Abstract:

According to pundits, theorists and writers of “global queering,” Western and especially US-inflected gay and lesbian cultures are being disseminated to the rest of world via the free market and helping to emancipate repressed local sexual minorities. Engaging with the problematics of this contention, my paper focuses on Singapore as a paradigmatic site of trans/national queering, and examines the neoliberal logic of this small city-state’s alleged transformation from draconian father-state to “ Asia’s new gay capital.” From rainbow-flagged gay bars, bathhouses and an annual transnational “Nation” party, widely known as “Asia’s Mardi Gras,” Singapore’s flamboyant gay men appear cathected to a queer globalization while negotiating the cultural effects of the state’s pragmatic economic policies. Using performance as a way to understand this tension, I will analyze the blindspots of this dichotomous reading and propose an inter-Asian diasporic framework for understanding “global Asian queer boys” in this global city-state.

Suggested Background Readings

Morgan, Jamie. "Words fo Warning: Global Networks, Asian Local Resistance, and the Planetary Vulgate of Neoliberalism." Positions 11.3 (2003) 541-554