Abstract
This article examines how a research project transformed into participatory action research (PAR) whose outcome was a self-help group for older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong. The overall process witnessed a change in the level of participation by both the researcher and researched, as well as the social transformation of the participants and production of knowledge on Chinese homosexuality. Most importantly, the morph into PAR can be seen as a process whereby the participants took control and felt empowered. By bridging the gap between queer studies and PAR, this research rethinks three power issues embedded in the research process: the power relation between researcher and researched, that between participants and the major form of oppression in queer lives, i.e. heteronormativity, and the knowledge–power relation in the formulation of Chinese homosexuality.
Introduction
This article examines how a research project transformed into participatory action research (PAR). The project began life in 2009 as an academic study using the oral history method to address the lack of research on Chinese ageing sexuality. 1 In the course of data collection, oral history became a useful tool for turning the research into PAR, which in turn led to various forms of community engagement through publication of a book on the participants’ lives, organization of a photo exhibition and associated public events. Through these activities, a self-help group (Gay and Grey) gradually evolved in which the participants took control and felt empowered. This research is situated in the PAR tradition and queer studies. 2 In the following, after a brief introduction to the bridging of these two traditions, I analyse the transformation of the research process in three stages by examining two crucial features: participation and transformation. I demonstrate the change in the participation level of both the researcher and researched, which subsequently effected the social transformation of the researcher, participants, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) or tongzhi (a synonym for LGBTQ in local parlance) community and society at large, as well as the transformation of knowledge, i.e. the production of local knowledge on Chinese homosexuality. By facilitating dialogue between queer studies and PAR, this article rethinks the power relations embedded in each stage of the research process: the power relation between researcher and researched, that between the participants and the major form of oppression in their lives, i.e. heteronormativity, and the knowledge–power relation in formulating Chinese homosexuality.
Queering participatory action research
This research is situated in the multifaceted tradition of action research, or PAR. Reason and Bradbury (2008: 4) argue that
action research is a participatory process concerned with developing practical knowing in the pursuit of worthwhile human purposes. It seeks to bring together action and reflection, theory and practice, in participation with others, in the pursuit of practical solutions to issues of pressing concern to people, and more generally the flourishing of individual persons and their communities.
Kemmis and McTaggart (2005: 566–568) identify seven key features of PAR: it is a social process, participatory, practical and collaborative, emancipatory, critical, reflexive, and aims to transform both theory and practice. PAR constitutes an intervention that challenges the boundaries of participation, and thus creates conditions that foster empowerment and social transformation (Dworski-Riggs and Langhout, 2010: 226). Participation in PAR goes beyond traditional practices of inquiry by engaging in collaborative relationships, thereby opening up new spaces for dialogue and development. It is through differing levels of participation that social transformations arise: first, the transformation of people – from researchers to researched and from the community concerned to society at large, empowering the researched in the process – and, second, the transformation of knowledge, producing new and local knowledge for both academia and the community.
How can queer studies contribute to PAR? In the West, LGBTQ academics are closely aligned with activism: from the coming-out narratives and identity politics of the 1970s to HIV/AIDS community research in the 1980s to sexual citizenship debates and rights-based movements (such as civil partnership, same-sex marriage) in the 1990s. Because of their explicit political agenda, queer studies have a natural inclination towards social movements and activism. However, there is relatively little dialogue between such studies and PAR, possibly for the same reason as in the case of feminism (Reid and Frisby, 2008: 94). PAR researchers, on the one hand, seldom focus on how sexuality (like gender in feminism) shapes the construction of identities, practices and social relations, partly because they believe LGBTQ (like women) are included in such generic terms as ‘the community’, ‘the oppressed’ or ‘the marginal’. On the other hand, queer studies, like feminism, have become institutionalized in academia with the development of highly theorized forms of knowledge about homosexuality (especially queer theory), widening the gap between theory and practice.
This article thus examines PAR from a queer perspective, a queer Asian studies perspective in particular. Building on Western gay and lesbian studies (e.g., social constructionism; see Richardson and Seidman, 2002) and queer theory (Butler, 1990; Sedgewick, 1990), queer Asian studies (Chu and Martin, 2007; Martin et al., 2008; McLelland and Mackie, 2015) constitute an emerging discipline that conceptualizes queer life within the complex modernities of Asia as centres of transnational queer analysis. The task is to seek ways of understanding the complex process of Western, local and inter-regional knowledge systems shaping experiences in specific sites in Asia and to engage in critical dialogue with the West and within Asia (Kong, 2011, 2016: 509–510).
