Postcolonial cultural governance: a study of heritage management in post-1997 Hong Kong

This paper seeks to unpack the politics of heritage preservation in post-1997 Hong Kong. Referring to international frameworks on heritage preservation, it seeks to position Hong Kong’s cultural resource management on par with international discourses for the advancement of heritage governance. Debates surrounding heritage are indeed a part of the wider picture of Hong Kong’s cultural and identity politics and the Hong Kong-China relationship. By examining various contested cases of heritage conservation, and by linking those debates back to the government’s responses within the context of cultural governance, we suggest that heritage management has become a hot stove for cultural politics in post-colonial Hong Kong with deep repercussions in the political, social and economic spheres. The paper examines the rising social debates concerning the removal and conservation of built heritage, and the various government attempts to address these debates. It argues that the current heritage governance mechanism has failed to meet social needs and provide an articulated heritage policy. We propose that a coherent organisational structure is required to better accommodate diverse and contradictory views and discourses surrounding heritage and cultural governance and to tackle the various cultural challenges in postcolonial Hong Kong.     

1967年香港反英抗暴斗争后中国对港贸易的恢复

1967年香港的反英抗暴斗争,是中英关系史和香港发展史上一次有重大影响的事件。因此次事件,中国内地暂停经香港的转口业务,港英当局对内地采取贸易歧视政策,美国、日本和中国台湾等乘机加紧对港澳市场的争夺。到1968年,中国商品占香港进口市场份额退居第二位,位列日本之后。在此背景下,中国政府采取强有力措施,迅速恢复和扩大对港澳地区的出口供应。透过历史的考察与分析,可以看出中央政府确保对港澳市场的稳定供应具有战略意义,体现出中央保持港澳地区长期繁荣稳定的方针是一贯的。在反英抗暴斗争中,中央政府坚持有理、有利、有节的斗争方针,在外贸总量同期大幅度下降的情况下,中英贸易没有受到太大的影响。     

Migrating identities: gender,whiteness and Britishness in post-colonial Hong Kong

This paper explores the ways in which notions of nationality, whiteness and gender are drawn upon by British expatriate women in the construction and performance of their identities in post-colonial Hong Kong. A British colony since the mid-nineteenth century, Hong Kong was returned to China in the 1997 handover to become a ‘Special Administrative Region’. Now, as the administrative workings of empire are receding, so too are the expectations about race and nationality which went with them. For the white British, the opportunities to reconfigure discourses and subjectivities of whiteness are there, although the findings of this research reveals the unevenness of take-up. The paper draws on a broad feminist post-structuralist approach to reveal the ways in which four different British women migrants position themselves in the changing landscape. The approach shows important patterns of difference and diversity between the women in the performances of gendered Britishness and whiteness, and in the extent to which these are used to redefine or challenge the memory of relations established through imperialism.     

‘Hong Kong is my Home’: The 1940 Evacuation and Hong Kong-Britons

Who were the Hong Kong British, and where did they live? This question sat at the heart of anguished and angry debates prompted by the colonial government’s edict in June 1940 ordering the evacuation to Australia of all women and children of ‘pure European descent’. In this article, I focus on thematic strands in the debate on Hong Kong British identity, such as race, class, legal domicile, reputation and migration, to explore the complex character of such British communities outside the Dominions. This article aims to characterise what it meant to be British in the wider empire, and deepen our understanding about the place of such communities in the picture of colonial migration.     

The Last Stand of Colonialism? The Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils and the Sino-British Negotiations Over Hong Kong, 1982–1984

ABSTRACT

As influential leaders in Hong Kong, the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Council (UMELCO) were arguably the only group of Hong Kong people permitted to take part in the Sino-British negotiations that defined the future of Hong Kong. But almost no studies have explored the broader significance of their participation in the negotiations. Using recently declassified British documents, this article argues that, in the wider history of decolonisation, UMELCO’s petition for British administration belonged to the less noticed voices that called for alternatives to independence. UMELCO’s participation also reveals how the negotiations challenged Hong Kong’s autonomy. Although governors at times advocated Hong Kong’s interests vis-a-vis London, the governor’s autonomy during the negotiations was restricted, so the appeal of UMELCO was further weakened. Although UMELCO wanted to preserve the existing system, their actions inadvertently boosted the rise of ‘Hong Kong people’ as an idea and encouraged local people to demand more democracy. The structure of ExCo, LegCo and the government was mostly inherited by post-1997 Hong Kong, while some of UMELCO shifted to the Chinese side, suggesting the irony that a supposedly anti-colonial China lived with a state that came largely from colonial rule.     

