Queer Women in Urban China: An Ethnography

摘要

Queer Women in Urban China is a timely addition to the fast-growing field of queer Asian and queer China studies. The book is one of the rare full-length studies of queer women (or lalas) in China from a "queer-feminist anthropological perspective" (p. 8). The author conducted ethnographic research of the queer women community in Beijing during 2004-06 and after. She has documented a significant period of LGBTQ community and activism in China when grass-root activism and social space for LGBTQ people began to appear and flourish in metropolitan cities. The author participated in queer women community events and social gatherings and talked to a large number of lala women both formally and informally in face-to-face interaction or via online communication tools. The book offers rich ethnographic description and analysis of the formative years of lala community and activism in Beijing and how individual lala women use different resources to construct a new sexual subjectivity (and life) at a time when they are still living under intense pressure to conform to heterosexual norms.