New Books in East Asian Studies

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', explores how gay men in Hainan construct their 'sexual being' amidst heteronormative pressures. The podcast covers topics like the significance of 'the scene', social spaces, geolocative dating apps, and navigating uncertainty in everyday life. Cummings also shares insights on future research projects and a forthcoming book on queer men's experiences.

49:25

Episode guests

James Cummings

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Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Gay men in Hainan navigate heteronormativity while constructing queer identities and spaces.

Geolocation apps like Blued revolutionize connections within LGBTQ+ communities, challenging societal norms in China.

Deep dives

Exploring the Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan

The podcast episode delves into Dr. James Cummings' book on the everyday lives of gay men in Hainan, China. The book explores the complexities of gay identities in a region often overlooked in queer studies, emphasizing the diverse experiences of queer individuals outside major cities. It highlights the challenges faced by gay men in navigating societal expectations of marriage and reproduction while maintaining their queer identities and spaces.

Intro

2min

Exploring Everyday Lives of Gay Men in Hainan, China

13min

Exploring the Notions of 'the Scene' Among Gay Men in Hainan

4min

Social Spaces and Identity Formation among Gay Men in Hainan

22min

Exploring Ambiguity and Uncertainty in Everyday Life and Research

3min

Future Projects and Recently Finished Book on Queer Men's Experiences

3min

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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