Background

The AsiaPacifiQueer network is convening an international conference, Queer Asian Sites, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney on the afternoon of Wednesday 21, and all day Thursday 22 and Friday 23 February, 2007 in collaboration with the Trans/forming Cultures (TfC) Key University Research Centre in Communication and Culture (www.transforming.cultures.uts.edu.au) and the Queer Space: Centres and Peripheries Conference convened by the UTS Centre for Social Theory and Design in the Faculty of Design Architecture and Building.

The two-and-a-half-day conference will feature keynote addresses from major figures in Asian queer scholarship and a series of themed panel streams on intra-Asia/Pacific queer cultural flows. Confirmed keynote speakers from Asia include:

• Rosanna Flamer-Caldera (Sri Lanka, Co-Secretary General of the International Lesbian and Gay Association [ILGA])
• Prof. Neil Garcia (University of the Philippines, Diliman)
• Dr Chandra Shekhar Balanchandran (Dharani Trust, Bangalore, India)
• Dr Dédé Oetomo (Surabaya University & GAYa Nusantara, Indonesia)

Professor David Halperin, W. H. Auden Collegiate Professor of the History and Theory of Sexuality at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA, will be joint keynote speaker for both the Queer Asian Sites and Queer Space conferences. The Queer Asian Sites Conference will open with Professor Halperin's address on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 February. This will be followed by a joint reception for both conferences including a presentation by invited Taiwanese performance artist Shihue Tu.

The Aims of the Conference

The conference will investigate the importance of intra-regional networks and interactions amongst queer cultures and communities in Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Some English-language research has tended to understand the emergence of new LGBTQ identities in the region in terms of a 'West and the Rest' model of globalisation based on a one-way process in which 'the West' exerts influence upon 'the Rest'. In contrast to this model, the Queer Asian Sites conference will focus on the importance of intra-regional flows of capital, people, knowledge, representation, and community mobilisation around health and rights in the histories and contemporary forms of queer cultures and communities in the region. The types of questions we hope the conference will explore include:

• What is the legacy of the pre-World War period of Japanese colonial occupation on Taipei's and Seoul's same-sex and transgender cultures?
• How has the Confucian culture of the economically and politically important immigrant Chinese communities in countries such as Thailand, the Philippines, and Malaysia impacted upon forms of sexual knowledge, representation, and queer lifestyles in those countries?
• What impact does gay and lesbian tourism, both from the West and within Asia and the Pacific, have upon identities and practices in the region?
• How are responses to health crises such as HIV/AIDS and international human rights movements impacting on LGBTQ community development and activism in the region?
• How are Asian and Pacific diasporic identities negotiated in Western queer cultural centres such as Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland that are located in the region?
• What roles have gay, lesbian, and transgender entrepreneurs and the establishment of markets for LGBTQ services and products had on the emergence of queer communities in the region?
• How important is the expansion and cross-border transfer of queer capital -- the "pink dollar", the "purple baht", the "lavender yuan", the "rainbow rupee"-- to the public legitimation of LGBTQ communities in Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific?

ABSTRACTS ARE NOW INVITED ON THESE AND RELATED TOPICS.

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words to Queer Asian Sites Conference Manager at the following email address apq@anu.edu.au by 30 September 2006. Persons who have already submitted abstracts do not need to resubmit. Persons whose papers are accepted for presentation at the conference will be notified by early October. A preliminary conference program will also be posted on the AsiaPacifiQueer website in October. (See http://apq.anu.edu.au). Further details including registration and accommodation will be posted on the AsiaPacifiQueer website later in 2006.

The Queer Asian Sites conference is being run on a limited budget and we regret that no funds are available for scholarships.

Registration for the Queer Space conference is being administered separately and any inquiries should be addressed to: queerspace@uts.edu.au