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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Cultural Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1510499
"Wandering as Returning "：Rethinking Family Dynamics of Chinese Gay Men under Neo-Familism through Transnational Mobility
Provisionally accepted- 1 Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
- 2 School of Sociology and Anthropology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Abstract：While extensive research has explored the causes of transnational mobility among Chinese gay men, there has been insufficient focus on the post-mobility challenges on how Chinese gay men reconcile with their family of origin. This study, grounded in Yan's neo-familism framework, utilizes in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese gay men who have lived in the West for at least one year. It examines how transnational mobility enables these men to navigate their sexual identities in relation to their non-mobile parents. The findings indicate that transnational mobility alleviates family conflicts and facilitates the integration of gay identities into family structures through distinct reconciliation pathways fostering harmony and mutual understanding. This study significantly contributes to the field of sexual minorities in non-Western cultural contexts, particularly by illuminating the sophisticated family dynamics and reconciliation strategies that emerge in response to transnational mobility.
Keywords: Chinese gay men, Transnational mobility, Family dynamics, neo-familism, Reconciliation
Received: 13 Oct 2024; Accepted: 05 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Haohua Wang, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
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