Rethinking the Gay Chinese Migrant through the Prism of Migration Aspirations

Abstract On the basis of data gathered by two independent ethnographic studies of gay Chinese migrants in France and Belgium, this paper aims to identify the role of intersecting and parallel aspirations which shape their migration trajectories toward Western countries. These aspirations include motivations to respond to or appropriate traditional family configurations, imaginaries that characterize the countries of destination, the desire to fulfill same-sex sexual and relationship goals, as well as class, educational, national, and ethnic affiliations. Using concepts of intersectionality and super-diversity, this paper further argues that the simultaneous and overlapping nature of these motivations deserves to be discussed as a subset of current Chinese diasporas.