PAR’s strength lies in its production of knowledge and action both useful to and empowering for people. Yet, it has been criticized for romanticizing action and overemphasizing empowerment (Shortall, 2003: 226–227). By contrast, queer studies have long been sensitive to the issue of power, not just in their deep analysis of the major forms of oppression regulating LGBTQ lives but also in their close examination of who holds the power to represent LGBTQ in the research process. However, this discipline too (especially queer theory) has been criticized for fragmenting the LGBTQ community by emphasizing its multiplicity and heterogeneity. This article argues that dialogue between the two research traditions can enrich our understanding of the power issues embedded in the research process: the power relation between researcher and researched, the extent to which research subjects are empowered and the relation between power and knowledge in formulating (Chinese) homosexuality.
First, PAR challenges the traditional positivistic subject-object dualism, preferring a collaborative relationship between researcher and researched to open up a new space for communication. Classical investigations of the lives of ‘the homosexual’ were dominated by sexology, medicine and psychiatry. Presumably heterosexual scientists interviewed ‘abnormal’ homosexuals in search of a pathological diagnosis. This positivistic and clinical approach was gradually replaced by a more hermeneutic and interpretive approach (especially with the emergence of social constructionism of sexual identities in sociology) from the 1970s onwards, collapsing the dichotomy between subject/researcher and object/researched and emphasizing self-awareness, reflexivity and shared meanings. Some researchers even came out during the research process. The arrival of queer theory in the 1990s further complicated the issue of representation, as it urged the reconciliation of our multiple fragmented selves and discursively constituted subjectivities, intersected significantly by gender, race, sexuality and class, amongst the diverse social positions that mediate everyday life and the research process (Kong et al., 2002). This article argues that a queer-informed PAR shifts the level of participation between researcher and researched, calling for a rethink of the power relations between the two.
Second, PAR seeks to foster social justice, and thus emphasizes the marginalized and their active involvement in transformation that can ‘inform, educate, remind, challenge, empower, and lead to action/interventions’ (O’Neill, 2010: 227). Queer studies have identified several forms of power regulating LGBTQ lives, chief amongst them heteronormativity (Berlant and Warner, 1998: 554–555). Although scholars in queer studies may think differently about identity politics, coming out is usually seen as an empowering moment challenging heteronormativity. This article briefly discusses the research participants’ encounters with heteronormativity and other systems of oppression (for example, colonialism, patriarchy) and examines the extent to which they were empowered through the PAR reported herein.
Third, Gaventa and Cornwall (2001) argue that traditional views of power (Lukes, 1974) are inadequate, proposing a Foucauldian alternative that views power and knowledge as two sides of the same coin. This Foucauldian view enables them to elucidate the complex relationship amongst knowledge, action and consciousness in PAR. In these authors’ view, PAR achieves a more democratic form of knowledge by mobilizing relatively powerless groups in a way that involves their own reflection and learning. Queer studies, particularly those adopting a Foucauldian perspective, argue that Western knowledge systems produce an understanding of the hetero/homosexual binary that sees the former as healthy, normal and good and the latter as sick, perverted and bad (Sedgewick, 1990). Queer Asian studies go even further to decolonize the hegemonic Western construction of knowledge about homosexuality. This article demonstrates how queer-informed PAR can generate subjugated knowledge of Chinese homosexuality to challenge hegemonic Western formulations.
The study of older gay men in Hong Kong
During the course of my studies on the post-war generation of gay men in Hong Kong, London and mainland China (Kong, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2011), I have become increasingly interested in understanding what Plummer (2010) calls ‘generational sexualities’. Older gay men are understudied in academic research, under-represented in both mainstream and queer popular culture, invisible in social policy and social services, and even marginalized within the gay community. They are the ‘unseen minority’ (Berger, 1982) or ‘a minority within a minority’ (Jones and Pugh, 2005: 258).
