Time: 12:30 – 14:00

Venue: Room G01, G/F, Hui Yeung Shing Building (HYS G01), CUHK

Speaker: LIN Zhensheng, Joshua (MPhil student, Gender Studies Programme and Department of Sociology, CUHK)

Moderator: Prof. SUEN Yiu-tung (Associate Professor, Gender Studies Programme; Associate Professor (by courtesy), Jockey Club School of Public Health and Primary Care, CUHK)

Abstract:

The process of migrant integration into the host society reveals intersecting inequalities. In recent decades, research has established that the process of migrants’ integration into the receiving society must be multidimensional and segmented. While economic, social, and cultural factors that structure migrants’ life chances have been well-researched, little is known about how migrants’ sexual identity, intersecting with asexual factors, influences their opportunity structures in society. Drawing on Bourdieu’s field trilogy, this research develops a sexual “integration field” framework. The sexual integration field is conceptualized as configurations of socially embedded, stratified sexual relations conditioned by sexual identity cultures, immigration controls, and family ideologies. It maps sexual life in Hong Kong as a transnational field where various capitals accumulate, and hierarchies along sexuality and class lines are (re)constituted. Based on qualitative interviews with working- and middle-class Chinese gay migrants, the study investigates how they navigate Hong Kong’s distinct sexual landscapes as gay men and narrates these experiences. It examines their constructions of sexual citizenship in Hong Kong and the roles played by class and sexuality in shaping integration processes.

Speaker’s Biography: LIN Zhensheng is an MPhil student in the Gender Studies Programme affiliated with the Department of Sociology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests span migration, masculinity, sexuality, and the digital world. His research is qualitative-oriented, with an affinity to life history interviews and participant observation. His current work examines how place-based experiences inform migration motivation, pattern, and integration. He has also worked on masculinity construction in digital platforms from an affordance perspective. His research has been accepted at conferences, including IAMCR, AAS, and BSA.

Language: English

Registration: https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13704848