Abstract
ABSTRACT During Xi Jinping’s presidency, the increasingly repressive political control over Chinese universities has had a significant impact on academic research. Yet, little is known about how Chinese academics navigate such a climate. Drawing on interviews with 11 gay academics in China, this article explores their motivations and strategies for conducting queer research. It is shown that participants submit to heteronormativity and the Party authorities by managing their sexual identity, keeping a low profile and practising self-censorship in their research. However, they can also expand the institutional space for queer research by strategically mobilising various forms of power and discourses and highlighting the legitimacy of their research. Through the queer theoretical lens, this article presents gay academics’ agency in conducting queer research as involving simultaneous conformity and resistance in relation to heteronormativity and political control in Chinese academia.
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