. Juxtaposing two episodes of queerness from Star Trek’s canon with the show’s depiction of gay characters in its latest drama series, the paper unpacks the multiple levels of queerness that are at once facilitated and restricted by the show’s visions of the future. Drawing on discussions of queer futurity, it argues for the usefulness of a queer reparative reading strategy in intervening in heteronormative models of the future and opening up potentialities for queer world-making.
Agamben (1998) famously resurrected the homo sacer figure from obscurity in ancient Roman law. Or... more Agamben (1998) famously resurrected the homo sacer figure from obscurity in ancient Roman law. Originally conceived as a heuristic device, this “sacred man” concept has been applied largely in studies of refugees and prisoners. This article makes use of the concept in the more traditionally anthropological arenas of kinship and marriage. Some Miao in China’s Guizhou province have been branded as “living ghosts”, because their ancestors allegedly betrayed their village to pillaging rebels. We argue that this branding might have reflected not so much the betrayal, but rather longstanding socioeconomic
and political tensions between the Miao and neighbouring ethnic groups. As such, we regard the living ghosts’ origin story more as a social justification of ontological (un)cleanliness that we call “sociodicy of (im)purity”. Lastly, the ghosts’ collective wealth and political influence prevent their complete descent into Agambenian bare life, so this article enriches our understanding of how the homo sacer concept operates empirically.
China's economic liberalization in 1978 created new gendered and sexual subjectivities. This essa... more China's economic liberalization in 1978 created new gendered and sexual subjectivities. This essay examines a new internet meme gaymi (''gay confidante'') and its discursive construction of gay men as genteel embodiments of a women-friendly ''emergent mas-culinity'' (Inhorn and Wentzell, 2011). We argue that firstly, the gaymi discourse actually centers on the women who desire gay male companionship, because it ironically articulates the desires of these women and not those of the men. Secondly, strong links possibly exist between the rise of the gaymi and the popularity of the Korean Wave in China. Hence, the gaymi gestures at intra-Asian cultural globalization.
Inspired by the classical triptych of field, capital, and habitus, Green formulates the sexual fi... more Inspired by the classical triptych of field, capital, and habitus, Green formulates the sexual fields framework to account for the current unprecedented expansion of specialized erotic worlds. In this essay, I analyze fieldwork data to ethnographically map the contours of the sexual field of Taipei's gay Bears. After tracing the origins of the Taiwanese Bear through Japan and ultimately back to the US, I critically examine the interactions of the sexual fields framework's core components. I make two conclusions here. First, Bears accumulate sexual capital through their bodies and the clothes they wear and rely heavily on social media to attain and retain sexual status. Second, while the Bear originally celebrated somatic diversity, interpersonal competition increasingly homogenizes Taipei's Bears attire to reveal the limits of Bear sociability. Through this essay, I contribute to the growing body of sexual fields research.
Recently, Chinese newspapers have captured the attention of their readers with stories of crimina... more Recently, Chinese newspapers have captured the attention of their readers with stories of criminals pillaging graves and murdering people to obtain corpses to sell for use in “ghost marriages” (yinhun, 阴婚). One sensationalistic report even claims that “150,000 yuan (US$22,000) won’t even get you bones”. When the state casts yinhun as a “culturally backward” superstition incongruent with national visions of modernity, how are we to understand the resurgence of this practice? By tracing the history of ghost marriages, we argue that yinhun corpses are simultaneously dead and alive. Adapting Gell’s theory of the agency of art, we maintain that yinhun corpses may be traded as lifeless commodities, but they also possess powerful living agency that critically undergirds the social efficacy of the ghost-marriage ritual. Indeed, these cadavers perform a sort of macabre affective labour that soothes the anxieties of the living. As such, this article deepens our understanding of what we mean by “commodity”.
Popular US queer discourses endow gay men and lesbians with the ability to determine the queernes... more Popular US queer discourses endow gay men and lesbians with the ability to determine the queerness of another person with a mere glance. Although the same discourses construct this queer-detecting "gaydar" as an inborn talent, I argue that it is, in fact, a form of "skilled vision" (Grasseni 2004, 2007) that anyone can acquire through sufficient socialization with gay men and lesbians. As much as it is about looking, it is equally about being looked at. In this article, I illustrate the cultural workings of gaydar using ethnographic data gathered during ongoing fieldwork among Taipei's gay "Bears." After tracing the origins of the Taiwanese Bear through Japan and ultimately back to the US, I critically examine how Taipei's Bears embody Bearness through their clothes and bodily movements. I draw two conclusions. First, while the Bear originally celebrated somatic diversity, interpersonal competition increasingly homogenizes Taipei's Bears' attire to reveal the limits of Bear sociability. Second, gaydar remains important to the majority of gay men who dress more subtly, as the ways they look convey their interest in the men that they encounter. [
Since its independence in 1965, Singapore has been trying to unify its diverse ethnic, linguistic... more Since its independence in 1965, Singapore has been trying to unify its diverse ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities under one coherent national identity. Queer Singaporeans, however, suffer from a double alienation from the nation. While socially ostracised by the existing anti-sodomy Section 377A and the queer-unfriendly state policies that it justifies, they also suffer from that inability to identify with the nation called the ‘Great Affective Divide’. In this essay, I aim to achieve two goals. Firstly, I invoke the idea of cultural citizenship as I ethnographically investigate the efforts that queer Singaporeans make to overcome their national estrangement, particularly an event called ‘Pink Dot’. While such efforts do not receive universal support from queers, they are essential in the development of a better understanding of it means to be citizens of Singapore. Secondly, rather than wanting to remain socially marginal and critical of the norm, queers actually express their desire for national inclusion through Pink Dot. Yet, I argue that it would be erroneous to read this desire as ‘homonationalism’. As such, Pink Dot provides a fertile example that counters the conventional view within Queer Studies that queers always resist the hetero-patriarchal norm.
