Tiantian Zheng | SUNY Cortland (original) (raw)
Papers by Tiantian Zheng
Wagadu: a Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 2014
Recent studies of the globalization of gay and lesbian identities denote a universalizing perspec... more Recent studies of the globalization of gay and lesbian identities denote a universalizing perspective on same-sex practices. This universalizing perspective has been theorized by Stephen Murray as a neo-evolutionary process toward a universal, egalitarian, Western gayness (Murray 1992). Murray maps out an evolutionary model of homosexuality from unequal relations based on age (Ancient Greece), gender roles (modern Mesoamerica), class (early capitalism), to equal relations (Murray 1992). In Murray's evolutionary model, an increasingly strong gay and lesbian culture, identity, and politics have been diffused little by little throughout the Western World. Eventually, this model of the Western world will be the future trend that other countries and cultures will follow.Dennis Altman (1996a, 1996b, 1997) also contends that the global trend is toward a transition from gender-based identities to the Western egalitarian sexual identities that are not rigidly tied to a particular gender ...
Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Asia, 2016
Transpacific Attachments, 2018
Ethnographies of Prostitution in Contemporary China, 2009
As indicated in the introductory chapter, cultural meanings of sexual behaviors are central and c... more As indicated in the introductory chapter, cultural meanings of sexual behaviors are central and crucial to understanding sexual transmission of HIV (see Micollier 2004b; Parker 2001).1 The previous chapters have explored a range of cultural factors, including culturally prescribed responsibilities for contraception, cultural understanding of HIV/AIDS, and perceptions of condoms, STDs, and HIV/AIDS. These cultural factors are crucial to an adequate comprehension of the social dimension of HIV/AIDS.
The China Quarterly, 2019
Perspectives chinoises, 2009
The purpose of this paper is to understand the current problems and issues in the use of contrace... more The purpose of this paper is to understand the current problems and issues in the use of contraceptives by exploring historical Chinese attitudes towards birth control and by examining a variety of traditional practices that, even today, compete with and often interfere with acceptable and safe methods of birth control. I will show that a constant feature of historic ideology regarding birth control was a disregard for the safety and wellbeing of Chinese women and female children in favor of male values, and that even today, these values and the practices associated with them continue to threaten the health and well-being of Chinese women and the viability of their female fetuses. A scrutiny of the implicit and explicit cultural logic underlying gender dynamics and birth control is crucial to understanding sexual inequality and contraceptive use in present-day China. What are the cultural rules and obligations concerning family planning and birth control? How have they been formed t...
This article discusses the adverse effect upon sex workers of China’s abolitionist policy that fo... more This article discusses the adverse effect upon sex workers of China’s abolitionist policy that focuses on forced prostitution and launches anti-trafficking campaigns. The argument developed in this paper is based on over twenty months of fieldwork between 1999 and 2002 in Dalian. I will discuss first the karaoke bar industry and China’s policy of anti-trafficking campaigns. I will then demonstrate the impact of this policy on hostesses in karaoke bars. I will follow it with an account of how, unlike the government’s perception of forced prostitution, hostesses voluntarily choose their profession and actively seek sex work in countries such as Japan and Singapore.
Wagadu: a Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 2015
Intimate partner violence is defined as behaviors toward an intimate partner that result in physi... more Intimate partner violence is defined as behaviors toward an intimate partner that result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering. Such behaviors include but are not limited to physical abuse, psychological torment, forced sexual intercourse, sexual coercion, and other forms of controlling behaviors. Studies have demonstrated that the prevalence of women being abused by their intimate partners is often times intertwined with a wide array of factors such as age, education, socioeconomic status, marital conflicts, history of abuse in childhood, and alcohol and drug use (Aldarondo, 1996; Martin, 1999; McCauley, 1995; Roberts, 1998; Xu et al., 2005).Research has demonstrated that intimate partner violence has increasingly become one of the most paramount issues faced by all societies and regions (see Parish et al., 2004; Tellez, 2008; Lodhia, 2010; Alcalde, 2006; Yount et Li, 2009; Koepping, 2003). Worldwide about one in every four women has undergone, or is currently und...
