Between Past Residues and Present Positionalities: Relational Strategies of Chinese Queer Migrants

This thesis examines how Chinese queer migrants in the United States navigate disclosure and sociality through emotionally calibrated relational strategies. Drawing on 15 in-depth life story interviews, I identify two interwoven mechanisms shaping these strategies: migrant positionality and affective residues from pre-migration experiences. Migrants selectively disclose their sexual identities, more readily to non-Chinese peers and more cautiously with Chinese ones based on anticipated emotional risks and rewards. Simultaneously, many cultivate co-ethnic queer networks composed of queer and queer-friendly Chinese peers, which provide culturally resonant and emotionally safe spaces. I introduce the concept of affective residues to understand how past emotional scripts, ranging from teasing and surveillance to safety and recognition, continue to structure migrants’ present interpretations of risk and trust. Rather than viewing queer migration as a linear path toward visibility or liberation, I argue for a relational and affective framework that foregrounds everyday intimacy, emotional safety, and selective relationality. This study extends queer migration scholarship by highlighting how sedimented emotional histories and present migrant positionalities co-produce situated queer social worlds.