GLQ:A Joumal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 4.56 GLQ:A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES ogy and cultural studies that I need point out only that Altman's conception of cul- ture is undergirded by an imperial political economy of the sign that renders meaning stable and solidly referential.We all know what people mean when they call themselves gay or engage in gay practices,because there can be only one,uni- fied meaning.This aspect of Altman's argument is especially ironic because his list of stable signs of a gay identity and his examples of a public gay consciousness are at this moment in the United States fueling an intense debate among gay men and lesbians precisely over their appropriateness for gay people. Certainly,I do not wish to deny the coming into existence in recent years of commitments to gay identifications or to gay liberation that extend beyond national and cultural borders.On the contrary,I fear that the following discussion on cosmopolitan gay life in Beijing will disappoint some in queer studies who seek a cultural logic of absolute difference-and turn to anthropologists to provide it.Io To move toward a study of transcultural practices,we need to emphasize the com- plexity of cultural production in the interactions of the West and non-West-with attention,that is,to transcultural practices and representations.1 We might begin by following how postcolonial scholars,anthropologists, and those in cultural studies have reconfigured the concept of culture in the last two decades.These scholars approach culture not as a set of shared meanings found in a bounded space but as ongoing discursive practices with sedimented histories that mark relations of power.Thus it becomes important to attend to how, by whom,and in what context "Chinese culture,"for example,is invoked-that is,to the discursive effects of Chinese culture as an object of knowledge in (neo-) orientalist geopolitics as well as in specific power-saturated contexts in China. Additionally,it becomes critical to examine how people live out these imagined invocations of culture-how they are pulled into normalizing practices that estab- lish hegemonic cultural logics kept in place by ongoing iterations even as these logics reveal traces of displacements,instabilities,and engaged resistances The relationship between culture and space has also been reconfigured. Rather than assume that locality is an ahistorical given-that space exists outside meaning (or that we forget the meanings given by the nation-state)-or assume ihat“the local'”and“the global”refer to transparent spatial arrangements.,we might conceive of it,to quote Brown,"as the power-laden symbolization process itself:the production of frameworks for defining and debating the edges and outer bounds of processes,practices and phenomena."12 The local and the global are both acts of positioning,perspectives rather than mere locales,used as signifiers of difference.The local,rather than a synonym for particularity,is a spatial cate- gory given meaning through specific signifying practices.13 Similarly,the global Published by Duke University Press
456 GLQ: A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES ogy and cultural studies that I need point out only that Altman’s conception of culture is undergirded by an imperial political economy of the sign that renders meaning stable and solidly referential. We all know what people mean when they call themselves gay or engage in gay practices, because there can be only one, unified meaning. This aspect of Altman’s argument is especially ironic because his list of stable signs of a gay identity and his examples of a public gay consciousness are at this moment in the United States fueling an intense debate among gay men and lesbians precisely over their appropriateness for gay people. Certainly, I do not wish to deny the coming into existence in recent years of commitments to gay identifications or to gay liberation that extend beyond national and cultural borders. On the contrary, I fear that the following discussion on cosmopolitan gay life in Beijing will disappoint some in queer studies who seek a cultural logic of absolute difference-and turn to anthropologists to provide it.l0 To move toward a study of transcultural practices, we need to emphasize the complexity of cultural production in the interactions of the West and non-West-with attention, that is, to transcultural practices and representations. 11 We might begin by following how postcolonial scholars, anthropologists, and those in cultural studies have reconfigured the concept of culture in the last two decades. These scholars approach culture not as a set of shared meanings found in a bounded space but as ongoing discursive practices with sedimented histories that mark relations of power. Thus it becomes important to attend to how, by whom, and in what context “Chinese culture,” for example, is invoked-that is, to the discursive effects of Chinese culture as an object of knowledge in (neo-) orientalist geopolitics as well as in specific power-saturated contexts in China. Additionally, it becomes critical to examine how people live out these imagined invocations of culture- how they are pulled into normalizing practices that establish hegemonic cultural logics kept in place by ongoing iterations even as these logics reveal traces of displacements, instabilities, and engaged resistances. The relationship between culture and space has also been reconfigured. Rather than assume that locality is an ahistorical given- that space exists outside meaning (or that we forget the meanings given by the nation-state)-or assume that “the local” and “the global” refer to transparent spatial arrangements, we might conceive of it, to quote Brown, “as the power-laden symbolization process itself: the production of frameworks for defining and debating the edges and outer bounds of processes, practices and phenomena.”’Z The local and the global are both acts of positioning, perspectives rather than mere locales, used as signifiers of difference. The local, rather than a synonym for particularity, is a spatial category given meaning through specific signifying practices.Iq’3 Similarly, the global GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies Published by Duke University Press
