In this talk Tang investigates how Hong Kong women with lesbian desires have identified multiple spaces in this dense urban environment to assert lesbian visibility and to negotiate lesbian identity politics. Hong Kong’s positioning remains complex as a predominantly Chinese global capitalist city ever since the 1997 handover to mainland China. Based on extensive interviews with 30 self-identified lesbians, bisexual women and transgender lesbians living in Hong Kong, Tang attempts to map the complex relations between lesbian subjectivities and spatialities as they emerge, develop, interact and negotiate with each other in everyday living. Tang proposes to understand Hong Kong lesbian culture through an analysis of spaces in their multiplicities and ambiguous codings, and as forms of resistance shaping daily life.
Denise Tse-Shang Tang is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong and author of Conditional Spaces: Hong Kong Lesbian Desires and Everyday Life (2011). Her research interests include urban spaces, gender and sexuality, queer studies, celebrity culture and new media. Tang has worked with NGOs on issues surrounding violence against women, aboriginal women, LGBT communities, mental health and HIV/AIDS and served as Director of the Hong Kong Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
This event is free and open to the public. Sponsored by the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Sexual Culture. For more information, please contact cssc@berkeley.edu