Programme full

Thursday 16 April 2015 15:30 - 17:00
PAPER SESSION 6 / PECHA KUCHA SESSIONS
The emergence of neoliberalism as the new economic orthodoxy in the world has led not only to the domination of
market rationality and substantial increase in the social inequalities but also the transformation of the individuals, who
were once members of a common society with responsibility for the others, into self-seeking consumers. The same
process has turned urban space, which were once designed based on the use value, into a commodity. It has been
redeveloped through large scale urban transformation projects implemented ambitiously by both the public and private
actors whose target is to share the rent instead of redistributing it to the society. Within this context, the squatter areas
have become particularly attractive due to their legally ambiguous property regime, and the socio-economically
vulnerable groups living in those areas have been facing displacement. What is more alarming is the way that social
consent for this destructive program is produced through stigmatisation of not only the disadvantaged groups but also
the spaces they live, and the zero tolerance policies of the state to save the city from these tumours of crime and
decay in a dedicated manner. In this presentation, I will try to reveal the extent of the stigmatisation with the aim of
analysing its impacts on both the self-evaluation of the squatter people and the treatment of others in the light of the
findings of an ethnographic study of the everyday experiences of stigma to be conducted in the Dikmen Valley Urban
Transformation Project Area in Ankara, Turkey.
Making and Mobilising the Networked Diaspora: Responses of Hong Kong’s Overseas Students to Crises
Au, L.
(University of Oxford)
In the past year, we have witnessed three major episodes of social mobilizations in Hong Kong. First was in October
2013, when over 100,000 demonstrators surrounded the Central Government Complex in protest of a decision not to
issue a broadcasting license to HKTV. Second was in response to the attack on journalist Kevin Lau in February 2014.
And third was in reaction to the so-called Umbrella Movement that began at the end of September 2014. While these
events occurred thousands of miles away, overseas Hong Kong students have mirrored actions by their counterparts
in Hong Kong to stand in solidarity with those back home. The last overseas campaign witnessed rallies in over 65
cities, with 3000 gathering in London, and a petition on WhiteHouse.gov that received an official response.
A striking feature of these overseas mobilizations was the way they unfolded through the real and virtual networks of
the overseas students whereby previously apathetic students found themselves suddenly embroiled in what Manuel
Castell (2012) would term 'networks of outrage and hope'. This also borrows from Martin Sökefield (2006) where he
argues that migrants 'do not necessarily form a diaspora but they may become a diaspora by developing a new
imagination of community'.
Through digital archives on social media sites and in depth interviews with core organizers worldwide, I document the
ways the students consciously articulated connectivity and belonging to home, and how they disseminated the petition
through various networks to sign and to reach audiences back in Hong Kong.
The Visual Claims and Visuality of the Umbrella Movement/Revolution: Hong Kong Stands Up to the Death of
the City
Garrett, D.
(City University of Hong Kong)
Emerging from the City of Protests and the shadow of a rapidly rising China, the 2014 Umbrella Movement/Revolution
in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) dramatically demolished all prior claims and notions of the
City as an apathetic, apolitical, and servile economic entity inevitably transitioning into the socialist superstructure of
the People's Republic of China. Since Hong Kong's retrocession from colonial rule, Umbrella represents the most
overt real, symbolic and visual act of transgressive resistance – albeit peaceful – towards the competitive authoritarian
political system and symbolic moral universal installed in Hong Kong by the Chinese Communist Party. Indeed, its
emergence intensely contests hegemonic transformation of the free capitalist enclave into 'just another Chinese city'
as envisioned by Chinese leaders and the local patriotic coterie of 'Red Tycoons' and 'Redder than Mao' latecommunists.
The multiple occupations of key cultural, economic, and political centers of the territory visually staked a
counter-visuality of the HKSAR envisioned by its postmodern younger generations who increasingly feel – under the
oppressive cultural, economic and political weight of Beijing's 'One Country' domination of the SAR – the urgency to
fight for their City, to protect its Hongkonger way of life, and to prevent the 'Death of the City.' Visual methods are used
to examine this unprecedented gambit of Hong Kong's New Social Movement to resist social change and stake its
own identity and claims which diverge significantly from the older generations of Hongkongers conditioned under
British and Chinese rule to accede to undemocratic hegemonic rule.
BSA Annual Conference 2015 198
Glasgow Caledonian University