Re-imagined communities in Macau in cyberspace: resist, reclaim and restructure

Abstract

Based on the data collected during four years of participant observation of 37 Macau Facebook communities and 12 in-depth interviews, this article examines the “re-imagined communities” in the local context of Macau and the global context of cyberspace. It mainly addresses the research question of how Internet users in Macau resist legitimizing their identity, reclaim their resistance identity, and restructure their project identity, thereby constructing re-imagined communities in cyberspace. This inquiry proposes a possible identity-focused approach to future community studies, especially those that examine re-imagined communities in flux, in cyberspace, and beyond nationalism. This approach particularly implicates the re-imagined communities of the subaltern, the identity politics of the governed, and, most importantly, the agency of the actors.

Keywords:

• communities
• identity
• Macau
• cyberspace
• nationalism

Notes

1. The 123 incident (一二三事件) refers to a riot in Macau on 3 December 1966. It was inspired by the Cultural Revolution in the People’s Republic of China. The incident is often referred to as “123,” with reference to the date of the riot.

2. Wen Yiduo (1899–1946) was a professor, critic, and more importantly, a leading poet in the formative period of modern Chinese poetry.

3. LGBT is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.