Transnational togetherness through Rela: Chinese queer women’s practices for maintaining ties with the homeland

Abstract

In the context of global migration, diaspora’s use of digital media to maintain transnational connections has become a focus of intense research. By deploying the walkthrough method and semi-structured in-depth interviews, this study explores the transnational practices of Chinese queer women living in Australia for maintaining digital connections with queer women communities in China through Rela, a Chinese lesbian social app. Rela live streaming is innovatively used by Chinese queer women in Australia to maintain diverse transnational relationships, including friendships with streamers and viewers, and romantic relationships with their partners. Rela groups have also become vital spaces through which diasporic Chinese queer women connect with the Rela queer women community. Nevertheless, although the use of Rela diversifies Chinese queer women’s diasporic life and helps them gain a sense of belonging, it reduces their participation in local queer activities and limits their interactions with queer women communities in Australia.

From “Oh, you’re Chinese . . . ” to “No bats, thx!”: Racialized Experiences of Australian-Based Chinese Queer Women in the Mobile Dating Context

“…Research on digital dating among Australian-based Chinese diasporas confirms the existence of race-related prejudice in this context (Chen & Liu, 2021; H. Li, 2020; Yu & Blain, 2019).…”

Decadence and relational freedom among China's gay migrants: Subverting heteronormativity by ‘lying flat’

“…81 China's reconnection to the global capitalist economy gave rise to urban queer communities through envisioning and obtaining cosmopolitan living conditions 82 and transnational togetherness. 83 It is also important to note that such cosmopolitanism is deeply embedded in the unequal global division of labour. It is the unequal relations of production that have non-purposefully enabled rural migrant lesbians to keep a physical distance from their patriarchal family relations 84 and which have produced the sector of professional male-to-male sex work.…”

WeChat as the coordinator of polymedia: Chinese women maintaining intercultural romantic relationships

“…Such research frequently features keywords such as 'platform' 'features' and 'production', which have been integral to understanding the development of digital dating platforms. Second, sociological research on digital dating tends to attend to how digital dating platforms have desensitised the urban middle-class to strangers (Xu and Wu, 2019), marginalised the rural, the poor and the blue-collars (Liu et al, 2021), and reinforced gender and racial prejudices (Chen and Liu, 2019;Li, 2020). Last but not least, some studies have focused on the ways in which dating platforms converge with other kinds of digital platforms and genres, such as online games (Liu, 2019) and livestreaming (Wang, 2019a(Wang, , 2019b, to create a multipurpose platform economy.…”