Disciplining the Past, Policing the Present: The Postcolonial Landscape of Ecuadorian Nostalgia

The present article assesses the complex reconfiguration that studying the past signifies when one becomes visibly aware of the enormous political and cultural implications that such an endeavor entails. To this end, I will use the Ecuadorian landscape as an entry point or particular case to understand these larger theoretical problematics within a more empirically grounded ethnographic framework. I will rely heavily on my own previous assessments of particular reconfigurations of the past in the Ecuadorian imaginary through the production of the archaeological site of Cochasquí (Benavides, Making Ecuadorian Histories: Four Centuries of Defining Power, 2004a); the Indian movement’s historical recovery of their pre-Hispanic past; the representation of a troubling pre-Hispanic homosexual harem of young coastal boys known as the enchaquirados; and the more recent representation of Guayaquil’s national identity over the last century. All of these studies have viewed the manner in which the differing communities of the Ecuadorian nation-state utilize the past in conscious and unconscious forms to legitimize their own political ambitions. More concretely even, these studies exemplify the manner in which archaeological discourse is used to identify itself as the most rightful heir to assessing and understanding the national past, and ultimately, defining what being Ecuadorian means or should be all about.     

Postcolonial theory and globalized empathy: from development to difference

ABSTRACT

Postcolonial theory, with its focus on epistemological difference, material subversion, and cultural hybridity, is said to be at odds with the emotional and cognitive takeover implied in empathy. My paper will, to the contrary, suggest that the critique of political developmentalism and the turn towards a preference for cultural difference that inaugurated postcolonial studies as we know it may have actually helped to forge a relation between the perspectives of postcolonial theory and empathy. This relation is based on the ultimately individual focus that both imply through their rejection of abstract rational politics, which politically limits them to humanitarianism. My reading of Indra Sinha's Animal's People will show how this novel performs the heavy impact of this entanglement between postcolonial otherness, empathy, and humanitarianism by arguing that the novel ironically restructures its plot and political imaginary to suit the needs of humanitarian empathy that governs the global market for postcolonial literatures.     

Compensation modes of border effects in cross‐border regions

Both international and regional economics discuss borders as barriers to economic growth. They hamper trade flows between areas sharing an international border (a demand effect), as well as causing firms’ inefficiency because of the increase in production costs (supply side). In the theoretical and empirical discussions, no question has been raised on whether regional economies are able to set up compensation mechanisms, by replacing low endowments with high efficiency in the use of existing assets, or by compensating an inefficient use of internal assets with an efficient use of external ones. The reply to this question has normative implications. Empirical evidence on the universe of 1,398 European NUTS3 regions is presented and policy suggestions elaborated.     

从《部门报告》看战前港英政府的社会福利事业

1909至1939年港英政府的《部门报告》是一份久为人所忽视的档案。该报告显示香港政府在社会福利事业上曾用力不少。与西方相比,其策划规模与客观成就并不落后。     

Heritage,Identity and Tourism in Hong Kong

Once a part of the Chinese Empire, Hong Kong then became a British colony and changed its status again in 1997 to that of a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China. The implications of this history for heritage and cultural identity are discussed with particular reference to their representation and promotion as tourist attractions. Hong Kong is seen to be using its unique heritage in a time of transition and uncertainty to assist in defining a distinct identity that is partly expressed through tourism. There are, however, certain potential conflicts of meaning and interpretation amongst the interested parties that have still to be resolved. The experience of Hong Kong provides an insight into the dynamics of the relationship between identity, heritage and tourism that are especially complex within the context of decolonisation.     

The Mainland Chinese market for nature tourism in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Nature tourism has been emerged as an ecologically sensitive form of tourism in developed and developing countries. A large influx of tourists would have both benefits and adverse impacts on these destinations. With an increasing influence of Chinese market in many destinations and tourism activities worldwide, it is important to understand the perceptions and preferences of Chinese tourists toward natural attributes so that proper approaches to destination planning and marketing can be derived to better attract these segments of tourists and sustainably manage tourism resources. The results of an empirical study of a sample of Mainland citizens (n = 430) to Hong Kong's nature areas show that (1) they exert a high degree of interest in participating in nature tourism; (2) female and older people are more interested in visiting natural environment; (3) these potential nature tourists from China prefer going to places in association with sea views, and engaging in photo-taking, non-commercial activities and less artificial elements; and (4) the nature tourism attributes form two factors related to aspects of educational needs and relaxation (an experiential factor), and nature-oriented but also convenient (a functional factor). These considerations can lead to the development of ecotourism products that are better suited to meeting the interests of mainland Chinese tourists, while also enriching the host experience.     

Putting the border in place: customs regulation in the making of the Irish border, 1921–1945

This paper explores the historical geography of the making of the Irish border through a focus on the practices of customs regulation through which it was constituted and on the impeded, permitted and concealed mobilities of people and objects across the customs boundary after 1923. It traces how legislative change at the level of the state – in this case the governments of the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom – was translated into the routine practices of those trying to regulate the movement of people and objects across the customs boundary, and considers the responses of those subject to, and regularly subverting, these efforts. Drawing on recent interests in the prosaic practices of the state, and in materiality and mobility more widely, our focus is both on the work of political power at the border through the practices, texts, tools and techniques of customs regulation, and on the experience and effects of customs control for those living near the newly defined line between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State.     

