| Since 1978 when the "open door" policy was announced, China has gone through significant economic restructuring under global capitalism, shifting China to an information economy and to related social and cultural changes. This research explores a theoretically significant but under-explored phenomenon in China's transition to a global information economy and its impact on society. This research focuses on the phenomenon of lala, a Chinese subculture based on same-sex desire, that has constituted itself through the use of Internet use. The phenomenon of lala, because of its formation of identity and resistance based on the use of Internet, is a case for the study of civil society under influence of the promotion of the information economy on one hand and mechanism of state control on the other. On the one hand, the Internet, as a new medium, challenges the institutional control traditionally exercised by the state, and at the same time creates a new public sphere in which people can express ideas and reach consensus. On the other hand, the state not only promotes the new information technology to profit from the "information economy," but at the same time develops new kinds of surveillance technology and political techniques to ensure that this emerging space of civil society remains under its control in the name of nation-building. While exploring the formation of the lala community, we will also explore the complex interrelationships among sexuality, civil society, technology, global capitalism, and nation building.; I want to argue that the same-sex desire of this subculture, because of its constitution through internet use, is distinct from what has been described as "lesbianism" or "gayness" but is closer to "queerness". Therefore, to understand lala requires rethinking bodies, sexuality and technology along the lines of their reconfiguration in what is referred to as a tendency of a shift from discipline society to a control society along with discipline society. |