Whilst the issue of sexuality is understudied in the sociology of ageing, the issues of age and generation are also relatively neglected in the sociology of sexuality (Plummer, 2010). Only recently have researchers recognized the intersections between the two in attempting to understand the complexity and diversity of how ageing is experienced and negotiated (Heaphy et al., 2004; Heaphy, 2007; Cronin and King, 2010). However, no research to date focuses solely on non-heterosexual older Chinese men and women. In investigating this hidden population, I discovered serious research gaps in Hong Kong. Local ageing studies assume their older participants to be heterosexual, failing to consider the specific experiences of older non-heterosexuals (Cheng and Chan, 2006; Chou et al., 2004; Yip et al., 2003). Local (homo-)sexuality studies focus overwhelmingly on gay men and lesbians born in the 1950s or after (Kong, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2011; Chou, 2000; Tang, 2011), which is also the case with local tongzhi stories, novels and movies.
Older gay men grew up in a very different environment than their younger counterparts, one in which homosexuality was a crime for much of their lives. Male homosexuality was generally tolerated in ancient and imperial China (Kong, 2011: 151–152), but male homosexual acts (such as ‘buggery’) became a crime with the introduction of English law when Hong Kong became a British colony in 1842. However, when England passed the 1967 Sexual Offence Act decriminalizing male homosexual acts in private, the colonial government did not follow suit, as the Chinese population did not view homosexuality as a social problem (Lethbridge, 1976: 306–310). Homosexuality entered the public debate in the early 1980s and was finally decriminalized in 1991, meaning it was no longer illegal for two consenting males aged 21+ to have sex in private. Decriminalization triggered the burgeoning of tongzhi groups and tongzhi-identified bars, clubs, saunas, bookshops and other venues, and the development of thriving tongzhi subcultures. Although the age of consent between heterosexuals (16) and homosexuals (21) was equalized in 2005, post-colonial Hong Kong (1997–) still lacks a law against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, not to mention any provision for civil partnership or same-sex marriage (Kong et al., 2015).
Transformation of an academic project into PAR
Phase 1 – oral history as a basis for PAR
In 2008, I obtained a small research grant from my university to investigate older gay men (aged 60+) using the oral history method. As Cockcroft (2005) notes, oral history remains a under-utilized methodology in the social sciences. At the methodology’s heart lies a distinctly empowering ideal that gives voice to individuals, usually the marginalized, whose histories are often ignored by orthodox histories. Through in-depth interviews and extended periods of time spent with their subjects, oral historians collect memories related to specific topics within a broader social and political context (Ames and Diepstra, 2010; see also Thompson, 1978).
Oral history is thus a particularly suitable tool for examining older gay men in Hong Kong, whose history has been neglected. Since 2009, I have formally interviewed 15 gay men aged 63-89 and conducted several focus groups. Eleven were from working-class backgrounds, and four from middle-class families. Seven had primary education, three secondary education, and five university education. Seven were married to women, six were single, and two were living with long-term same-sex partners. All were Chinese except for two British men who came to Hong Kong in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The two British men were university-educated with long-term Chinese boyfriends, whereas most of the Chinese respondents had working-class backgrounds and little education, which is typical of the Hong Kong generation of the 1920s-1950s. In the interviews, I was particularly interested in how these men narrated and retold their past, particularly the ways in which they made sense of their same-sex desires at a time when male homosexuality was defined as a medical, legal and moral aberration, and how their earlier experiences informed their present lives, particularly the ways in which they negotiated ageing and sexuality with respect to four areas: work, finance and retirement; home, family, and intimate relationships; social services and care; and the tongzhi community. The oral history method focuses on participants’ memories within a broader historical, social and political context. It thus provided a vehicle for examining how the complexity of these men’s lives is interwoven with Hong Kong history and for demonstrating the hardships they have encountered, particularly those due to their sexual orientation, from colonial to contemporary times (Kong, 2012).
Scholars generally focus on oral history’s contribution to giving voice to ordinary or marginalized people relative to orthodox official history rather than its contribution to PAR. However, through the series of interactions in this project, I became aware of the particular challenges the participants have faced: the loneliness of being old, gay and single, the coming-out dilemma (particularly challenging for those who are married and have children and grandchildren), the longing for same-sex intimacy, the fear of getting sick and the frustration of being excluded from the youth-oriented gay community. It became clear that oral history could tap into PAR. In 2012, as the original project was nearing its end, I organized more regular meetings with the participants (and asked them to bring friends) as a way of community building. We had regular monthly yum cha (‘tea-drinking’) sessions at a local restaurant, followed by visits to a volunteer’s home for a focus group discussion loosely focused on four themes: work, family, social services and the gay community. The participants decided the topics for discussion, for example, ‘single solo living’, ‘how to date in old age’, ‘cross-generational love’, ‘why do we love straight men?’ ‘open relationships’, ‘mothers and sons’ and ‘how to live with one’s wife’. I also asked them to bring along objects with special meaning and to share the stories behind them. One man brought the ring his first love had given him, some brought pen-pal letters and diaries, and several brought old photographs. These interactions gradually spawned a small community comprising about five core members and ten who joined us occasionally.
Hence, oral history served as the basis for PAR. Both research methods emphasize participation and transformation. First, participation is crucial, and involves more than the standard practice of researcher-researched or participant-observer (Taylor and Rupp, 2005). PAR researchers usually prefer an ‘insider’ over an ‘outsider’ standpoint (for example, gaining access to and trust from respondents), although the limits of an insider’s truth should be noted (for example, ‘emotional baggage’, criteria constitute the status of an ‘insider’, and so on) (Lundy and McGovern, 2006). I began to look forward to our monthly gatherings, and gradually developed a deeper relationship with the participants. However, I am well aware of the power issue embedded within the insider/outsider dilemma in social research (Denzin and Lincoln, 1994) and intersectionality issues in queer studies (Kong, 2011; Rahman, 2010). On the one hand, I followed most LGBTQ researchers (see Lewin and Leap, 1996) in being ‘out’ in the field, declaring my own sexual orientation at the beginning of interviews. In this sense, I am an ‘insider’ as a Chinese gay man. I am studying something that is as much a part of me as it is of the people I interview, and what I have learnt has contributed as much to my own self-understanding as it has to a social understanding. It was also easy to establish rapport with and gain acceptance from the participants because they saw themselves in me. On the other hand, I am also an ‘outsider’, not just because of the age difference (I am in my 40s), but also because of such ‘intersectional differences’ as education, class and cultural upbringing. I sometimes found myself at odds with our differing ideas and goals concerning the politics of coming out and political activism. For example, I am quite open about my sexuality in my personal and work lives and have been teaching sexuality at a university and participating in local tongzhi activism for years. Most of the participants are still very closeted, which is understandable given the closeted lives they have lived for so long. One participant makes up stories to cover his sexuality and is proud of doing so. Only two participants have publicly come out, joining me in holding banners during a Pride Walk whilst others have never attended or attended without disclosing their identities. Moreover, a related issue is the problem of silence and marginalization. I am HIV- but a few respondents are HIV+ and extremely reluctant to talk about it. HIV+ status carries a very strong social stigma in Hong Kong society, and the ‘suppressed’ truth was revealed only slowly once deep trust had been built between us. However, to this day they have not disclosed their status to their fellow participants whose HIV status is negative or unknown as they are afraid that they might be discriminated against within the group.
Second, as PAR’s aim is to help individuals to release themselves from unjust social structures (Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005: 567), the first step is to honour their voices (Reid and Frisby, 2008). When I asked the participants to tell me their stories, their immediate answer was often: ‘I am ordinary. I have nothing to share. Nothing special, really!’ But then they would tell me astonishingly wonderful and complicated stories about their lives. I was often amazed by their ability to speak eloquently for 30 minutes just in telling me their coming-out story. When I asked whether they had shared that story with anyone else, the answer was usually ‘no’, leading me to believe that they had rehearsed it a thousand times in their mind and were simply waiting for the right person to ‘come out’ to. The clear narrative structure of their coming-out stories contrasted with their narratives about family or work, which usually jumped around with no coherent logical sense. Telling me their stories of same-sex intimacy was in itself a coming-out process, and thus self-empowering. Their stories were sexual stories (Plummer, 1995), with specific timings and bound up with a historical moment and place. They were told with laughter, joy, happiness and pride, as well as tears, anger, remorse, shame and guilt. They were both personal and political, powerful and transformative, revealing narratives that challenged the hegemonic heteronormative script of Chinese masculinity in Hong Kong.
