Imagining sovereign futures: the marriage equality movement in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

How do social movements respond to geopolitical uncertainties and mobilize aspirations and imagined futures for progressive social change? Building on scholarship on social movements and imagined futures, this article provides an empirical analysis of Taiwan’s marriage equality movement as it navigated the shifting horizon of the nation’s future. With the economic and diplomatic rise of mainland China, Taiwan has confronted with an increasing international isolation due to the nation’s lack of widespread external legitimacy as a nation-state. Given this geopolitical context, Taiwan’s marriage equality movement not simply drew on the globalized notion of equal rights for same-sex couples. Instead, it rearticulated the meaning of ‘equality’ of sexual minorities in parallel to Taiwan’s aspirational equal status as a nation-state in the global sphere. Through the intimate entanglement of LGBT rights claims and sovereign aspirations, the marriage equality movement became a powerful emblem of the national vision that differentiated Taiwan from mainland China. This article thus provides new insights for scholarship on social movements and imagined futures, geopolitics, and gender and sexual rights movements.

KEYWORDS:

• Imagined futures
• geopolitics
• sovereignty
• marriage equality
• LGBT movements

Acknowledgments

I wish to thank the editors of Social Movement Studies and the anonymous reviewers for their productive suggestions and comments. I am grateful to my mentors Rhacel Parreñas, Paul Lichterman, and David J. Frank, for reading and providing feedback. I also thank Jhu-Cin Jhang, Ying-Chao Kao, Amy Brainer, Jyoti Puri, Vrushali Patil, Ghassan Moussawi, Theo Greene, Dana Moss, May Lin, Mary Ippolito, Shang Liu, Yael Findler, and Hajar Yazdiha for their comments of previous versions of this paper. Most of all, I thank all of the participants in this study for generously sharing their thoughts and experiences with me.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. This ornament was designed and advertised by Tongzhi Hotline.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Science Research Council’s Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship and International Dissertation Research Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Minwoo Jung

Minwoo Jung is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies and Gender Studies at the Loyola University Chicago. His research interests revolve around gender and sexuality, globalization, and social movements.