The Centre for Feminist Research (CFR) presents “The Hidden Palace: Everyday Practices and Performances of Affinitive Labour in Queer Japanese Migrant Lives”, a talk by Dai Kojima, on March 15 from 3 to 5pm at 626 Kaneff Tower.
Dai Kojima
In this talk, Kojima will discuss formations of queer kinship through his ethnographic engagements with “Ooku Vancouver,” a self-organized collective of gay Japanese men located in Vancouver, B.C.
Carefully attending to informants’ identifications with the popularized drama of women who were both emplaced and displaced (Ooku was the secluded living quarters for the wives and concubines of the Shogun in medieval Japan), this presentation traces the economic, affective and pedagogical dimensions of queer immigrant kinship that Ooku Vancouver (OV) enables.
Based on two case studies, OV as an im/migrant entrepreneurial node and OV’s regular, private karaoke events, this talk considers these hidden practices of care and kinship as affinitive labours which structure and mediate intergenerational feelings of loss and collective survival.
Kojima argues for a queering of representations and archives of Japanese im/migration experience beyond stereotypes of stoicism, servitude and silence, and towards a reconceptualization of kinship relations and political possibilities in the Japanese diaspora in Canada.
Kojima is the 2015-16 Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar at CFR. He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia specializing in migration and diaspora studies, queer studies and media studies. His ethnographic doctoral research examined the cultural politics of mobility in queer Asian diasporas. His current research explores the gendered and queer dimensions of labour practices among Japanese im/migrants and queer entrepreneurs in Vancouver and Toronto. His most recent works appear in Anthropologica and Reconstruction.
He will be introduced by David Murray, professor of anthropology in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS).
Light refreshments served. Please RSVP to juliapyr@yorku.ca.
The event is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR), and Sexuality Studies, York University.
Please note this event counts towards seminar requirements for GFWS students.