Third, both oral history and PAR have the power to transform theory. It was through collective memory and the participants’ oral testimonials and ‘documents of life’ (diaries, letters, photographs) and queer studies that I was able to reconstruct the hidden history of older gay men in Hong Kong and produce new knowledge about Chinese homosexuality that contrasts with the hegemonic Western formulation of homosexuality. As argued elsewhere (Kong, 2012), the Chinese family is the prime site for constructing social identities, governing marriages and establishing work relationships, and this was particularly the case in colonial Hong Kong. The Western coming-out model, usually confessional in nature and associated with a confrontational form of identity politics, is less relevant in the Chinese context. Half the participants were married, which they did not consider a big problem, as most loved their wives and valued having a ‘heterosexual’ family. These men had sacrificed their own self-development by suppressing their same-sex desires and marrying a woman to contribute to the heterosexual family moral economy. Most did not regret their decision to marry, and had begun to explore the gay world relatively late in life (50s or above). The notion of individuality sometimes clashes with the notion of the relational self in the Chinese family institution. Whether single or married, these men negotiated their gay identities in the closet and within the parameters of familial heteronormativity. The real opposition in the Chinese context is sometimes not so much between homosexuality and heterosexuality, but between willingness and refusal to play one’s traditional family and gender role. This subjugated knowledge thus challenges the universal Western knowledge of homosexuality, which is based on the Western gay experience, suggesting a new understanding of the notion of gayness, coming-out politics and the relationship amongst (homo-)sexuality, the family and the (colonial) state.
Phase 2 – community engagement: PAR as public sociology
The emerging small community that grew out of this oral history project clearly had an important story to tell, and together we decided to share it with the community. I applied for a university knowledge exchange grant in 2013 to publish a Chinese oral history book and organize a photo exhibition to raise awareness of the needs of and problems that older gay men encounter. The book, published in mid-2014, documents 12 of these men’s life stories prefaced by a long theoretical introduction. Using their own voices, the book recounts their ‘secretive’ past from birth to young adulthood against the backdrop of various social and political transformations in Hong Kong. It also discusses how they negotiate ageing and sexuality in their current lives. In the course of producing the book, I invited four local and international artists to document the men’s lives through photographs. They attended our regular monthly gatherings and hung out with some of the participants. The result was four distinctive visual documentations. The photo exhibition has toured various locations in Hong Kong, and both it and the book have received overwhelmingly positive reviews from the tongzhi community and general public, as evidenced by the widespread media exposure they have received. After Hong Kong, the book talk and the exhibition also travelled to Macau, Guangzhou and London. The book is now in its fourth print run, and is being translated into English.
The process of writing the book and delivering numerous talks on it and the photo exhibition prompted me to rethink the PAR research process. First of all, what had changed in the researcher-researched relationship? Participation was again crucial. At this stage, however, it was less about my immersion and participation in the participants’ lives and more about mutual exchange and collaboration between us (see Taylor and Rupp, 2005). The production of the book and photo exhibition was a collective and collaborative exercise involving multiple parties – the researcher, the artists and the participants. In contrast to my other academic work, in which I alone hold the authority to represent interviewees’ voices, in this project I invited them to participate in the writing process. Validation can mean the triangulation of observations and interpretations, co-authorship, participant confirmation and testing the coherence of the arguments being presented (McTaggart, 1994: 327). In this case, I obtained participants’ consent to publish their stories in the book. I transcribed their life stories in Chinese and then sent them drafts to read, check and validate. Some had no issues, whilst others did. One difficulty was balancing accuracy and confidentiality, as some said bluntly that their story was too detailed and that people who knew them would know who they are. Hence, I tried to report their stories as accurately as possible while protecting their identities. I used pseudonyms and was vague about certain biographical details. For example, instead of stating that respondent X come from Dongfeng Town or respondent Y a social worker, I would just give the broader region (e.g. Zhongshan) or occupational sector (e.g. social welfare) respectively. As Ames and Diepstra (2010: 403) remind us, absolute anonymity is impossible, and there is always an inherent risk that participants can be identified by those who know them. What is important is to explicitly discuss the risk of exposure and reach consensus. Another issue was that of consent and coercion. Some participants were hesitant about publishing their stories, and some worried that those mentioned in their love letters might not want their stories told. After discussion, we reached consensus, with all of those participating agreeing that they were willing to tell their stories with protected identities, privacy and confidentiality while bearing the risk of identification. In all instances, I handled the methodological and ethical issues involved by striking a balance between accuracy and confidentiality, between consent and coercion, and between authenticity and inauthenticity. I wrote drafts and held discussions with the participants until we reached an end result with which we were both satisfied. 3 In this sense, they were ‘co-authors’. In the course of writing, I regularly had to suppress my own voice and honour theirs. I often pondered: Who is really the author? Who can speak for these men? From what position? On what basis? Was I an objective scientist, a self-identified gay researcher or a self-critical queer theorist? This exercise thus tested the new criteria for validity suggested by queer and/or post-structuralist enquiry: ‘attend to the voice of participants, the conditionality, situatedness and incompleteness of observation, and the obligation to attend to reflectivity and to undermining constraints to action’ (McTaggart, 1994: 327). PAR enabled me to shift the power relationship between researcher and researched from hierarchy to collaborative partnership.