Naval Heritage and Postcolonial Geography: Why It Should Matter to Australia

Naval heritage is of global significance, enhanced by its association with waterfront revitalisation, its established literary/institutional framework and its postcolonial connotations. This paper reviews its background and its significance for the worldwide chain of (ex‐)naval bases which formerly bound the British Empire, with particular reference to its use for heritage tourism in Bermuda, Malta and Gibraltar and possible wider potential for this. Australian naval heritage is considered in this context and in its subsequent postcolonial evolution; Australian geographers are prompted to give their more informed consideration to its significance, not least for national identity.     

Border crossings: new approaches to the Irish border

This paper explores and extends recent work on the Irish border that has sought to redress the relative lack of attention to the social, economic and cultural dimensions of the border in contrast to its intense political symbolism. In particular it addresses the theme of border crossing as a way to consider the border in terms of its everyday dimensions and in terms of questions of conventional and reconfigured categories of identity shaped by borderland life. The first section of the paper outlines recent approaches to the Irish border and their relationships to the field of border studies. The second section uses new research material to explore the ways in which the border was experienced on the ground in the lives of those most directly subject to its changing nature over the course of the twentieth century. The final part of the paper addresses recent suggestions that those experiences may form the basis of new cross-border and cross-community ‘border identities’. The term ‘border crossing’ in the paper's title thus stands both for the issue of physically crossing the border whose difficulties and effects have been central to the lives of those who have lived near the border, and for recent arguments that shared experiences of the impact of the border may be the basis for new senses of identity and commonality that imaginatively cross the borders of old categories of religion, culture and political affiliation. Recent efforts to reconceptualise border identities are emerging within a context still dominated by more polarised perspectives on identity and history, but they represent one significant strand of engagement with the Irish border. They suggest possibilities for forms of border identities that co-exist with, run counter to or cross cut old categories of division and difference.     

Identity and Place: the testament of designated heritage in Hong Kong

This paper examines the extent to which the identity of Hong Kong as a place, and of the Hong Kong Chinese as people, is expressed by the official heritage locations (the seventy-five Declared Monuments) designated by Hong Kong's Antiquities and Monuments Office. The discussion takes account of other heritage initiatives, in particular two recent monuments that commemorate the 1997 Handover of Hong Kong to China. Conclusions are that designated heritage in Hong Kong, more by chance than by deliberate strategy, reflects significant elements of the identities of the Hong Kong people and of Hong Kong as a place. However, more important to the Hong Kong Chinese person's sense of identity than built heritage are the bonds of kin and associated social events.     

The politics of wetlandscape: fishery heritage and natural conservation in Hong Kong

The north‐western part of Hong Kong is a marsh with traditional freshwater fish farming; however, this brackish area has been agriculturally diversified to include cultivation of red rice, reeds, shrimp and fish, and has only largely concentrated on freshwater fish farming starting from the 1960s. By looking into the geographical and social changes that have taken place in the brackish area, I will explain how the coastal landscape was changed in the 1910s through the introduction of large‐scale rice production in Tin Shui Wai which has turned into a high‐density residential new town, and the wetland conservation of Mai Po marshes. This article aims at understanding the meanings of intangible as well as agricultural/fishery heritage and the local politics among indigenous communities, conservation groups, the government and developers in post‐handover Hong Kong society. Inland freshwater pond cultivation was actually a major industry in the 1970s since it supplied most of the freshwater fish for the local market. Nowadays, the industry is shrinking because of lack of manpower and high operation costs compared to the mainland. With various kinds of social, economic and physical pressures, the local communities which are located at the buffer areas of the wetland in Mai Po are actually facing the tremendous dangers of losing those fishponds; most importantly, the fishponds have been serving not only as mitigation zone and source of a traditional local food but also as a major food supplier for migratory birds, adding to the conservation value of the Mai Po marshes and Inner Deep Bay in Hong Kong at large.     

香港地区史前考古与生态环境的研究

香港地区的史前考古一经起步就十分注重环境考古的研究;从本世纪三十年代初开始至今,学者们不断地探讨着不同地貌与遗址的关系,并就香港新生代晚期以来的环境、气候、海平面升降变迁等作出了系统科学的结论。考古学家进一步从贝丘遗址中贝类软体动物遗存的变化,推断出先民们从新石器时代到青铜时代、甚至汉代的生产和生活方式的演进历程。     

Men in upheaval: integrating Hong Kong politics and critical studies of men and masculinities

Abstract

In this short review, we explain the need for a multidimensional analytical framework for exploring how the construction of men and masculinities has shaped Hong Kong’s social and political development, and how politics both enable and constrain men in their lived experiences and practices in various life spheres at the city’s current political juncture. We observe that the majority of the extant research on men and masculinities in Hong Kong is depoliticized, whereas studies on current Hong Kong politics are largely gender-blind. However, the ever-tightening grip of the Chinese Communist Party and the instances of political resistance in response, namely, the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and Fishball Revolution of 2016, suggest that the influence of the wider political situation has penetrated every dimension of life, which has considerable implications for masculine identities and practices. Rather than continuing to conduct the depoliticized masculinity studies and genderless political studies we have seen to date, it is time for a thorough investigation of the dynamic intersection of men’s practices and the political context of Hong Kong.