Asian Studies Review
In this excellent and rich ethnography, Jun Zhang argues that China’s automotive regime arose wit... more In this excellent and rich ethnography, Jun Zhang argues that China’s automotive regime arose with the new middle class. In exploring the co-emergence of, and intricate connections between, the aut...
China Perspectives
Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, William F. Schroeder, with Hongwei Bao (eds), Queer/Tongzhi China: New ... more Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, William F. Schroeder, with Hongwei Bao (eds), Queer/Tongzhi China: New Perspectives on Research, Activism and Media Cultures, Copenhagen, Nias Press, 2015, 274+xiii pages.This edited volume collects works from activists, scholars, and artists from China and beyond to address the issue of social activism and community-building among the LGBTQ population in China. Employing diverse methodologies from disciplines such as anthropology, cultural and media studies, Chinese studies, literature, and sociology, this volume presents the voices and perspectives of LGBTQ artists, scholars, and activists who organise communities and disseminate ideas through myriad cultural venues such as documentary and online media platforms. In so doing, the volume demonstrates the polyvalent and sometimes interchangeable meanings and uses of terms such as tongzhi and queer, and the tensions between political activism and academic works.The volume addresses various political challenges arising in research, teaching, and other activist practices on sexual and gender minorities in China. Contributors to the volume discuss political censorship, self-censorship, heavy scrutiny, and government control over their publication, teaching, academic work, research projects, and activist practices through online media and films. The tensions between the pressure to conform to local cultural and political norms and the desire to establish social activism and build a community produce a plethora of creative strategies to develop new discourses and platforms locally and globally.The volume delves into the most prevalent strategy to engage in activism - popular media such as film, art, websites, and digital video. Contributors such as Fan Popo in Chapter 5 write about their experiences, goals, the essence of their work, the differences between their work and that of Western counterparts, and the reasons, cultural constraints, and government controls, and their reflexive accounts of the ways in which their media products advance LGBTQ politics. Chapter 2 examines the ways in which the bilingual website series Queer Comrades was created and politically censored, received local and global audiences and support, and successfully interconnected with global queer politics and culture. Chapter 3 analyses the significant role of digital films made by the famous filmmaker Cui Zi'en in helping build community and stage activism. An interview with Cui in Chapter 13 investigates the meanings of his career as a director, activist, community leader, and public intellectual.Along the same line of inquiry, Chapter 8 examines the online literature of "boy love" - the particular nature of this genre and the general disposition of its readers. In so doing, Yang and Xu interrogate "queer" boundaries and claim that a new type of grassroots feminism is arising from this online genre, and that it will reshape Chinese feminism and deepen the academic understanding of the category of gender. Chapter 9 discusses the presence of queer in the arena of Chinese popular music and situates it in the history of Chinese pop music. Wang argues that although government control has made queerness a kind of "superficial weirdness" in Chinese popular culture (p. 176), at least popular audiences are exposed to the presence of queer and experience a taste of queer. …
Made in China Journal
To this day, the Chinese Party-state perceives sex work as a violation of the human rights of wom... more To this day, the Chinese Party-state perceives sex work as a violation of the human rights of women. Therefore, the Chinese authorities believe that sex workers need to be rescued and reeducated, and regularly subject them to periodic crackdowns and long spells of detention in 'rehabilitation education centres'. In this essay, Tiantian Zheng highlights how policies of this kind have not only fuelled violence, exploitation, abuse, and health risks among Chinese sex workers, but have also had terrible consequences for public health in China.
Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences
It is identified as a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking, issues of hu... more It is identified as a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking, issues of human trafficking in China range from forced marriage to forced labor, forced sex work, sale and profitable adoption of babies and human smuggling. Internationally, the illegal, undocumented migrant status of North Korea defectors has made them easy targets for kidnap and abduction, forced sex work, forced marriage and forced labor in factories and agriculture. Although forced labor, forced marriages and forced sex work are significant human trafficking issues in China, the current Chinese laws and campaigns have failed to emphasize these issues. The government should replace the top-down crackdown strategy with a partnership with grassroots organizations and women's groups to help prevent forced labor and identify trafficked victims, while at the same time providing legal redress to the victims of forced labor, forced marriages, forced sex work and the sale of children for the abuse they have endured.
