Project Overview

Research at the HKBU Faculty of Arts is accentuated by interdisciplinarity between and within departments that forms a vital cultural representation of human civilisation. The Department of English Language and Literature fosters original research initiatives by bringing together the fields of linguistics, comparative literary studies and Hong Kong studies in groundbreaking publications. Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong: Angles on a Coherent Imaginary (published by Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) is unique both for its thematic content and for crossing new boundaries in collaborative book research within the Faculty.

Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong examines how, in navigating Hong Kong’s colonial history alongside its ever-present Chinese identity, the city has come to manifest a conflicting socio-cultural plurality. Focusing on cultural elements appropriated into Hong Kong’s social tapestry through the spectrum of its social classes, this book draws together scholars, critics, commentators and creators at the vanguard of the emerging field of Hong Kong studies. The project is organised and edited by three members of the Department of English Language and Literature: Dr Jason Polley, Associate Professor; Dr Vinton Poon, (former) Lecturer; and Professor Lian-hee Wee. In this effort, the editors brought together scholars and practitioners from Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Mainland China and Singapore, including six contributors from the HKBU Faculty of Arts. The project is also evidence of achievement in faculty-student collaboration: three of the book’s chapters are authored by Department students.

In its exploration of the currents and dynamics around and behind Hong Kong’s recent cultural conflicts, the volume features chapters by specialised academics, cultural commentators and creative writers. All contributors to this book are frontline observers of Hong Kong’s current tensions. And many of the authors collected herein are personally invested in these sociocultural conflicts. To facilitate, and at times complicate, the complex Hong Kong identities and imaginaries now extant two decades following the territory’s return to China, this collection is categorised into three interrelated parts: surveillance, sousveillance and equiveillance. Big data and biometrics forerunner Joseph Ferenbok and computer scientist and public intellectual Steve Mann first coined the latter two terms. Their work popularises “inverse surveillance,” referring to the ways in which people can digitally record images and actions from below in order to counterbalance classical surveillance from above.

This book is the first true area studies book of its kind on Hong Kong – and thus valuable to any reader who wishes to explore the territory’s complexities without being bogged down by discipline-specific perspectives. At the same time, each chapter collected in the volume is itself a study of specific and significant sides or views integral to Hong Kong’s current imaginary. Readers of Cultural Conflict in Hong Kong consequently hold in their hands an array of carefully selected gems different in texture yet judiciously set on the same frame, thus providing a kaleidoscopic treatment that speaks to the elegant complexity of Hong Kong today.

Dr Jason S Polley

Department of English Language and Literature

Professor Lian-Hee Wee

Department of English Language and Literature