GAYSIA AS METHOD: “STICKY RICE” RELATIONS IN GAYSIAN NIGHTLIFE

My dissertation examines what intra-Asian desire reveals about race, sexuality, and Asian American identity when whiteness is no longer the primary point of reference. I ask: (1) How does examining intra-Asian desire challenge how Asian-ness is defined in relation to whiteness or Blackness in American Studies? (2) How does “sticky rice” obfuscate or illuminate the intimate desires of Asian Americans and Asians? (3) How do queer Asian Americans negotiate race, sexuality, desire, and belonging in spaces where whiteness is not the primary reference point?

 

My doctoral dissertation will demonstrate how identity formations surrounding race and sexuality decenter whiteness within queer Asian American spaces in Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. This continues my preliminary research from 2022 to present, which focused on queer East and Southeast Asian North American gay and trans men in Canada and the United States who self-identify as gaysians and live or regularly travel to global cities such as Vancouver and Los Angeles to attend nightlife events in the post-COVID 2020s.
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Methodologically, I combine multi-sited ethnography, interviews with DJs and organizers, and soundscape ethnography informed by my own DJ training. This project demonstrates how gaysian nightlife unsettles fixed categories of “queer” and “Asian,” challenges Euro-American dominance in diaspora studies, and affirms queer Asian diasporic creativity as central to contemporary understandings of globalization and belonging.