In partnership with Spectrum, the LSE staff LGBT+ network
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Thursday 20 November 2014
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Speakers: Dr Lynette J. Chua, Professor Nicholas Bamforth
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Chair: Dr Mara Malagodi
For decades, Singapore's gay activists have sought equality and justice in a state where law is used to stifle basic civil and political liberties. In Mobilizing Gay Singapore, Lynette Chua asks, what does a social movement look like in an authoritarian state? She takes an expansive view of the gay movement to examine its emergence, development, strategies, and tactics, as well as the roles of law and rights in social processes.
Chua tells this important story using in-depth interviews with gay activists, observations of the movement's activities, including "Pink Dot" events, where thousands of Singaporeans gather in annual celebrations of gay pride, movement documents, government statements, and media reports. She shows how activists deploy "pragmatic resistance" to gain visibility and support, tackle political norms that suppress dissent, and deal with police harassment, while avoiding direct confrontations with the law.
Dr Lynette Chua is Assistant Professor in Law at the National University of Singapore. She is a law and society scholar with research interests in law and social change, and law and social movements. Her book published by Temple University Press, Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State, analyzes the emergence, development, and strategies and tactics of Singapore's gay and lesbian movement, and explores the complex role of law and meanings of rights. Her 2012 Law & Society Review article, "Pragmatic Resistance, Law, and Social Movements in Authoritarian States: The Case of Gay Collective Action in Singapore," based on the same project, was awarded the Law & Society Association Honorable Mention for Article Prize in 2013.
Besides her ethnographic study of Singapore's gay and lesbian movement, Lynette is conducting fieldwork on and writing about the emergence of LGBT rights mobilization in Myanmar at a time of political transition. She has also initiated a broader collaborative project to examine the development of LGBT rights activism across various Asian countries.
Professor Nicholas Bamforth is a Fellow in Law at The Queen's College, Oxford.
Dr Mara Malagodi (chair) is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in the Law Department at LSE. Her project investigates patterns of exclusion of Nepal’s ethnolinguistic, religious and regional groups, dalits, women and LGBTs in the constitutional arena following the re-democratisation of 1990 by mapping Supreme Court’s decisions interpreting the Right to Equality.