The Anthropology of Queer Similitude in Contemporary Urban China

As queer and sexuality studies move beyond their US and northwest-European origins, scholars working outside these areas struggle to determine the best way to give voice to their communities of study. In doing so, western theorists and researchers have tended to celebrate difference and foreground radicalism, which may not always allow them to tell the whole story, especially of queer communities in places like the People’s Republic of China. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Beijing, this paper follows paths laid out in anthropological scholarship on queer life to argue that a finely tuned attention to similitude can lead to productive theories of contemporary global queer movements. Local claims of universalism, rather than particularism, sometimes do the work of consciousness-raising and community-building that encourage queer Chinese people toward self-determination. These claims do not portend homogenization but place Chinese queer subjects within the affective sphere of global queer movements.