Keeping a low profile and queering Chinese academia: gay academics’ strategies for conducting queer research in China

ABSTRACT

During Xi Jinping’s presidency, the increasingly repressive political control over Chinese universities has had a significant impact on academic research. Yet, little is known about how Chinese academics navigate such a climate. Drawing on interviews with 11 gay academics in China, this article explores their motivations and strategies for conducting queer research. It is shown that participants submit to heteronormativity and the Party authorities by managing their sexual identity, keeping a low profile and practising self-censorship in their research. However, they can also expand the institutional space for queer research by strategically mobilising various forms of power and discourses and highlighting the legitimacy of their research. Through the queer theoretical lens, this article presents gay academics’ agency in conducting queer research as involving simultaneous conformity and resistance in relation to heteronormativity and political control in Chinese academia.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer
• research
• China
• gay
• heteronormativity
• agency

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Queer is used here as an umbrella term for nonnormative sexual and gender identities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender identities. A specific definition of queer is provided in the theoretical-framework section.

2. The project focused on gay male academics, as it aimed to examine the impact of both sexuality and gender on participants’ experiences. For instance, one of the research concerns is participants’ construction of masculinities. As such, one limitation of this article can be its failure to demonstrate lesbian, bisexual, transgender teachers’ unique experiences, despite their commonality with gay teachers. Future research can focus on other subgroups of queer teachers.

3. I use the terminology chosen by the researchers when I introduce other research.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Le Cui

Le Cui is a qualitative sociologist interested in queer and race issues in education, particularly in the Chinese context. He received his Ph.D. in Education at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, the University of Auckland in 2022. As sole author, Cui has published his interdisciplinary work in leading international journals such as Higher Education Research & Development, International Studies in Sociology of Education, Sex Education, Journal of LGBT Youth, Asian Journal of Social Science, and Culture, Health & Sexuality.