Twentieth-Century China, 2015
Wagadu: a Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 2014
Recent studies of the globalization of gay and lesbian identities denote a universalizing perspec... more Recent studies of the globalization of gay and lesbian identities denote a universalizing perspective on same-sex practices. This universalizing perspective has been theorized by Stephen Murray as a neo-evolutionary process toward a universal, egalitarian, Western gayness (Murray 1992). Murray maps out an evolutionary model of homosexuality from unequal relations based on age (Ancient Greece), gender roles (modern Mesoamerica), class (early capitalism), to equal relations (Murray 1992). In Murray's evolutionary model, an increasingly strong gay and lesbian culture, identity, and politics have been diffused little by little throughout the Western World. Eventually, this model of the Western world will be the future trend that other countries and cultures will follow.Dennis Altman (1996a, 1996b, 1997) also contends that the global trend is toward a transition from gender-based identities to the Western egalitarian sexual identities that are not rigidly tied to a particular gender ...
Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Asia, 2016
Transpacific Attachments, 2018
Ethnographies of Prostitution in Contemporary China, 2009
As indicated in the introductory chapter, cultural meanings of sexual behaviors are central and c... more As indicated in the introductory chapter, cultural meanings of sexual behaviors are central and crucial to understanding sexual transmission of HIV (see Micollier 2004b; Parker 2001).1 The previous chapters have explored a range of cultural factors, including culturally prescribed responsibilities for contraception, cultural understanding of HIV/AIDS, and perceptions of condoms, STDs, and HIV/AIDS. These cultural factors are crucial to an adequate comprehension of the social dimension of HIV/AIDS.
The China Quarterly, 2019
Perspectives chinoises, 2009
The purpose of this paper is to understand the current problems and issues in the use of contrace... more The purpose of this paper is to understand the current problems and issues in the use of contraceptives by exploring historical Chinese attitudes towards birth control and by examining a variety of traditional practices that, even today, compete with and often interfere with acceptable and safe methods of birth control. I will show that a constant feature of historic ideology regarding birth control was a disregard for the safety and wellbeing of Chinese women and female children in favor of male values, and that even today, these values and the practices associated with them continue to threaten the health and well-being of Chinese women and the viability of their female fetuses. A scrutiny of the implicit and explicit cultural logic underlying gender dynamics and birth control is crucial to understanding sexual inequality and contraceptive use in present-day China. What are the cultural rules and obligations concerning family planning and birth control? How have they been formed t...
This article discusses the adverse effect upon sex workers of China’s abolitionist policy that fo... more This article discusses the adverse effect upon sex workers of China’s abolitionist policy that focuses on forced prostitution and launches anti-trafficking campaigns. The argument developed in this paper is based on over twenty months of fieldwork between 1999 and 2002 in Dalian. I will discuss first the karaoke bar industry and China’s policy of anti-trafficking campaigns. I will then demonstrate the impact of this policy on hostesses in karaoke bars. I will follow it with an account of how, unlike the government’s perception of forced prostitution, hostesses voluntarily choose their profession and actively seek sex work in countries such as Japan and Singapore.
Wagadu: a Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies, 2015
Intimate partner violence is defined as behaviors toward an intimate partner that result in physi... more Intimate partner violence is defined as behaviors toward an intimate partner that result in physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering. Such behaviors include but are not limited to physical abuse, psychological torment, forced sexual intercourse, sexual coercion, and other forms of controlling behaviors. Studies have demonstrated that the prevalence of women being abused by their intimate partners is often times intertwined with a wide array of factors such as age, education, socioeconomic status, marital conflicts, history of abuse in childhood, and alcohol and drug use (Aldarondo, 1996; Martin, 1999; McCauley, 1995; Roberts, 1998; Xu et al., 2005).Research has demonstrated that intimate partner violence has increasingly become one of the most paramount issues faced by all societies and regions (see Parish et al., 2004; Tellez, 2008; Lodhia, 2010; Alcalde, 2006; Yount et Li, 2009; Koepping, 2003). Worldwide about one in every four women has undergone, or is currently und...
