Awards
- Runner-up for Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Studies 2014
Overview
This is the first ethnographic study of lala (lesbian, bisexual, and transgender) communities and politics in China, focusing on the city of Shanghai. Based on several years of in-depth interviews, the volume concentrates on lalas' everyday struggle to reconcile same-sex desires with a dominant rhetoric of family harmony and compulsory marriage, all within a culture denying women active and legitimate sexual agency. Lucetta Yip Lo Kam reads discourses on homophobia in China, including the rhetoric of Chinese tolerance, and considers the heteronormative demands imposed on tongzhi subjects. She treats the politics of public correctness as a newly emerging tongzhi practice developed from the culturally specific, Chinese forms of regulation that inform tongzhi survival strategies and self-identification. Alternating between Kam's own experiences with queer identity and her extensive ethnographic findings, this text offers a contemporary portrait of female tongzhi communities and politics in urban China, making an invaluable contribution to global discussions and international debates on same-sex intimacies, homophobia, coming-out politics, and sexual governance.
Full Product Details
Author: Lucetta Yip Lo Kam
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
Imprint: Hong Kong University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.241kg
ISBN: 9789888139460
ISBN 10: 9888139460
Pages: 152
Publication Date: 05 November 2012
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Language: English
Reviews
<p>Weaving between her own queer biography and extensive ethnographic data of twenty-five lala women, Kam presents the up-to-date lesbian communities and politics in urban China which contribute to the international debates of same-sex intimacies, coming out politics, and the nature of homophobia.--Travis S. K. Kong, University of Hong Kong
More than just an ethnographic observation of women who identify as lala in China, this compelling and impressively researched study analyzes the numerous social forces that produce sexual normativity and documents the intricate ways through which women with same-sex desire negotiate these forces, in public as well as in private. Written with tremendous insight and compassion, this admirable and timely work sheds important light on the injurious effects of sexual normalization in contemporary Chinese society. -- Helen Hok-Sze Leung, author of Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong Weaving between her own queer biography and extensive ethnographic data of twenty-five lala women, Lucetta Yip Lo Kam presents the up-to-date lesbian communities and politics in urban China which contribute to the international debates of same-sex intimacies, coming out politics, and the nature of homophobia. -- Travis S. K. Kong, University of Hong Kong
<p>Weaving between her own queer biography and extensive ethnographic data of twenty-five lala women, Lucetta Yip Lo Kam presents the up-to-date lesbian communities and politics in urban China which contribute to the international debates of same-sex intimacies, coming out politics, and the nature of homophobia.--Travis S. K. Kong, University of Hong Kong
Author Information
Lucetta Y. L. Kam is an assistant professor in the humanities program at Hong Kong Baptist University. She is the editor and illustrator of Lunar Desires: Her First Same-Sex Love in Her Own Words.