Second, to what extent were the participants empowered? If talking to me was the first stage of coming out, publication of their stories can be seen as the second stage. They referred to the book as ‘our book’, which shows that they assumed ownership of what amounted to a collective product. This second coming out also resulted in new experiences. Two participants decided to come out in public. One participant who attended the book launch told me how initially frightened he had felt when he stepped into the room with hundreds of people looking at him: ‘They seemed to be nice and so I could be relaxed and tell them who I was. The experience was wonderful.’ However, his story was reported in a mainstream newspaper, which he discovered when his priest handed him the newspaper at church without saying a word. A mainstream television programme reported on another participant and captured him on film saying ‘I am gay’. After the programme was broadcast, his friends at a local elderly day centre bluntly said, ‘Oh, you are gay!’ They then distanced themselves from him and stopped inviting him to social activities. He was saddened by their behaviour, but coming out always has a price. Regardless of whether they had positive or negative experiences as a result of the project, through this public sharing and media exposure these older gay men underwent ‘conscientization’ (Freire, 1972) – ‘learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality’ (p. 15) – and were thus empowered and able to take charge of their lives. They had been provided a platform to interact and to engage with one another more authentically, gaining recognition and respect in the process. However, as many scholars (Kemmis and McTaggart, 2005; McTaggart, 1994) caution, empowerment should not be overstated. The participants still face numerous challenges. Most still feel unable to come out to their families, especially those who still live with their wives and/or children. They remain silent, deny or are ambiguous about their same-sex desires. The power of the closet and its regulatory effects on the participants’ lives cannot be denied.
Third, I had to ask myself how knowledge had been transformed. PAR’s aim is to produce new local and practical knowledge through collaboration with participants. However, there is debate about whether the knowledge produced is sometimes too local at the expense of being sufficiently academic (Ponzoni, 2015). This problem of ‘high’ and ‘low’ theory has also been discussed in queer studies (Halberstam, 2011). Leung (2007) argues that academic studies of gender and sexuality in Hong Kong are disseminated primarily in English because of the territory’s colonial legacy and its universities’ pursuit of internationalization. English writing thus ‘counts’ more than Chinese, and English-language debates are prioritized. Chinese writings, whilst constituting local queer theoretical projects, do not fit into academic standards and thus are often dismissed. Leung (2007) questions what counts as theory and knowledge by rethinking the gap between ‘queer’ and ‘theory’, ‘local’ and ‘global’, and ‘English-writing’ and ‘Chinese-writing’. The publication of the book in this research was thus a test case. Not only is it a book written in Chinese to reach a wider readership in Hong Kong, but it presents the participants’ narratives in written Cantonese rather than standard Chinese. The former is considered a dialect that is ‘vernacular’ and ‘improper’, whilst the latter is taken as the ‘formal’, ‘proper’ way of presenting Chinese writing. The choice of language was made to respect the participants’ own voice and also to challenge the hierarchy of Chinese writing in Hong Kong. Further, the book was deliberately written without academic concepts (heteronormativity, homonormativity, family biopolitics) to produce accessible ‘local’ knowledge of sexuality. Finally, I am particularly interested in the ways that Western knowledge of homosexuality cannot be applied to the Chinese context and instances in which local tongzhi identities and politics do not follow the same path as the global queer identity. When translations fail, what we gain from these ‘misfit’ moments are insights that force us to face the neglected voices of the local and challenge the imagined Western origins of the study of homosexuality.
