[Commlist] CfP: Queer Cultures in Digital Asia

* Queer Cultures in Digital Asia *​
  A symposium hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, 
Hong Kong, 10 December 2021
* Call for Papers *
Digital media have transformed the cultures and practices of LGBTQ+ 
communities worldwide. Sexual minorities explore and express their 
identities, look for belonging and build communities, seek multiple 
types of intimate relationships, and undertake collective action on and 
through both old and new digital media. Extensive research has been 
conducted to examine the influences and implications of digital and 
social media platforms, such as Grindr, Her, Reddit, Tumblr, and more, 
on the social, political, and personal lives of sexual minorities. 
Meanwhile, digital media also facilitates the flourishing of subcultures 
that challenge normative conceptions of gender and sexuality and promote 
creative forms of gender expression through online literature, video 
production, and other forms of fandom (e.g. slash/yaoi/Boys’ Love/Girls’ 
Love communities). While increasing attention has been paid to new and 
digital media in Asia (Cabañes & Uy-Tioco, 2020; Dasgupta, 2017; Yue & 
Zubillaga-Pow, 2012), most contemporary studies of digital queer 
cultures still focus on North American and European contexts.
Inspired by Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia (Berry, Martin, 
Yue, & Spigel, 2003), this full day symposium aims to foster a critical 
interrogation of the intersection between queerness and Digital Asia. 
Digital Asia has been a topic for many previous articles, edited 
collections, and conferences (e.g., 2018 Digital Asia event at QUT and 
Baulch, Flew, and Li, 2019; 2019 Digital Asia conference organized by 
NIAS and Lund University). Being the continent with the most Internet 
users in terms of absolute numbers, Asia has a range of diverse digital 
infrastructures. While China’s digital media ecology operates as an 
entirely closed system, in other countries like India, a wide array of 
both Western and local digital media is available. Hence, in previous 
works on Digital Asia, issues covered have related primarily to 
infrastructures, governance, commerce, smart cities, nationalism, and so 
on. Voices from and about queer communities are underrepresented in this 
conversation. We understand “queer” as “definitional indeterminacy” 
(Jagose, 1996, p. 1). Queerness taps into a zone of possibilities 
regarding our sex, sexuality, gender, and intimacy. Asia also provides a 
complicated context for the development and survival of queer 
communities as social norms and laws regarding homosexuality and 
transgenderism vary across regions. There are regions where governments 
are taking measures to grant some rights to sexual minorities (e.g., 
Taiwan legalized same-sex marriage in 2019; Pakistan recognized 
transgender as a separate gender category in 2017); there are also 
places where homosexuality is still considered illegal (e.g., Iran, 
Singapore) or is not legally protected from discrimination (e.g., Hong 
Kong).
As Chen (2010) advocates, “using the idea of Asia as an imaginary 
anchoring point, societies in Asia can become each other’s points of 
reference” (p. 212). This symposium takes “Asia as method” as a 
foundation to provincialize Euro-American knowledge production. This 
critical vision of Asia has also been taken up in two special issues 
related to the intersection of transgender studies and Asia studies 
(Martin & Ho, 2006; Chiang, Henry, & Leung, 2018). In this symposium, we 
extend this approach to focus on the digital, giving equal significance 
to the triple concepts of “digital,” “Asia,” and “queer.” We welcome 
contributions that empirically examine queer digital cultures, 
platforms, practices, and communities from one Asian region or compare 
these across several Asian territories. We expect interdisciplinary 
contributions from the fields of media and cultural studies, gender and 
sexuality studies, regional studies, and related disciplines from the 
humanities and social sciences.

Broad themes might include, but are not limited to:

  * • Politics of queer digital cultures
  * • Digital intimacies
  * • Digital circulation and/or economy of queer content
  * • Intersections of sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, nationality,
    and more in digital cultures
  * • Online activism
  * • Emerging digital practices and communities
  * • Queer digital health and wellbeing

* Submission Process and Key Dates *
Please submit paper proposals to (digitalqueerasia /at/ gmail.com) by 30 June, 
2021. Proposals should include an abstract of 250–400 words along with a 
brief bio of no more than 100 words. Presenters will be notified of 
acceptance by 16 July, 2021. Draft papers (3000–4000 words) of accepted 
presentations are to be submitted by 17 November, 2021 for sharing and 
discussion among symposium participants. We are planning for a 
face-to-face symposium in Hong Kong on 10 December, 2021. There are no 
participation or registration fees. Modest subsidies will be provided to 
symposium participants to cover airfare; two-night’s accommodation and 
meals on the day of the symposium will be provided. The symposium will 
convert to an online event as required in line with COVID-19 health and 
safety considerations or should travel restrictions remain in place.
Following the symposium, presenters will be invited to submit 
full-length papers to be considered for publication as part of a themed 
collection. We are approaching major international media and/or cultural 
studies journals with a proposal for a special issue on the symposium theme.
* Organisers *
Lik Sam Chan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Elija Cassidy (QUT Digital Media Research Centre)
Jia Tan (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

* Reference *

  * Baulch, E., Flew, T., & Li, N. L. (2019). The shifting institutional
    bases of digital Asia studies: Communication, culture, and
    governance in Asia-Introduction. International Journal of
    Communication, 13, 4579-4585.
    https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10994/2800
  * Berry, C., Martin, F., Yue, A., & Spigel, L. (Eds.). (2003). Mobile
    cultures: New media in queer Asia. Duke University Press.
  * Cabañes, J. V. A., & Uy-Tioco, C. S. (2020). Mobile media and social
    intimacies in Asia: Reconfiguring local ties and enacting global
    relationships. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
  * Chen, K. H. (2010). Asia as method: Toward deimperialization.
    Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  * Chiang, H., Henry, T. A., & Leung, H. H. S. (2018). Trans-in-Asia,
    Asia-in-Trans: An Introduction. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly,
    5(3), 298–310.
  * Dasgupta, R. K. (2017). Digital queer cultures in India: Politics,
    intimacies and belonging. London, UK: Routledge.
  * Jagose, A. (1996). Queer theory: An introduction. New York, NY: NYU
    Press.
  * Martin, F., & Ho, J. (2006). Editorial introduction: Trans/Asia,
    trans/gender. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 7(2), 185–187.
  * Yue, A., & Zubillaga-Pow, J. (Eds.). (2012). Queer Singapore:
    Illiberal citizenship and mediated cultures. Hong Kong, China: Hong
    Kong University Press.


* Supported by *

  * Improvement on Competitiveness in Hiring New Faculties Fund, CUHK
  * The School of Journalism and Communication, CUHK
  * The Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research,
    CUHK
  * The Centre for Cultural Studies, CUHK




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