Occasional Belonging

This article tells the story of two major scenes of queer East and Southeast Asian nightlife in post-Trump New York City. The first of these is the gaysian scene, housed on the weekends at a Hell's Kitchen gay club. The second is the slaysian scene, exemplified by a recurring, Brooklyn-based party for queer-identified Asians cleverly titled, Bubble_T. Each is an outpost of queer Asian worldmaking, and by close reading the social expectations and aesthetic sensibilities of both scenes, this article uses ethnographic methods to reveal the disciplinary protocols that shape the city's queer Asian nightlife. The article, in its final section, also proposes a range of strategies through which the disciplinary protocols of each of these scenes might be repurposed to transform “queer Asian American” from a merely identitarian formation into a political one. What is it that draws someone to this world of queer Asian nightlife and not that one? And how can whatever that draw is be redeployed for political purposes? The article engages with the work of Lauren Berlant, Erving Goffman, and a range of thinkers in queer Asian American studies in order to advance answers to these questions

Geography · Cultural History and Identity Formation · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies