Gaining Family Acceptance: Life Story, Agency and Intersectionality of Lesbians and Gay Men in Post-Reform China

Professor Susanne Y. P. Choi (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

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Abstract

Based on the analysis of 80 life stories of self-identified lesbians and gay men in three major cities in China, this seminar examines the challenges sexual minorities face within the context of their family, and the strategies they have employed to gain family acceptance. Although past research has established that family acceptance or the absence of it has significant health and wellbeing impacts on sexual minorities, limited research has examined how family acceptance is achieved. This research employs a life story method and draws on the concepts of family practices, situated agency, and intersectionality to answer this question. The findings shed light on the contexts and fluidity of family relationships, the continuous trends of family transformation in post-reform China, and its tension with the process of individualization. They also bring to the forefront of how family lives are being shaped by growing class inequalities, and its intersection with sexuality and gender.

About the speaker

Professor Susanne Choi is a sociologist at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, working on gender, family, migration and sexuality in Chinese societies. Her lead-authored book monograph Masculine Compromise: Migration, Family and Gender in China was published in paperback, hardback and eBook by the University of California Press. The book also received the Best Book Award of the International Sociological Association’s Sociology of Migration Section (RC31). In addition, she has published 38 journal articles in world leading journals, including American Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Marriage and Family, Sociology of Health and Illness, the China Quarterly, Modern China, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Journal of Family Issues, Human Relations, American Behavioural Scientist, Journal of Interpersonal violence, Violence Against Women, Culture, Health and Sexuality, Work, Employment and Society, Gender, Work, and Organization, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Population, Space and Place, and Social Science and Medicine . She also guest-edited a special issue on migration and identity for American Behavioural Scientist; co-edited a special issue on children’s migration for Population, Space and Place, and co-edited a volume on migration in post-colonial Hong Kong for Routledge. She is currently serving in the editorial boards of Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Asian Population Studies .

Professor Choi is also currently a Visiting Scholar at the SOAS China Institute.

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required. Click here to register

Chair: Dr Jieyu Liu (Deputy Director, SOAS China Institute)

Organiser: SOAS China Institute

Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk