日期 : 2020-02-19
地點 : Online Seminar (Link to the seminar to be provided to registered participants)
Queering the Legitimacy of Motherhood: Cross-Border Reproductive Travel and Lesbian Family Building in Contemporary China
Date: 19 Feb 2020(Wed)
Time: 12:30
- 2:00pm
Venue: Online
Seminar (Link to the seminar to be provided to registered participants)
Speaker: ZHONG Xinle, Mphil. in Gender Studies Programme (Anthropology), The Chinese
University of Hong Kong
Moderator: Prof.
CHENG Sealing, Associate Professor in Department of Anthropology, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong

Abstract: Along with the development of same-sex
equality movement, the advance of New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs) as well
as the rise of fertility business in a global scale, the past few decades have
witnessed the circulated desire towards making the family of procreation among
queer communities. Yet, most existing studies of NRTs remain heteronormative,
while current literature on queer family largely focuses on Euro-American
settings, leaving queer reproductive practices in non-Western societies
unexplored.
Drawing on the multi-sited ethnographic research in 2019, which includes
autoethnography, in-depth interviews, as well as participant observation, this
study attempts to investigate the desire, struggles, and negotiating process of
queer women’s cross-border reproductive practices and family building in
contemporary China. On the one hand, cross-border reproductive tourism has
provided new possibilities for queer women in China, who are banned from access
to NRTs in China. On the other hand, same-sex parenthood remains fundamentally
precarious in the current socio-political context of China, given that
childbirth out of (heterosexual) wedlock remains highly stigmatized and
same-sex partnership is not protected by legal institutions. Against this
background, this study documents the diverse and strategic arrangements queer
women develop to gain legitimacy for their co-motherhood in the face of
tremendous uncertainty. It is hoped that the research could fill the existing
gap on queer family building in non-Western settings, provide new insights for
discussion about queer reproductive justice, and contribute to anthropological
studies of queer kinship and NRTs.
Speaker's Biography: ZHONG
Xinle is an MPhil student in Gender Studies, CUHK, affiliating with the
Department of Anthropology, CUHK. Her research interests focus on gender,
sexuality, and technoscience studies. Her MPhil thesis investigates queer
women's family building in China along with the rise of the global fertility
business.
Language: English
Registration: https://bit.ly/2R0cDvt