Mobilities of Chinese privilege and performance of the "oppressed other": Imagining a culture-centered politics of radical queerness
I will begin this blog post with a story crystallized from the ongoing fieldwork of the CARE team with racism in Singapore. The account offered here is derived from observations and narrative accounts shared by participants. Fatimah, Malay, 53-year-old, has struggled all her life with making a living. Her parents worked as cleaners in malls, precursors to the shiny ever-expanding structures of luxury that accentuate Singapore's skyline. The money that they made through the cleaning work supported the large family of grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Then when Fatimah's father died from a severe heart attack, it fell upon her mother to support the family. As the elder child in the household, Fatimah started working as well, picking up cleaning jobs that her father worked in. She has had a wide range of cleaning jobs over the years, mostly temporary and without benefits. In these cleaning jobs, she often felt a deep sense of shame, seen as the other. She never belonged t