Expanding Political Space in Contemporary China: Queer Groups’ Involvement in the Campaign against Domestic Violence

• In Event: Queer Sinophone Studies: New Directions

Abstract

The absence of contentious performance has led scholars to question the existence of social movements and to describe state-social group relations in China as a form of state corporatism. However, defining social movement by confrontational performance is inappropriate for examining social organizing under repressive regimes. Most western social movement theories assume that the political space for organizing exists before the formation of social movement. My research challenges this assumption by extending the concept of political opportunity structure to the process-tracing comparisons of lesbian groups’ pluralistic strategies when facing interferences from the central authorities. Furthermore, this paper will focus on the involvement of queer groups in the campaign against domestic violence.

In March 2003, the “Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention Law” was submitted through 30 national people’s representatives to the National People’s Congress. This marked a unique moment in the history of China’s legislation because this was the first national legal proposition prepared by nongovernmental organizations and thus reflected a new relationship between the state and social groups. However, around the same time, women’s and queer groups involved in this campaign experienced various kinds of harassment from the state.

Why has the campaign against domestic violence been successful in introducing this issue to political discourse in China, while, at the same time, the several women’s and queer organizations involved in it have faced severe intervention from the government? What are some of the strategies of queer organizations that have enabled them to survive and develop their transformative potentials? What keeps these queer organizations going? What are the responses of local governments to the campaign against domestic violence?

This paper seeks to answer these questions and situate them within a larger analysis of whether different strategies of queer groups in their interaction with the state have successfully expanded their political space in public policy area.

Author

• Weiting Wu, Academia Sinica