Unmasking nativism in Asia’s world city: graffiti and identity boundary un/making in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This work examines the discursive bases to Hong Konger identities by using a repertoire of anti-mainland and pro-democracy graffiti that impose alternative, counter-geographies onto space. Given the spatial specificities of pro-Hong Kong graffiti, the communication of nativist messages is potent in demarcating the boundaries of Hong Kong nativism and mainland ‘Otherness’ by virtue of how mainland China and its peoples are cognitively experienced and perceived by geographical imaginations of place. As a spatial practice, graffiti writing, it is argued, contests hegemonic representations of space and disrupts representational space through the imposition of ‘counterspaces’ that subsume a set of power relations which reinforce the boundaries of Hong Kong nativism using geographical imaginations of mainland China blended with truths.

KEYWORDS:

• Mainland China
• Hong Kong
• graffiti
• nativism
• immigration
• Lefebvre

Acknowledgements

The corresponding author thanks members of the Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam for their helpful feedback when he presented an earlier version of this manuscript at a research seminar in December 2018. The authors express gratitude to the editor-in-chief and anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Public Opinion Programme, University of Hong Kong. Source: https://www.hkupop.hku.hk/english/popexpress/ethnic/.

2. Press releases, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Source: http://www.hkiaps.cuhk.edu.hk/wd/ni/20190826-090147_1.pdf.

3. Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John Lowe

John Lowe completed his PhD at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is Senior Research Associate in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at City University of Hong Kong. He has published about Hong Kong and East Asian identities in Patterns of Prejudice, Critical Asian Studies, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, The Journal of Gender Studies and Bijdragen tot de Taal, - Land - en Volkenkunde. Email: [email protected] /[email protected]

Stephan Ortmann

Dr Stephan Ortmann completed his PhD in the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies in City University of Hong Kong. He has published widely on Hong Kong identity as well as China’s interest in the Singaporean model of governance in leading journals such as The Journal of Democracy, Administration & Society, The China Quarterly, The Pacific Review and Asian Survey. Email: [email protected]