Participatory research in the linguistic landscape of the Gay Games

This talk will report on how participatory fieldwork methods, in this case a research/pedagogical collaboration between undergraduate students and their instructor, allowed for a diverse and wide-ranging exploration of the linguistic landscape (LL) of the 2023 Gay Games Hong Kong. This is a large-scale international sporting and cultural LGBTQIA+ event, which took place in Asia (Hong Kong) for the first time in its forty-year history. With the understanding that the event, as it travels across cultural and sociopolitical borders, will be shaped by diverse semiotic actions in its LL, the present study aimed to investigate those actions from the perspectives of the research team, who interacted with the LL by participating as on-site volunteers during the event. Trained in LL fieldwork methods, the student team were asked to gather data via filming/photographic methods, by engaging with other participants, and by providing reflective accounts of their volunteer/research experiences. As such, these collaborative methods, by crossing the borders between LL research and pedagogy, were aimed at capturing and reflecting on the emergence of particular discursive, symbolic, and spatial formations via interactions with the LL of the Games. These formations are therefore examined, on the one hand, with respect to how Hong Kong as Asia’s self-styled world city is (re)territorialized as a space of LGBTQIA+ visibility and inclusivity. On the other hand, they are also examined through the experiential lens of this group of Hong Kong citizens (the students), whose learning is integral to an understanding of the event’s potential reach and impacts.