About this Blog

In a rather dumbfounding event of (perhaps unjust) fortune, this last spring I became the recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to engage in a study of the factors shaping sexual identity across the globe. The premise of my project is as follows:

Massive rural-urban migration in recent years has borne a wealth of new urban landscapes where local values meet a global way of life. As it becomes easier for same-sex persons to meet for sex and relationships, new queer communities are forming, influenced by their cultural background, individual histories, and an increasingly global gay community. In my Watson year I will investigate what it means to be a gay man in six major cities, what local and global factors have shaped this identity, and how these individuals have integrated it into their life stories. Through my research I hope to shed light on who these communities are, how they’re faring, and where they’d like to go. In a way, each of our individual histories only take on meaning through the lens of our greater story. By stimulating a dialogue between their experience and that of the west I hope to draw a more universal gay narrative, one that is inherently also my own.

Over the course of the next year, I’ll be traveling to South Korea, Vietnam, India, Turkey, South Africa, and Brazil to provide a face and a name to a few of these people and communities - to allow them to define themselves on their own terms, not merely as extensions of western stereotypes or human rights victims.

While I won't be publishing my research here, I created this blog to bring the topic of a gay and queer identities under scrutiny in the public eye, as well as to share my experiences, impressions and thoughts as I have them - because really, in addition to offering fascinating parcels of anthropological insight, life in and out of the gayborhood for a twenty-something foreigner is often funny, embarrassing, emotional, and entertaining.