Asian Studies Review
In this excellent and rich ethnography, Jun Zhang argues that China’s automotive regime arose wit... more In this excellent and rich ethnography, Jun Zhang argues that China’s automotive regime arose with the new middle class. In exploring the co-emergence of, and intricate connections between, the aut...
China Perspectives
Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, William F. Schroeder, with Hongwei Bao (eds), Queer/Tongzhi China: New ... more Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, William F. Schroeder, with Hongwei Bao (eds), Queer/Tongzhi China: New Perspectives on Research, Activism and Media Cultures, Copenhagen, Nias Press, 2015, 274+xiii pages.This edited volume collects works from activists, scholars, and artists from China and beyond to address the issue of social activism and community-building among the LGBTQ population in China. Employing diverse methodologies from disciplines such as anthropology, cultural and media studies, Chinese studies, literature, and sociology, this volume presents the voices and perspectives of LGBTQ artists, scholars, and activists who organise communities and disseminate ideas through myriad cultural venues such as documentary and online media platforms. In so doing, the volume demonstrates the polyvalent and sometimes interchangeable meanings and uses of terms such as tongzhi and queer, and the tensions between political activism and academic works.The volume addresses various political challenges arising in research, teaching, and other activist practices on sexual and gender minorities in China. Contributors to the volume discuss political censorship, self-censorship, heavy scrutiny, and government control over their publication, teaching, academic work, research projects, and activist practices through online media and films. The tensions between the pressure to conform to local cultural and political norms and the desire to establish social activism and build a community produce a plethora of creative strategies to develop new discourses and platforms locally and globally.The volume delves into the most prevalent strategy to engage in activism - popular media such as film, art, websites, and digital video. Contributors such as Fan Popo in Chapter 5 write about their experiences, goals, the essence of their work, the differences between their work and that of Western counterparts, and the reasons, cultural constraints, and government controls, and their reflexive accounts of the ways in which their media products advance LGBTQ politics. Chapter 2 examines the ways in which the bilingual website series Queer Comrades was created and politically censored, received local and global audiences and support, and successfully interconnected with global queer politics and culture. Chapter 3 analyses the significant role of digital films made by the famous filmmaker Cui Zi'en in helping build community and stage activism. An interview with Cui in Chapter 13 investigates the meanings of his career as a director, activist, community leader, and public intellectual.Along the same line of inquiry, Chapter 8 examines the online literature of "boy love" - the particular nature of this genre and the general disposition of its readers. In so doing, Yang and Xu interrogate "queer" boundaries and claim that a new type of grassroots feminism is arising from this online genre, and that it will reshape Chinese feminism and deepen the academic understanding of the category of gender. Chapter 9 discusses the presence of queer in the arena of Chinese popular music and situates it in the history of Chinese pop music. Wang argues that although government control has made queerness a kind of "superficial weirdness" in Chinese popular culture (p. 176), at least popular audiences are exposed to the presence of queer and experience a taste of queer. …
Made in China Journal
To this day, the Chinese Party-state perceives sex work as a violation of the human rights of wom... more To this day, the Chinese Party-state perceives sex work as a violation of the human rights of women. Therefore, the Chinese authorities believe that sex workers need to be rescued and reeducated, and regularly subject them to periodic crackdowns and long spells of detention in 'rehabilitation education centres'. In this essay, Tiantian Zheng highlights how policies of this kind have not only fuelled violence, exploitation, abuse, and health risks among Chinese sex workers, but have also had terrible consequences for public health in China.
Journal of Historical Archaeology & Anthropological Sciences
It is identified as a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking, issues of hu... more It is identified as a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking, issues of human trafficking in China range from forced marriage to forced labor, forced sex work, sale and profitable adoption of babies and human smuggling. Internationally, the illegal, undocumented migrant status of North Korea defectors has made them easy targets for kidnap and abduction, forced sex work, forced marriage and forced labor in factories and agriculture. Although forced labor, forced marriages and forced sex work are significant human trafficking issues in China, the current Chinese laws and campaigns have failed to emphasize these issues. The government should replace the top-down crackdown strategy with a partnership with grassroots organizations and women's groups to help prevent forced labor and identify trafficked victims, while at the same time providing legal redress to the victims of forced labor, forced marriages, forced sex work and the sale of children for the abuse they have endured.
Twentieth-Century China, 2015