Inside Factories and Outside Heteronormativity: an Ethnographic Exploration of the Queerness of Chinese Rural Migrant lalas
Date: Thursday 11 April 2019
Time: 11.30am–1pm
Venue: EZ.G.23, Western Sydney University Parramatta South campus
Inside Factories and Outside Heteronormativity: an Ethnographic Exploration of the Queerness of Chinese Rural Migrant lalas
Dr Tingting Liu (Institute for Culture and Society)
Discussant: Professor Katherine Gibson
Abstract
In today’s China, women’s social roles continue to be rigidly associated with gender-based responsibilities that include defending the integrity of their family, entering into heteronormative marriage, and showing reproductive capabilities. Most of those who self-identify as lalas (lesbians) struggle with such issues as self-shaming emotions, disclosing their homosexuality to family members, friends, or colleagues, and dealing with family and social pressures. Within this context, I applied ethnography to investigate the queerness in a group of young Chinese rural migrant lalas, working and living in the industrial area of the Pearl River Delta economic zone in South China. I draw two conclusions. First, rural-to-urban labour migration empowers rural female lalas by providing a measure of economic independence, an escape from patriarchal and homophobic family relations. Second, the integration of traditional (offline and face-to-face) socializing locations and emerging virtual communicative spaces plays important roles in the process through which possibilities of living a queer life are carved out.
Biography
Tingting Liu received her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Queensland in October 2018. She is now an ARC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and a casual lecturer at the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Her research interests include media anthropology, digital culture, and popular entertainment with regional expertise in China and Australia. Recent publications include peer-review journal articles on China Information, Continnum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Television & New Media and Feminist Media Studies.
