Dandelions in the mirror: identity construction and family dynamics in a case study of Chinese lesbians

This case study investigates how Chinese lesbians negotiate identity within the family context, foregrounding visual practices as crucial sites of negotiation often overlooked in textual or verbal studies. Utilizing participant-driven Photo Elicitation Interviews (PEI) with eight women across different provinces, and working through the Visual Narrative of Identity (VNI) framework that reinterprets Butler’s performativity and Lacan’s mirror stage through Chinese kinship and cultural obligations, the study analyzes photographs alongside in-depth interviews. The findings reveal the dual role of families as both transmitters of heteronormative norms and sources of emotional support, producing tensions between conformity and selfhood. Economic independence emerges as critical for identity autonomy, while visual narratives expose how participants recite, resist, and reconfigure family scripts. By situating these insights in dialogue with Chinese and transnational queer scholarship, the article contributes to feminist and visual studies by demonstrating how image-based methods illuminate identity negotiations that remain obscured in discursive accounts.