New Books in Sociology

James Cummings, "The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2023)

Dec 23, 2023

James Cummings, author of The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time, discusses the experiences of gay men in Hainan, China. Topics include the concept of the 'scene', self-representation in online spaces, and expectations for marriage and reproduction among gay men in Hainan.

49:25

Episode guests

James Cummings

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

The concept of the scene plays a central role in the lives of gay men in Hainan, providing spaces for social interactions and exploring the ambiguity and multiple meanings of these spaces.

Using the lens of the everyday, this podcast emphasizes the complex and multi-dimensional aspects of queer lives, highlighting the construction of identities and personal trajectories amidst societal expectations and uncertainties.

Deep dives

Importance of scene and spatiality in the lives of gay men in Hainan

The podcast explores how the concept of the scene is central to the experiences and social interactions of gay men in Hainan. The scene is a space where gay men gather and engage in various activities, and it can encompass gay bars, cruising areas, and even non-queer coded spaces that become important within smaller networks. The ambiguity of the scene is emphasized, as it can have multiple meanings and interpretations for different individuals. The use of spatial technologies, such as geo-located dating and hookup apps, like Blued, is also explored, as they disrupt the assumption of heteronormative spaces and reveal the presence of other gay men nearby, creating a sense of queer spatiality.

Introduction

3min

The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan

11min

Exploring the Multiple Meanings of the 'Scene' for Gay Men in Hainan

6min

Spaces and Behaviors in the Gay Community

16min

The Use of Representational Photos and Normativity in Gay Men's Online Spaces

2min

Expectations for Marriage and Reproduction among Gay Men in Hainan

11min

The Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan: Sociality, Space and Time (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) by Dr. James Cummings explores the everyday lives of gay men in Hainan, an island province of the People’s Republic of China. Taking an ethnographic and phenomenological approach, it asks how these men construct and experience ways of ‘sexual being’ – as gay, homosexual, tongzhi and/or in the scene – and what these mean for the ways of living they see as possible within a socio-cultural, political and material context characterised by pervasive heteronormativity. It explores what it means for gay men in Hainan to ‘come into the scene’, how internet and mobile technologies figure in their everyday processes of sexual categorisation and how these men negotiate orientations and disorientations towards the future in relation to dominant heterosexual life scripts of marriage and reproduction.

This book offers vital insights into the production and restriction of non-heterosexual lives in diverse settings, while addressing universal questions of how certain ways of living are enabled and curtailed in living together with others through powerful conditions of uncertainty and precarity.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose forthcoming book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

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