Out of thousands and thousands of thoughts: Wandering the streets of the Hong Kong umbrella movement

Abstract

This essay discusses methods of pedagogy and educational philosophy stirred up by the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement/Occupy-Hong Kong Movement at the end of 2014. It situates these events as a way to envision a new type of public university. To this end, the essay proposes a model of ‘wandering scholarship,’ in which educators and activists walk through urban environments and use dialogic esthetics to reclaim them as ‘Commons.’ Wandering means a multisensory exploration and learning based on the historical concept of ‘psychogeography,’ a drifting through sites and interpellation of their embedded ideologies. As opposed to traditions of introspective wandering, this kind of ‘dialogic wandering’ is done within groups and encourages people to talk to fellow-walkers or random bystanders. As will be shown, these modes of wandering while addressing publics were pioneered in the 1960s student movements and also adopted in a unique manner by the young activists of the Umbrella Movement. Dialogic wandering leads to affective languages and embodied learning as opposed to modes of analytical reasoning and logic within higher education. To further study the impact of this aspect of social movements within a university curriculum, it will be shown by means of example how students can meaningfully adopt dialogic wandering to survey people’s affect and ideological positioning within environments.

Keywords:

• Umbrella movement
• walking
• dialogic esthetics

Notes

1. For an example see drone footage posted by the International Business Times on 29 September 2014. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/flying-drones-capture-dramatic-scale-hong-kong-occupy-central-protests-video-1467653 (accessed 4 February 2017).

2. In the year prior to the Umbrella Movement, I had collaborated with a group of artists and scholars and obtained a grant from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to hold a symposium entitled Wandering Scholars. The premise of this symposium was precisely to explore modes of embodied and affective learning by means of diversified onsite lectures, artist talks and performances, group debates and guided walks. These events were guided by the central premise that people would engage in a different manner if moving their bodies and soaking up the tactile energies of surrounding environments.

3. Frederic Gros’ A Philosophy of Walking describes the lives and methods of a wide range of wandering scholars in the European post-enlightenment period. (Verso Books, 2014). Rebecca Solnit’s Wanderlust: A History of Walking is a more popularized scholarly text about wandering scholars, which also has a feminist angle and posits that the gender politics of wandering histories need to be further challenged (Penguin Books, 2000).

4. The site is available at https://www.reddit.com/live/tnc30xhiiqom (accessed 10 June, 2015).

5. For instance, in Fall 2012 they had walked out of classrooms and organized a massive gathering against a ‘national education’ curriculum that had been imposed from the top down and they had also initiated a rally to support students demonstrating at the Hong Kong Government headquarters (Tamar Park) in September 2014, the site of the eventual Occupy Hong Kong/Umbrella Movement occupations.