Gendering China Studies

Abstract

This article explores the connections between the field of China studies and the field of gender and sexuality studies. It engages with three questions. First, why is it that theoretical, conceptual and methodological cross-fertilization between China studies and cultural studies remains quite scarce? Second, why are popular culture and art important domains of academic inquiry? Third, why is it crucial to theorize and problematize “Chineseness”? Drawing on the debates surrounding the translation of alleged “Western” theories related to the sex—gender distinction, feminism, and queer studies to a “Chinese” context, it is argued that the call for local knowledges runs the danger of becoming an essentializing, hegemonic discourse on its own. The article concludes with a plea for an interdisciplinary approach that combines theoretical and empirical insights from area studies and cultural studies, and an intersectional take in which gender is analyzed in conjunction with other parameters of difference, such as ethnicity, class or age, and, finally, a multisited, comparative research agenda as to avoid a sino-centric or Han-centric analysis. This may help to identify, understand, and hopefully resist the seduction of both cultural essentialism and cultural relativism.