Phase 3 – establishment of Gay and Grey: the outcome of PAR
Building on the momentum created by the book and photo exhibition, the original oral history participants (and other older gay men who joined after various public events) decided in late 2014 to formally register as a social group called Gay and Grey. Using the concept of ‘peer counselling’, Gay and Grey is operated by older gay men and offers services and support to other older gay men in Hong Kong. The group has two main purposes and mission. The first is to build a positive older gay community through activities (tea gatherings, karaoke, film screenings) and services (a helpline to answer queries, delivery of condoms to gay saunas, a WhatsApp group for sharing information and sending greetings). The ultimate goal is to press for social services catering for elderly tongzhi in Hong Kong, for example residential home care or day centres and nursing homes. The second purpose is to raise awareness of the unspoken needs and problems of older gay men within both the tongzhi community and general public. Gay and Grey co-organizes activities with other tongzhi NGOs to enhance mutual understanding and provide public education through school talks and media interviews. Moreover, the original oral history project has expanded. One of the participants has begun to write his autobiography and is currently seeking a publisher. Also, a number of secondary school and university students have found the men’s stories compelling and produced various forms of documentation (essays, videos, films). The project is also known within the tongzhi community in mainland China, and this PAR has triggered a similar project in Guangzhou.
Hence, the project has entered a new stage in which the power issues have shifted. First, participation has been taken to a new level. The group has three kinds of membership: members of Gay and Grey (60+ tongzhi), friends of Gay and Grey (tongzhi of all ages) and Gay and Grey volunteers (anyone who is interested in helping older tongzhi). I have become a friend of Gay and Grey. Although I still participate in the group’s activities, I play a minor role. It is Gay and Grey members who play the major role in organizing and running the group.
Second, the group’s establishment has transformed individual identities into collective identities. Weeks (2000: 192) argues that the idea of a sexual community is ‘an imagined community, an invented tradition which enables and empowers’. Gay and Grey provides the context for the articulation of an older Chinese gay identity with its own history and social role. It offers a sense of belonging through which new ways of life can be imagined. It emphasizes self-help in relation to the inevitable ageing process, and relates to a broader tongzhi movement that seeks to challenge the existing heteronormative order. In this sense, this PAR has helped to reunite a gay community that queer research has tended to fragment. However, power dynamics still exist within the group, most prominently with respect to the use of Cantonese (meaning English- and Mandarin-speaking members are generally excluded) and some members’ reluctance to and real difficulty in recruiting older lesbians and transsexuals.
Third, this PAR suggests the need for a rethink about the role and significance of the community in gay lives. In the West, the gay community was first studied through the scattering of various ‘scenes’ (parks, toilets, railway stations, beaches) in the pre-Stonewall period. After the 1970s, the community became more visible, as evidenced by the establishment of gay-identified venues (bars, clubs and bathhouses) (Taylor et al., 2002). However, the emergence of such virtual spaces as chat rooms, ICQ and, more recently, smartphone dating apps, has profoundly transformed gay lives to the extent that the focal question is whether the gay community has vanished. Hong Kong has followed a similar pattern.
Discussion and conclusion
In contrast to most action research, in which the researchers usually have the clear goal of development when working with a group or with activists or even allowing the participants to lead the research (Ward et al., 2008), this project grew out of academic research on ageing gay sexuality in Hong Kong using the oral history method, which then morphed into PAR with unintended consequences. It emerged over time in an evolutionary process, with skills and practices developed along the way, and moved from isolated individuals to a collective identity.
I never imagined that a study of older gay men would lead to such an intensive research project. From initial individual interviews to a tea group gathering with a few men, a small community comprising just five members slowly evolved into a formally registered social group with 20 members and 25 friends and volunteers. The group now has regular meetings, engages in outreach activities, operates a helpline and sometimes co-organizes events with other tongzhi organizations. A book has been published in conjunction with a photo exhibition that has toured Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and London. The subjects of that book and exhibition are regularly interviewed by students and the media and asked to speak at tongzhi-oriented public events (such as PINK DOT, Pride Walk).
The level and scope of participation in this PAR shifted, subsequently affecting the power relations between the researcher and researched. I was initially a researcher (carrying out oral history) and a facilitator (of focus groups), and then became an author (of the book) and now a friend of Gay and Grey. The participants were initially interviewees (in my research project), and then became ‘co-authors’ (of the book), the main actors (of the photo exhibition) and now Gay and Grey spokespersons. Rahman (1991: 13) argues that the basic ideology of PAR is people’s progressive transformation of their environment by their own praxis, with others playing a catalytic and supportive role. My role has changed from a major to a minor one, and I have learnt how to suppress my own voice and honour those of the respondents. Their role, in contrast, has altered from a minor to a major one, and they now have to think about the future direction of the group. Together, we have come to know one another across the lines of class, age, education and religion, and come to appreciate the differences amongst us. It was through this process that a ‘redistribution of power’ between researcher and researched occurred.
