The everyday lives of gay men in Hainan: sociality, space and time

This talk presents ethnographic research on gay men in Hainan, an economically and socially marginal Chinese province.

Most research on LGBT lives in China has been based in the leading cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen and has traced connections between non-heterosexual identities and macro-scale processes of economic reform and globalisation. Dr James Cummings's work with gay men in Hainan differs in both field site and approach, focusing intensely on the everyday relationships, spaces and temporalities through which gay men in Hainan understand themselves and orient their lives. 

While still attending to broader dynamics of social, political and economic change, he argues that studies of LGBT lives in China have much to gain from a conceptual and methodological emphasis on the everyday. Dr Cummings's analysis of gay lives in Hainan foregrounds key issues of embodiment, visibility, self, relationality, materiality, space and time. This approach enables more nuanced and grounded understandings necessary for grasping the realities of LGBT lives across diverse contexts within and beyond China. This, in turn, expands possibilities for China-based research to advance theorisations of gender and sexuality within global scholarship.

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend; however, registration is required. This seminar is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed.

Organiser

This event has been organised by the SOAS China Institute.