Intersections: Queer Asia: Advances in a Field in Motion

1. In recent years the idea or notion of a 'queer Asia' as a field of study or inquiry has emerged. However, as it goes with umbrella terms covering vast geographical regions and in this case also a considerably diverse range of sexual and political identities, a bit of wind from the wrong direction flips over what was neatly covered and questions its strength. It is the question of queer Asia in terms of its coverage and usage that is at the heart of this article. I will engage with this by exploring a number of recent publications on queer life in Asia, three of which were published in the Queer Asia series of Hong Kong University Press. In Contact Moments: The Politics of Intercultural Desire in Japanese Male-Queer Cultures Moments, Katsuhiko Suganuma engages with the 'politics of intercultural desire in Japanese male-queer cultures'[1]; Lucetta Yip Lo Kam discusses 'female Tongzhi communities and politics in urban China' in Shanghai Lalas: Female Tongzhi Communities and Politics in Urban China[2]; and in Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures, edited by Audrey Yue and Jum Zubillaga-Pow, the notion of 'illiberal citizenship and mediated cultures' is explored in relation to the development of queer life in Singapore.[3] Travis S.K. Kong's exploration of masculinities and sexualities among Chinese gay men in Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi and Golden Boy complements the latter two studies particularly well in its focus on the tongzhi movement, family life and the emergence of queer space.[4] Kong's work raises important questions about the way Chinese gay men engage with the realities and constraints of social/family/queer life in urban China in which the State is always a highly present factor. In a similar vein the 'authoritarian' State is ever present and felt in Lynette J. Chua's recent monograph Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State in which she carefully maps the emergence and development of the gay rights movement.[5] Finally Benjamin Law's much lighter, at times even frivolous, work of non-fiction Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East will be used to engage more broadly with the (im)possibilities of a queer Asia.[6]