Tongzhi on the move: digital/social media and placemaking practices among young gay Chinese in Australia

Abstract

This article examines the placemaking experience of first-generation Chinese gay migrants (18–35 years old) in negotiating their cultural and sexual identities in Sydney and Melbourne. Tongzhi is used as a lingua-cultural reference to their double identity as Chinese and gay. Drawing from interviews and contact with 22 Chinese gay men who initially arrived in Australia on student visas, this article explores how tongzhi migrants use digital/social media to reconstitute their home abroad and to live out their transnational gay identity, politics and desire. Their placemaking practices take place in the intersections of the Internet and outernets, as well as the interzones of one’s gay desires for sexual fulfilment and cultural empowerment.