This research seminar is intended for students with interests in transregional study of multiple genders and sexualities in Southeast Asia. It explores how vernacular forms of sexual and gender pluralism shape personhoods and lived-experiences that are differentially subjected to hegemonic orders of oppression within, across, and beyond the region. It maps out how the dynamics of gender and sexuality shape and are shaped by colonial and postcolonial entanglements.
In this seminar, we will also discuss how gender and sexuality in Southeast Asia has been ethically and epistemologically engaged through academic practice; the ways they are problematized through sameness and difference in public discourse; how they are faced by moral policing and political contestations; and the processes in which they become sources of individual and collective agency.
The course topics offered include: (1) perspectives of Gender and Sexuality studies in Southeast Asia; (2) research methods (3) plural bodily experiences and subjectivities; (4) marginality and violence; (5) spaces for activism and (6) negotiating belonging.