GLQ:A Joumal of Lesbian and Gay Studies IMAGINING GAY IDENTITIES IN CHINA 457 does not exist above and beyond the cultural processes of attaching meaning to places.Far from a deterritorialized phenomenon,it has been discursively pro- duced in various contexts and has taken on specific imaginative appeals of which we might want to be wary.14 This approach to culture and space might help us move beyond invocations of similitude versus difference in our discussions of cosmopolitan gay identities outside the West.It also moves in tandem with approaches that view gayness not as autonomous but as an imaginary site that stabilizes heterosexual identity,a "flamboyant'difference,'"in David M.Halperin's words,that"deflects attention from the contradictions inherent in the construction of heterosexuality."5 To com- prehend sexual identities in places outside the United States,then,entails exam- ining how they articulate with discursive productions of culture and place. In what follows I propose to trace not a singular global gay identity but a social process of discrepant transcultural practices.My analysis emphasizes artic- ulation,between Chinese gay men's desires for cultural belonging in China and transcultural gay identifications,in which these men nonetheless continuously dis- cern and imagine differences compelled by China's colonial and socialist political histories with other nations.16 Transcultural practices resist interpretation in terms of either global impact or self-explanatory indigenous evolution.Instead,they open inquiry into contingent processes and performative evocations that do not presume equivalence but ask after confrontations charged with claims to power. Cultural Citizenship To be sure,what it means to be gay in 1990s China is nothing if not about crossing cultural and national borders.Yet to understand the transcultural nature of gay life in China,we must begin with the simple question that Altman never asks:what motivates women and men in China to seek out,with some urgency,what it means to be gay in other places?What has allowed gayness to emerge more visibly in China that cannot be reduced to the presumably inexorable power of global flows of images and ideas?And what do Chinese gay men do with the representations of gayness that they receive or seek from foreigners? The answers lie in the realm of cultural citizenship.In postsocialist China culture has replaced politics as the site on which citizenship is meaningfully defined,sought,and conferred or denied.By cultural citizenship I mean to high- light how citizenship,or belonging,is not merely a political attribute but also a process in which culture becomes a relevant category of affinity.It is a process of self-making and of being made,of active modes of affinity as well as techniques of Published by Duke University Press
IMAGINING GAY IDENTITIES IN CHINA 457 does not exist above and beyond the cultural processes of attaching meaning to places. Far from a deterritorialized phenomenon, it has been discursively produced in various contexts and has taken on specific imaginative appeals of which we might want to be wary.14 This approach to culture and space might help us move beyond invocations of similitude versus difference in our discussions of cosmopolitan gay identities outside the West. It also moves in tandem with approaches that view gayness not as autonomous but as an imaginary site that stabilizes heterosexual identity, a “flamboyant ‘difference,’ ” in David M. Halperin’s words, that “deflects attention from the contradictions inherent in the construction of heterosexuality.”ls To comprehend sexual identities in places outside the United States, then, entails examining how they articulate with discursive productions of culture and place. In what follows I propose to trace not a singular global gay identity but a social process of discrepant transcultural practices. My analysis emphasizes articulation, between Chinese gay men’s desires for cultural belonging in China and transcultural gay identifications, in which these men nonetheless continuously discern and imagine differences compelled by China’s colonial and socialist political histories with other nations. l6 Transcultural practices resist interpretation in terms of either global impact or self-explanatory indigenous evolution. Instead, they open inquiry into contingent processes and performative evocations that do not presume equivalence but ask after confrontations charged with claims to power. Cultural Citizenship To be sure, what it means to be gay in 1990s China is nothing if not about crossing cultural and national borders. Yet to understand the transcultural nature of gay life in China, we must begin with the simple question that Altman never asks: what motivates women and men in China to seek out, with some urgency, what it means to be gay in other places? What has allowed gayness to emerge more visibly in China that cannot be reduced to the presumably inexorable power of global flows of images and ideas? And what do Chinese gay men do with the representations of gayness that they receive or seek from foreigners? The answers lie in the realm of cultural citizenship. In postsocialist China culture has replaced politics as the site on which citizenship is meaningfully defined, sought, and conferred or denied. By culturd citizenship I mean to highlight how citizenship, or belonging, is not merely a political attribute but also a process in which culture becomes a relevant category of affinity. It is a process of self-making and of being made, of active modes of affinity as well as techniques of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies Published by Duke University Press
