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| A QUEER INQUIRY OF URBANISM AND SPATIAL POLITICS |
| WEI Wei |
| School of Social Development, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China |
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Abstract This paper explores the relationship between city and homosexuality and provides a queering interpretation of urbanism. It provides an overview of the emergence and development of homosexuals as a social group along the historical stages of urban development. Although the association between city and homosexuality traced back to the ancient times of classic Athens, the social construction of homosexual identities only took places in modern metropolises as the result of industrialization and urbanization. The rise of post-modern cities is argued to allow the unprecedented opportunities for homosexual expression, which has been successfully incorporated into the local "place promotion" competing for global capital and economic growth. This research then shifts its focus to the contemporary urban spatial politics in relation to sexuality. By exploring the uneasy relationships of space, power and culture, particularly through introducing the theory of heteronomativity, the author argues that there is a tension between the heteronomativity behind urban space and the expression of homosexual desire and rights. In order to challenge heteronomativity, queering urban space is the most important strategy for the gay communities to claim their rights for public space. While acknowledging the positive changes of the increasing homosexual visibility in Chinese cities, the author problematizes the construction of public space for Chinese tongzhi people that is largely dominated by HIV/AIDS discourses and consumerist drives, and calls for a more progressive approach to this issue that renders subjectivity to the tongzhi community. To illustrate the above theoretical concerns and address the critical questions of whose street, whose park, and whose city, this paper draws data from the media coverage and analyzes three cases of queering urban spaces in major Chinese cities in 2009 including the tongzhi wedding show in Beijing, the first Gay Pride Week in Shanghai, and the People's Park accident in Guangzhou. Although three cases reflect considerable regional differences in civic culture and activists' approach, all of them vividly demonstrate how the contemporary Chinese tongzhi communities fight for the ownership of public space and the transformation of urban social landscapes. The author concludes that the increasing social visibility and the expansion of public space for the tongzhi community is an important indication of the progressive changes taking place in today's Chinese society.
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Received: 19 August 2010
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2011, Vol. 26 