Once considered the Asian country least likely to have any positive LGBT developments (Leong 1997... more Once considered the Asian country least likely to have any positive LGBT developments (Leong 1997), Singapore has witnessed a number of such advances in the last decade. Invoking the ideas of cultural and sexual citizenship to critically frame my examination of a failed gay pride parade and an immensely successful rally for the freedom to love called “Pink Dot,” I make two assertions. First, I maintain that attempts at asserting one’s citizenship succeed more often when they take into account the country’s communitarian ideals. Second, I argue that Singaporeans once gave the state the right to determine the contours of their citizenship, but now take full advantage of every single loosening of the state’s rules. This study illuminates the processes of queer cultural citizen-making in Singapore.
Since the mid-1990s, Singapore’s Chinatown has been serving as the country’s de facto gay distric... more Since the mid-1990s, Singapore’s Chinatown has been serving as the country’s de facto gay district. Gay businesses thrive in one of Singapore’s most socially conservative neighbourhoods, because the state allows relative free rein on the usage of preserved buildings after conserving the ethnic enclave as a bastion of Chineseness. Invoking Lefebvrian spatial concepts, I argue that the uneasy interface between moral conservatism and economic neoliberalism opened up intersticial spaces of business opportunities. Gay entrepreneurs took advantage of these spaces and their thriving businesses became the cluster today. I further maintain that as spaces of social interactions for gay men and lesbians, these enterprises help develop Singaporean queer identities. Yet, they simultaneously retard the country’s nascent LGBT rights movement by remaining largely closeted. By granting access to privatised consumption without challenging the heteronormative status quo of Singaporean society, gay Chinatown buttresses homonationalism (Kulick, 2009; Puar, 2007).
Anglo-American ontologies posit that gay men should come out to match their outer selves with the... more Anglo-American ontologies posit that gay men should come out to match their outer selves with their inner ones. In Confucianized Singapore, however, gay men refrain from coming out to their parents to avoid shaming their families. Instead, they couch their homosexuality in kinship terms and “go home” with their boyfriends (Chou, 2000). “Going home” gains familial acceptance, but it does not challenge mainstream discourses of homosexuality. By examining how Singaporean gay men negotiate their sexuality
with their families, I question the validity of coming out and going home as both ontological discourses and strategies.
Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures, 2012
Since 1967, Singaporean laws oblige all able-bodied male citizens to serve their National Service... more Since 1967, Singaporean laws oblige all able-bodied male citizens to serve their National Service upon reaching the age of 16½ years. Enlistees perform a minimum two years of full-time duty. After that, they still must serve 10 more years in the part-time reserves. During NS, officers aim to instill patriotism in the face of Singapore's severe geopolitical vulnerabilities. The transmission of these national values and the universality of military training among men make NS a prime citizen-making site.
Homosexuality does not excuse gay men from NS, so how do these men serve in the heteronormative and homophobic military? Drawing upon theories of cultural citizenship (Ong 1996; Rosaldo 1994) and dissertational fieldwork data, I argue that while many gay men find NS distasteful because of its many abuses of resources and manpower, others find it a social equalizer and an integral part of nation-building. I also assert that while gay men need never “come out” in the military, those who do highlight a general ignorance of gender and sexuality dynamics among
its policy planners. However, this does not mean that “out” soldiers cannot thrive in the military. Indeed, I argue that because military ideology prioritize test results over sexual orientation, those
who satisfy stringent standards of masculine performances can find considerable room to maneuver in. Examining the experiences of gay soldiers shed light on the possibilities and limits of NS as a
citizen-making site.
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Books by Chris K. K. Tan
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still-prevalent epistemological assumption that live-streamers work alone, and the received wisdom that platform algorithms are unknown and unknowable.
willingness to openly articulate and purchase what they want, and a high degree of mediatization. Hence, this paper illuminates the appearance of ‘new women’ in China.
contact with strangers has brought about positive economic and social changes. Would-be adulterers also make use of WeChat to find extramarital lovers. As such, this article contributes to the anthropology of strangership.
talk to clients for leisure, and provide relief from frustrations accumulated from family, school, and work. Using fieldwork data gathered from male virtual lovers, we argue that that their sale of immaterial affective labor substantiates [Virno, P. (2004). A grammar of the multitude: For an analysis of contemporary forms of life. New York: Semiotext(e)] idea of the social factory by demonstrating that social relations are indeed transforming (albeit incompletely) into relations of production.
