A Special Issue for QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking
Re-examining Communication and Media Practices in/across Queer Asia
This is an open call to academics, educators, activists, public intellectuals, artists, policy and culture makers, and communication and media practitioners.
We have been witnessing ongoing academic concerns about Queer Asia in various academic disciplines (Luther & Ung Loh, 2019; Martin, Jackson, McLelland, & Yue, 2008; Spigel, Berry, Martin, & Yue, 2003), but these investigations have not received sufficient attention in the field of GLBTQ studies rooted in the Western academic tradition. Put simply, the academic discussions of Queer Asia are still underdeveloped. Research on Queer Asia lacks representation even though we increasingly witness the vibrancy of queer scenes in the region thanks to changing political situations, the rapid distribution of newer communication technology, and the increasing transnational exchanges in and across the region. Based on academic and non-academic concerns in queer issues that are geographically and culturally diverse, this special issue seeks to decolonize the Western-centric traditions of academic knowledge productions and initiate more conversations about Queer Asian issues.
Here, it is important to maintain that thinking about, examining, and conceptualizing Queer Asia is a rather challenging task. For example, Asia exhibits mixed modalities in many sectors: contradicting values such as 1) premodernity, modernity, and postmodernity; 2) Confucianism, Christianity, Buddhism, Muslim, and other indigenous beliefs; 3) monarchy, theocracy, communism, democracy, and other governmental systems; and 4) developed economies, middle-income economies, and developing economies. Indeed, Asia is an imagined region that reinforces the white, Western cartography of the globe. Asia encompasses cultures and nation-states that are vastly dissimilar and competitive in terms of political systems, religions, economic structures, societal norms, and cultural traditions. Hence, it is nearly impossible to uniformly apply established theories to this region and to formulate a theory or method that can explain Queer Asia. We better look into what is happening and enrich historically saturated and culturally specific queer practices, and thereby the discussion surrounding Queer Asia is not muffled by Western-dominated theorizings of queerness.
To engage in this special issue, we demonstrate Queer Asia as a theory/method. By this means, Queer Asia is a critical cultural theory and method that not only problematizes Asia as a region but also refashions Asia as an alternative lens for studying localized queer issues and concerns of sexual and gender minoritarians (e.g., Chiang & Wong, 2017; Yue, 2017). More specifically, Queer Asia troubles the ways in which the manifestations, representations, and performances of localized sexual and gender minoritarians reify and resist global, transnational flows of Western queer formations, including GLBTQ human rights. At the same time, Queer Asia reconsiders how intra/inter-regional cultural (dis)connectivities play into locally nuanced productions of sexual and gender minoritarian cultures. Queer Asia is about centralizing queerness to unsettle the ordinary cartography of Asia as a region in order to speak back to the Western-centric theorizing and paradigms of queerness (Luther & Ung Loh, 2019). Hence, Queer Asia, which recognizes multiple convergences and divergences of queerness in and across Asia, is not an area study. It is about rewriting, remaking, and revising queer practices of Asia(nness) as a multiple, unfinalized, and dynamic conception that decolonizes the whiteness/Westernness of queer modernities as the global, transitional normativity.
Overall, this special issue aims to examine how historical particularities, contemporary sociopolitical events, and transregional connectivity create Queer Asian communicative cultures and productions in the proposed spaces in order to complicate Western-oriented queer studies. By revisiting and traveling around the multiple localities of Queer Asianness working with communication and media practices, we hope to maintain a futuristic space where scholars continue to discuss Queer Asia and contribute to building up Queer Asian studies further.
Contributors may submit an academic essay (6,000-7,000 including references) or a forum discussion (1,000-3,000 words) that responds to the following question for this issue: What’s happening in/across Queer Asia as a space, not geographically limited?We want to answer this question with a focus on communication and media practices in/across Asia. By communication and/or media practices, we mean ongoing processes and activities in which media technology, social institutions, and/or relational settings alter, shape, and reinforce situated meanings.We seek 250-500 word proposals that pay attention to underrepresented issues and concerns of cultures, groups, and traditions overlooked by the name of Queer Asia. Especially, we welcome essays from scholars, educators, activists, artists, policy and culture makers, and communication and media practitioners that disrupt and reshape existing cisgender/nontrans-centric queer Asia(s).
When you submit a proposal, please indicate the contribution type: academic essay or forum discussion.
Timeline:
250-500 word proposals due: February 28, 2022
Requests for full manuscripts: April 15, 2022
Full manuscripts due: August 15, 2022
Expected Publication: One of the 2023 issues
Please submit proposals to Jungmin Kwon ((jungmin.kwon /at/ pdx.edu) ) and Shinsuke Eguchi ((seguchi /at/ unm.edu) ). Please feel safe and free to inquire with questions or concerns before deadlines.