“The Amazingly Fabulous Tuk tuk Race”: mobility and carnival praxis in the semiotic landscape of Phnom Penh Pride

ABSTRACT

In this semiotic landscape study we examine the 2019 pride celebrations in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with a focus on its main event, the “Amazingly Fabulous Tuk Tuk Race.” This event emphasizes mobility vis-à-vis select participants who race in decorated tuk tuks, the city's iconic everyday mode of transport, across the city to complete a scavenger hunt. The study analyzes these tuk tuks as forms of mobile signs that temporarily queer the streets of Phnom Penh, conveying the convergence of international discourses relating to LGBTQ+ sexual identity politics as well as locally salient discourses (e.g. education and development, tourism and commerce) that are embedded in the pride event. The study proposes that these mobile signs constitute a form of carnival praxis, giving us critical insight into forms of creative and tactical public engagement with queer visibility in this globally southern context.

KEYWORDS:

• LGBTQ+ pride
• semiotic landscape
• Cambodia
• carnival praxis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank our hosts in Phnom Penh who invited us to join their team for the race, along with the many race participants who we spoke to and learned so much from. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of our article for their very useful comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benedict J. L. Rowlett

Benedict Rowlett is a sociocultural linguist and discourse analyst with research interests in language education, gender and sexuality, narrative inquiry, queer linguistics, and critical ethnography. His work focuses on the intersections between language, identity, sexualities, and social action in Asian contexts.

Christian Go

Christian Go is an Assistant Professor at De La Salle University-Manila's Department of English and Applied Linguistics. He received his Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the National University of Singapore and was a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute. His research interests include language, gender, and sexuality, linguistic landscapes, and linguistic anthropology.