Moreover, it has been important to protect participants’ identities throughout the process. I sought ethical approval from my university at the project’s outset and obtained participants’ consent to record the interviews. At later stages, I obtained their consent to publish their stories in the book and photos in the exhibition with caution exercised (pseudonyms used, biographical details slightly altered or left vague, and faces hidden). For public events, consent was sought before participants were asked to share their stories openly. It was also through this participatory process that some ‘suppressed’ truths were heard (e.g., HIV status).
The experience has changed my life and how I think about ageing, and has changed the participants’ lives and how they think about being gay in old age. I was fascinated by their dramatic stories, touched by their honesty and saddened by their misfortunes. These are stories of flesh and blood told with laughter and tears. It is the opportunity for experiential learning that drives my ongoing involvement in their activities. For them, it has been an empowering process. From the ‘first’ coming out (talking to me) to the ‘second’ (publishing their stories, participating in the photo exhibition, giving public talks and interviews), most never imagined that anyone would be interested in their lives. They had been living in the shadows for many years. Although many still cannot face the public, most can at least face themselves. One participant told me that what he most wants is to come out to his two sons before his death. Although the participants feel empowered, they remain vulnerable in many senses. They still long for stable, long-term intimate same-sex relationships, they still struggle with coming out to their close family members and relatives, and they still feel frustrated that the gay community is youth-oriented and consumption-based. Through Gay and Grey, however, they feel less lonely and less isolated. They have found a new social role in being old and gay and in caring for others with similar lived experiences.
Gay and Grey is a self-help group predominantly for older gay men. It has had difficulty recruiting members of different social and cultural backgrounds (English- and Mandarin-speaking older gay men) and other genders and sexualities (older lesbians, transsexuals). It has also had problems obtaining funding, promoting local networks of older tongzhi and raising awareness amongst service providers and policymakers. Other participative projects serve as good development models, e.g. the London-based Polari in Partnership Project and Gay and Grey in Dorset (Ward et al., 2008). That said, in contrast to other queer research, which tends to emphasize the differences within and erode the sense of community amongst the LGBTQ population, the PAR reported herein exemplifies the idea of building a sexual community through the articulation of identity, development of values and skills, and emergence of a social movement to challenge the existing order (Weeks, 2000: 192).
Moreover, the transformation that has occurred has not been about the participants alone, but also about theory. The overall research process has produced a new understanding of Chinese homosexuality: first, through oral history and its publication in English and, second, through publication of a Chinese book and photo exhibition. This PAR has thus examined the ways in which heteronormativity has allied with the other systems of oppression (patriarchy, sexism, colonialism) that have constructed Chinese gay identities, desires and practices. This new subjugated knowledge challenges the Western origins of understanding homosexuality and rethinks what counts as theory by coming closer to what is ‘local’ about the ‘global’ queer. It calls for an agenda that not only needs to build connections between empirical investigations in different parts of the world but also on concepts, theories and methods produced by thinkers working from the colonized and postcolonial South (Connell, 2013).
By facilitating a dialogue between queer studies and PAR, I have shown how PAR can benefit from a queer perspective and how the practices of PAR can help to develop a better theory of homosexuality. Queer-informed PAR should centre on the lived and local experiences of queer people, focus on participation and collaboration between researchers and participants, and be reflexive and reflective throughout the process. Such an approach can bring about social transformation through the empowerment of participants, the production of new knowledge and the resulting impact on the LGBTQ community and general public.
Footnotes
Funding
This research is funded by Small Project Funding (‘Gay and Grey: Oral History of Hong Kong Gay Elders’; 200807176236; 1 Jan 2009–31 Dec 2010) and Knowledge Exchange Funding Exercise (‘The Unforgettable and Unspoken: Oral Histories of Older Gay Men Living in Hong Kong’; KE-IP-2013/14-57; 1 July 2013–30 June 2014) of the University of Hong Kong.