The Self-Understandings and Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan

海南男同性恋者的自我认识与日常生活

• 批准号: ES/V011340/1
• 负责人: James Cummings
• 金额: $ 11.85万
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FV011340%2F1
• 关键词: Self; Understandings; Everyday; Lives; Gay

Based on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork, my doctoral research examined the construction and regulation of sexuality in a context of rapid social, technological and political change. Focusing on the lives of gay men in Hainan, a socio-economically marginal province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), I explored how local, national and global processes play out in everyday life as gay men negotiate liveable lives in relation to shifting fields of people, discourses, spaces and technologies. I offer vital insights into dynamics of sexuality in the PRC and advance the conceptual horizons of global sexualities studies.Over the past 40 years in the PRC, rapid urbanisation, greater geographic mobility, technological development and increased access to information have fostered a proliferation of non-heterosexual identities, communities and ways of life. At the same time, these are curtailed by Confucian notions of a responsibility to 'continue the family line' through heterosexual reproduction, state censorship of sexual diversity in the media, and cuts to public welfare that have entrenched the need to have children as a source of care in later life. Further, socio-economic disparities along regional and urban/rural lines make living non-heterosexual lives in certain sites easier than in others.These issues have been explored within the limited literature on non-heterosexual lives in the PRC. However, existing work has focused on major urban contexts. As such, there is a lack of knowledge on how historical and ongoing dynamics of change and continuity are shaping non-heterosexual lives in smaller cities, towns and rural areas. This is both an empirical knowledge gap and a limitation on current understandings of sexuality. As my research shows, exploring how non-heterosexual lives are shaped by processes of change and continuity beyond global centres of cosmopolitan modernity can open up new avenues of enquiry which, in turn, can expand the meanings of 'sexuality' itself.I have analysed processes through which gay men in Hainan find one another, develop feelings of commonality, navigate the rural, urban and digital spaces in which they live and variously contest, conform to and accommodate the dominant orientation of their lives toward heterosexual marriage and reproduction. These are shown to entail complex entanglements of discourse, technology, desire, embodiment, intersubjectivity, and material relations of co-dependence. As such, I argue for an expanded conception of sexuality that looks beyond the individual, human subject and towards ecologies of power and possibility that shape what counts as a liveable life. I make this argument in dialogue with recent work in social theory that seeks to understand the inseparability of human relationships, institutional discourses, material contexts and environmental systems.The Fellowship will facilitate the publication of this important research as a book and series of articles that significantly advance the field of sexualities studies by expanding the notion of sexuality to include complex relationships between people, discourses, spaces and technologies. These new research directions are vital if contemporary scholarship is to grapple with changing dynamics of sexuality from a cross-cultural perspective in an increasingly complex world. These ideas will also be shared and consolidated through a symposium bringing together scholars addressing related themes. The Fellowship will also enable my research to support LGBT groups in Hainan and across the PRC. This will be done through a series of workshops with the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and wider LGBT communities in Hainan. These will result in a co-designed findings report to be shared locally and nationally. This will assist PFLAG in planning their work effectively and will help national LGBT groups understand the contrasting experience of LGBT people in different regions of the PRC.

基于18个月的人种学实地考察，我的博士研究考察了在快速的社会，技术和政治变革的背景下，性的建设和监管。聚焦于海南男同性恋者的生活，海南是中华人民共和国（PRC）的一个社会经济边缘省份，我探索了地方，国家和全球进程如何在日常生活中发挥作用，因为男同性恋者在不断变化的人，话语，空间和技术领域中谈判宜居生活。在过去的40年里，中国的快速城市化、更大的地理流动性、技术发展和信息获取的增加促进了非异性恋身份、社区和生活方式的扩散。与此同时，这些都受到儒家观念的限制，即通过异性生殖来“延续家庭”的责任，国家对媒体中性别多样性的审查，以及削减公共福利，这些都巩固了将孩子作为晚年生活的照顾来源的必要性。此外，沿着地区和城乡的社会经济差异使得在某些地方过非异性恋生活比在其他地方更容易。然而，现有的工作侧重于主要的城市背景。因此，人们不了解历史上和当前的变化和连续性动态如何影响小城市、城镇和农村地区的非异性恋生活。这既是一个经验性的知识差距，也是目前对性的理解的局限性。正如我的研究所显示的，探索非异性恋的生活是如何被改变的过程所塑造的，以及在国际化现代性的全球中心之外的连续性，可以开辟新的研究途径，反过来，可以扩展“性”本身的含义。我分析了海南男同性恋者找到彼此，发展共同感，在农村，他们生活的城市和数字空间，在不同程度上与异性婚姻和生殖的主导生活取向相冲突，并符合和适应这种主导生活取向。这些都表明，需要复杂的纠缠的话语，技术，欲望，体现，主体间性，和物质关系的相互依赖。因此，我主张扩大性的概念，超越个人，人类主体，走向权力和可能性的生态，塑造什么是可居住的生活。我在与社会理论的对话中提出了这个论点，这些理论试图理解人类关系，制度话语，物质背景和环境系统的不可分割性。该奖学金将促进这一重要研究的出版，作为一本书和一系列文章，通过扩大性的概念，包括人与人之间的复杂关系，话语，空间和技术。这些新的研究方向是至关重要的，如果当代学术是从跨文化的角度在一个日益复杂的世界与不断变化的动态性。还将通过一次研讨会交流和巩固这些想法，这次研讨会将讨论相关主题的学者聚集在一起。奖学金也将使我的研究能够支持海南和中国各地的LGBT群体。这将通过与海南的男女同性恋父母和朋友（PFLAG）以及更广泛的LGBT社区举办一系列研讨会来实现。这将产生一份共同设计的调查结果报告，供地方和国家分享。这将有助于PFLAG有效地规划他们的工作，并将帮助全国性的LGBT团体了解中国不同地区LGBT人群的对比经历。

项目成果

The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time

海南男同性恋者的日常生活：社会性、空间和时间

• 发表时间: 2022
• 作者: Cummings, J.