First, we examine how the app’s performers attract, cultivate and retain their fans to make money off their activities. Second, we treat zhubos as ‘digital housewives’, who produce two use values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Zhubos can earn money from their work, but they ultimately provide highly exploited labour to Kuaishou under a façade of innocuous play. Indeed, by selling
their supposedly inalienable affects, zhubos embody ‘digital housewife-ness’ even more so than Jarrett’s original formulation.
cultural production, we examine how middle school students in rural Zouping, Shandong Province, engage the smart phone video-sharing app Kuaishou to realize their dreams of upward socio-economic mobility as Internet ‘micro-celebrities’ (Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social media. New York: Peter Lang). These students produce a sub-culture centered on the figure of the shehui ren (‘society man’) and his associated values of brute strength and supporting one’s family. We maintain that in an increasingly neoliberal China where family wealth once again conditions social reproduction and the upward social mobility that education affords, the shehui ren criticizes the widening income gap by highlighting alternate venues of socio-economic advancement.
and political tensions between the Miao and neighbouring ethnic groups. As such, we regard the living ghosts’ origin story more as a social justification of ontological (un)cleanliness that we call “sociodicy of (im)purity”. Lastly, the ghosts’ collective wealth and political influence prevent their complete descent into Agambenian bare life, so this article enriches our understanding of how the homo sacer concept operates empirically.
full advantage of every single loosening of the state’s rules. This study illuminates the processes of queer cultural citizen-making in Singapore.
still-prevalent epistemological assumption that live-streamers work alone, and the received wisdom that platform algorithms are unknown and unknowable.
willingness to openly articulate and purchase what they want, and a high degree of mediatization. Hence, this paper illuminates the appearance of ‘new women’ in China.
contact with strangers has brought about positive economic and social changes. Would-be adulterers also make use of WeChat to find extramarital lovers. As such, this article contributes to the anthropology of strangership.
talk to clients for leisure, and provide relief from frustrations accumulated from family, school, and work. Using fieldwork data gathered from male virtual lovers, we argue that that their sale of immaterial affective labor substantiates [Virno, P. (2004). A grammar of the multitude: For an analysis of contemporary forms of life. New York: Semiotext(e)] idea of the social factory by demonstrating that social relations are indeed transforming (albeit incompletely) into relations of production.
First, we examine how the app’s performers attract, cultivate and retain their fans to make money off their activities. Second, we treat zhubos as ‘digital housewives’, who produce two use values of alienable user data and inalienable affects like offline houseworkers do. Zhubos can earn money from their work, but they ultimately provide highly exploited labour to Kuaishou under a façade of innocuous play. Indeed, by selling
their supposedly inalienable affects, zhubos embody ‘digital housewife-ness’ even more so than Jarrett’s original formulation.
cultural production, we examine how middle school students in rural Zouping, Shandong Province, engage the smart phone video-sharing app Kuaishou to realize their dreams of upward socio-economic mobility as Internet ‘micro-celebrities’ (Senft, T. (2008). Camgirls: Celebrity and community in the age of social media. New York: Peter Lang). These students produce a sub-culture centered on the figure of the shehui ren (‘society man’) and his associated values of brute strength and supporting one’s family. We maintain that in an increasingly neoliberal China where family wealth once again conditions social reproduction and the upward social mobility that education affords, the shehui ren criticizes the widening income gap by highlighting alternate venues of socio-economic advancement.
and political tensions between the Miao and neighbouring ethnic groups. As such, we regard the living ghosts’ origin story more as a social justification of ontological (un)cleanliness that we call “sociodicy of (im)purity”. Lastly, the ghosts’ collective wealth and political influence prevent their complete descent into Agambenian bare life, so this article enriches our understanding of how the homo sacer concept operates empirically.
full advantage of every single loosening of the state’s rules. This study illuminates the processes of queer cultural citizen-making in Singapore.
with their families, I question the validity of coming out and going home as both ontological discourses and strategies.
Homosexuality does not excuse gay men from NS, so how do these men serve in the heteronormative and homophobic military? Drawing upon theories of cultural citizenship (Ong 1996; Rosaldo 1994) and dissertational fieldwork data, I argue that while many gay men find NS distasteful because of its many abuses of resources and manpower, others find it a social equalizer and an integral part of nation-building. I also assert that while gay men need never “come out” in the military, those who do highlight a general ignorance of gender and sexuality dynamics among
its policy planners. However, this does not mean that “out” soldiers cannot thrive in the military. Indeed, I argue that because military ideology prioritize test results over sexual orientation, those
who satisfy stringent standards of masculine performances can find considerable room to maneuver in. Examining the experiences of gay soldiers shed light on the possibilities and limits of NS as a
citizen-making site.