GLQ:A Joumal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 458 GLQ:A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES normalization.17 Cultural citizenship is a rubric or trope I use to convey novel processes of subjectification,new modes of inclusion and exclusion,and new forms of governmentality.Struggles over cultural citizenship are contests over new schemes of hierarchical difference,over who represents the cultural competence to carry China into the twenty-first century and to create wealth and power for the nation under transnational capitalism.Cultural citizenship also signals blurred borders with Hong Kong and Taiwan and with "overseas"Chinese in Southeast Asia and the West.18 Sex is a critical site where the normalizations of cultural citi- zenship are being reformulated.If the passion to pursue the meaningfulness of sex- ual desire propels Chinese men into transnational networks,it also lies at the heart of cultural citizenship.Cultural citizenship,rather than legal subjectivity or psy- chological personality,establishes proper and improper sex in postsocialist China. Throughout the twentieth century the category of sex in China has been the site of cultural production in discrepant dialogue with Western power.In postso- cialist China of the 1990s,various Chinese cultural producers narrate alternative visions of the universal human as well as modes of cultural belonging through the category of sex.What I term the allegory of postsocialism tells a story of how com- munism repressed human nature:Maoism deferred China's reach of modernity, against the specter of colonial representations of Chinese culture as what sup- pressed individuation and therefore the capacity to produce modern selves.It did so by impeding Chinese people's ability to express their natural humanity,which lay,all along,beneath the cultural politics of socialism.Diverse public discourses now put forth the view that the end of socialism meant that human nature- whether the human nature of the neoliberal free market economy or of gender traditionalism-had emerged to find its freedom of expression.This allegory holds out the promise that people can unshackle their innate human selves by emancipating themselves from the socialist state. Of course,"natural"humanity is gendered and sexed.The allegory implies a rejection of socialism's version of women's liberation and an anchoring of human nature in sexual difference,conjugal love,and hypervirile masculinity.It also implies the overt and self-conscious expression of a range of sexual desires that, paradoxically,both subvert and uphold normalization.China has witnessed the emergence of a bourgeoisie whose quest to mark its distinctiveness and justify its wealth involves the cultivation of bourgeois bodies,tastes,rights,freedoms,and desires.This emergence,tied to a desire for postsocialist humanity,has compli- cated the field of sex and its normalizations,for the bourgeoisie hopes to overcome the colonial division of particularity versus universalism that has haunted China since the early twentieth century. Published by Duke University Press
458 GLQ: A JOURNAL OF LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES normalization.17 Cultural citizenship is a rubric or trope I use to convey novel processes of subjectification, new modes of inclusion and exclusion, and new forms of governmentality. Struggles over cultural citizenship are contests over new schemes of hierarchical difference, over who represents the cultural competence to carry China into the twenty-first century and to create wealth and power for the nation under transnational capitalism. Cultural citizenship also signals blurred borders with Hong Kong and Taiwan and with “overseas” Chinese in Southeast Asia and the West.18 Sex is a critical site where the normalizations of cultural citizenship are being reformulated. If the passion to pursue the meaningfulness of sexual desire propels Chinese men into transnational networks, it also lies at the heart of cultural citizenship. Cultural citizenship, rather than legal subjectivity or psychological personality, establishes proper and improper sex in postsocialist China. Throughout the twentieth century the category of sex in China has been the site of cultural production in discrepant dialogue with Western power. In postsocialist China of the 1990s, various Chinese cultural producers narrate alternative visions of the universal human as well as modes of cultural belonging through the category of sex. What I term the allegory of postsocialism tells a story of how communism repressed human nature: Maoism deferred China’s reach of modernity, against the specter of colonial representations of Chinese culture as what suppressed individuation and therefore the capacity to produce modern selves. It did so by impeding Chinese people’s ability to express their natural humanity, which lay, all along, beneath the cultural politics of socialism. Diverse public discourses now put forth the view that the end of socialism meant that human naturewhether the human nature of the neoliberal free market economy or of gender traditionalism- had emerged to find its freedom of expression. This allegory holds out the promise that people can unshackle their innate human selves by emancipating themselves from the socialist state. Of course, “natural” humanity is gendered and sexed. The allegory implies a rejection of socialism’s version of women’s liberation and an anchoring of human nature in sexual difference, conjugal love, and hypervirile masculinity. It also implies the overt and self-conscious expression of a range of sexual desires that, paradoxically, both subvert and uphold normalization. China has witnessed the emergence of a bourgeoisie whose quest to mark its distinctiveness and justify its wealth involves the cultivation of bourgeois bodies, tastes, rights, freedoms, and desires. This emergence, tied to a desire for postsocialist humanity, has complicated the field of sex and its normalizations, for the bourgeoisie hopes to overcome the colonial division of particularity versus universalism that has haunted China since the early twentieth century. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies Published by Duke University Press