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Wednesday Gender Seminar (Nov 16)

日期 : 2022-10-19


Title:The interplay between intimacy and commodification: Exploring family and work lives of lesbians in China

Speaker: Prof. LO Iris (Assistant Professor, Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

Moderator: Prof. Song Jing (Associate Professor, Gender Studies Programme, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Venue: Hui Yeung Shing Building G04, CUHK

Abstract: 

This study examines the ways in which Chinese lesbians’ economic and intimate lives are closely intertwined amid neoliberal development in the urban landscape. Previous research on queer urban life has primarily drawn attention to commodified gay neighbourhoods and other sites for sexual consumption, which are often marketised as part of a liberal and queer-friendly urban landscape, in Euro-American contexts. Such a focus is not adequate, however, to capture the complex interplay between intimacy and commodification in contemporary societies. In this seminar, I will show how the market is experienced by Chinese lesbians as a site of queer agency and vulnerability and map the multiple connections between commodified relations and intimate relations. How do lesbians navigate their economic and intimate lives in a (heterosexual-)family-centred context? How do gender and sexuality intersect with the wider socio-cultural and neoliberal climate in shaping Chinese lesbians’ economic and intimate lives?

Speaker’s Biography:

Iris Lo is Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She received her PhD degree in Sociology from the University of Oxford. Her research areas include family, gender, sexuality, reproduction, work-family reconciliation, and social policy. She studies the extent and nature of changes to family and work lives and sociological questions around social inequality. She has published articles in top journals in her field, including Sociology, The British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Sociology, Archives of Sexual Behavior, Fertility and Sterility, and The International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy.

Language: English

Registration:  https://bit.ly/3RPvWpA