Orientalism that Patrick consulted with in his research is really interesting to me. This bias toward Western knowledge in academia may often hide in plain sight. As he had noted that even his framing of the question, “Why Korean gay men do not come out?” is problematic and very ‘orientalist’. The structuring of the research question is built on Western precepts of cultural norms, societal expectation of the behaviours of a ‘free’ gay man which is also constructed accord to western values of individualistic definition of ‘freedom and liberation’ which are to be believed as ‘precisely defined’ ‘unchallenged’ ‘universal’ values. This is reminiscent of the logic laid in the notion of ‘noble savages’ by Rousseau and the link made between ‘primitivism’ and ‘utopianism’ in the colonial era where the power of ‘othering’ and ‘defining’ are both at play.
Such bias appears in LGBT studies because most of the academic work on LGBT have been done by and on western population who are predominantly white, but this bias is not limited to the research of LGBT studies or politics. When we frame or propose any research question, a reflexive stance should always be taken in thinking what assumptions or value systems that our questions are based on and whether it undermines the complexity of the real issue in question, in Patrick’s case, it is the intermesh of the participants’ close bonds to Korean community, to church and to family and the ability to articulate to express gay identity which could coexist in the right cultural and social context.
