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Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies (CAPSTRANS)

2007 Conferences and Workshops

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF ASIAN QUEER STUDIES
Convened by the AsiaPacifiQueer Network at
University of Technology
City Campus, Sydney, Australia
22 and 23 February, 2007 

CAPSTRANS is proud to be a co-sponsor of QUEER ASIAN SITES convened by the AsiaPacifiQueer network and Trans/forming Cultures

Background

The AsiaPacifiQueer network convened an international conference, Queer Asian Sites, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 February, 2007, in association with the Trans/forming Cultures (TfC) Key University Research Centre in Communication and Culture, and in conjunction with the 2007 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras cultural festival. The two-day conference featured keynote addresses from major figures in Asian queer scholarship and a series of themed panel streams on intra-Asia/Pacific queer cultural flows. Keynote speakers included Prof. Josephine Ho (Central Taiwan University), Prof. Neil Garcia (University of the Philippines, Diliman), Dr Chandra Shekhar Balanchandran (Dharani Trust, Bangalore, India) and Dr Dédé Oetomo (GAYa Nusantara, Indonesia).

The conference investigated the importance of intra-regional networks and interactions amongst queer cultures and communities in Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Some English-language research has tended to understand the emergence of new LGBTQ identities in the region in terms of a 'West and the Rest' model of globalisation based on a one-way process in which 'the West' exerts influence upon 'the Rest'. In contrast to this model, the Queer Asian Sites conference focused on the importance of intra-regional flows of people, knowledge, representation, and capital in the histories and contemporary forms of queer cultures and communities in the region. The types of questions the conference explored included:

• What is the legacy of the pre-World War period of Japanese colonial occupation on Taipei 's and Seoul's same-sex and transgender cultures?
• How has the Confucian culture of the economically and politically important immigrant Chinese communities in countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia impacted upon forms of sexual knowledge, representation, and queer lifestyles in those countries?
• What impact does gay and lesbian tourism, both from the West and within Asia and the Pacific, have upon identities and practices in the region?
• How are Asian and Pacific diasporic identities negotiated in Western queer cultural centres such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland that are located in the region?
• What roles have gay, lesbian, and transgender entrepreneurs and the establishment of markets for LGBTQ services and products had on the emergence of queer communities in the region?
• How important is the expansion and cross-border transfer of queer capital - the "pink dollar", the "purple baht", the "lavender yuan", the "rainbow rupee" - to the public legitimation of LGBTQ communities in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific?