by Aaron Raphael Ponce, ULB

Les Midis de STRIGES reviennent pour l’année académique 2020-2021 ! De l’urbanisme à la pharmacie en passant par la sociologie, l’histoire ou encore le droit, les Midis s’inscrivent dans une perspective interdisciplinaire où tous les sujets ont pour lien les études de genre.

Current ethnographies on gay Asian migrants in Anglo-European countries focus heavily on their sexual roles, desires and identities as being defined by a colonial conception of masculinity, performed by the socio-politically subaltern, and motivated by the desire for upward economic mobility. Through an ethnographic study of gay Chinese-Belgian couples, this research departs from this existing analytical framework through several avenues: first, by exploring the dynamics of gay Chinese migrants and their partners; second, by contextualizing their life trajectories as both individuals and individuals-within-a-couple; and finally, re-examining imaginaries of class, masculinity, and desire in the shadow of China as a global superpower. It also examines both individual and couple mobility under conflicting socio-national regimes (exacerbated by the current international situation). By doing so, it aims to demonstrate the complexity of gay migration in the context of couplehood not only as an individual choice, but as a confluence of different relationship, community, and transnational dynamics.

Aaron Raphael Ponce is currently in the third year of his doctoral studies, working in the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des mondes contemporains (LAMC), where he is currently an academic assistant, and the East Asian Research Center (EAST) of the ULB. He was granted the MSH Seed Grant in 2018 and previously worked under Prof. Asuncion Fresnoza-Flot’s FNRS-PDR project, Situated Mixedness in a Superdiverse Context: A Case Study of Belgian-Asian Couples. He holds a Master’s degree in social sciences (Intercultural Mediation: identities, mobilities and conflicts) from KU Leuven and Université Lille-III. He was also awarded a Chinese Language training certificate in 2010 from Tunghai University, Taiwan, under a grant from the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. His research focuses on the gendered aspects of both Chinese and Filipino diasporas, as well as diasporic involvement in Chinese soft power and diplomacy.

Jeudi 10 décembre 2020 de 12h15 à 14h

Salle de réception
Bâtiment R – 3e niveau – R3.105
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1050 Bruxelles

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