Projecting Post-colonial Conditions at Shanghai Expo 2010, China: Floppy Ears, Lofty Dreams and Macao’s Immutable Mobiles

Urban Studies ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (13) ◽  
pp. 2937-2953 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chin-Ee Ong ◽  
Hilary du Cros
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
The City

Recent years have seen increased academic attention in urban studies on the flows of city artefacts and images. Conceptualised as ‘immutable mobiles’, the Macao Pavilion and its associated objects on show at Shanghai Expo 2010 are examined for the ways they encouraged and regulated uniformed flows of people and city images. Specifically, these immutable mobiles projected Macao’s lofty dreams of paradoxical affinity to and difference from mainland China—the city is a steadfast Special Administrative Region of China, but the immigration flow of Chinese citizens has been tightly regulated. This paper unpacks the ways in which urban actants articulate and perform such contradictory imaginings of the (im)mobilities of this post-colonial territory. Accordingly, it provides a basis for further study of post-colonial conditions in Macao, and adds to post-colonial research on mobilities in and of Chinese urban spaces.

Post/Colonial Bach

2021 ◽  
pp. 59-76
Author(s):  
Yvonne Liao
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
City Hall ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
British Colony ◽  
The City

This chapter contributes a new post-European perspective to Bach studies, re-examining J. S. Bach as a colonial import in Hong Kong in relation to its post/colonial condition across a British colony (1842–1997) and a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China (1997–present). Based on its proposition of rethinking Europe “after Europe,” the chapter considers post/colonial Bach across three specific institutions: The Helena May, a colonial club originally for women members; the Anglican St John’s Cathedral in the early 1900s and “landmark churches” (i.e., declared monuments or listed buildings) in the 2010s; and the City Hall in the later decades of the twentieth century. The chapter concludes with some further thoughts on the symbolism of post/colonial Bach, extending from its significance for Bach studies to related matters of historiography.

High Court of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR): Chan v. Director of Immigration

2001 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-100
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
High Court ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
Permanent Resident

Chan Mei Yee (“Ms Chan“) is a resident of Mainland China. She was born there in 1969. She married her husband, Mr Lee Man Shing, in the Mainland in 1992. Mr Lee is a Hong Kong permanent resident. In December 1992, Ms Chan gave birth to a daughter Lee Ka Po (“the child“) during her visit to Hong Kong. The child has Hong Kong permanent resident status.

scholarly journals City of Nostalgia: The Semiotics of Urban Retrotopias

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-94
Author(s):  
Massimo Leone
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Interior Design ◽  
The Other ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Urban Settings ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One ◽  
The City

Abstract The Casa da Nostalgia, or “Nostalgic house,” in the Taipa area of the special administrative region of Macau, is a museum devoted to temporary exhibitions reconstructing everyday life in the city, especially in the epoch of Portuguese ruling. Just opposite the museum, on the other side of a large pond, a giant casino, the Venetian Macau, reproduces Venice both with its external architecture and its interior design. The article analyzes these two urban settings in order to develop a semiotic understanding of as many ways of symbolically reconstructing cities. On the one hand, cities can be reconstructed in a nostalgic form; the essay inquires on the origin and the consequences of urban nostalgia; on the other hand, cities can be reconstructed as ersatz. The article further investigates the dialectics between predominantly temporal or prevailingly spatial urban reconstructions, with reference to the socio-cultural dynamics that have changed Macau in the last decades. The article concludes with the methodological suggestion that the study of urban re-constructions requires the combined efforts of several disciplines, jointly investigating why, how, but also to what effect cities are re-built.

scholarly journals The Authenticity Concept of Sh. Zukin: “Schizoid” Category in Urban Studies

Inter ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 8-28
Author(s):  
Kseniia N. Kalashnikova
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Cultural Characteristics ◽  
Symbolic Economy ◽  
The City

The article is devoted to the consideration of the concept of authenticity set forth by S. Zukin in the book “Naked City: Death and Life of Authentic Urban Spaces”. The sources of the concept are traced in the author’s early works, the main subjects described in them are: the process of gentrification; power relations forming the urban landscape; symbolic economy and the power of cultural characteristics. These subjects became the basis of the idea of authenticity. Its manifestations are described by the example of “uncommon” and “common” urban spaces. A separate place in the article is considered by the development of individual ideas of Sh. Zukin, their interpretations, as well as applications for specific studies in the work of followers. The conclusion is drawn about the variety of interpretations offered by researchers and the ambiguity of using authenticity as a tool for analyzing the city.

On union, displaced: Capture and captivity with the Hong Kong Artist Union (HKAU)

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Verla Bovino
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Conceptual Art ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
Conceptual Frameworks ◽  
The Past ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
History Of

In 2016, between Guangdong strikes in mainland China and Hong Kong’s unionization momentum, Hong Kong artist Wong Ka Ying posted a call on Facebook founding the Hong Kong Artist Union (HKAU). The gesture followed the mischievously named Come Inside, Hong Kong’s ‘first female artist duo’ created by Wong and artist Mak Ying Tung, which declared it would combat art’s ‘formalized system’. Ironically, one of its first actions was to enrol in a course on insurance that could help it formalize healthcare for artists. Come Inside welcomed the idea that opposition to the ‘system’ brings artists into it. HKAU took shape within this ‘trap’ when Wong and Mak started researching trade unions. ‘On Union, Displaced’ explores the past four years of HKAU existing as a union-not-yet-registered-as-an-official-union, a serious gesture of ludic conceptualism that plays with artistic freedom’s relationship to captivity and capture. Through Rey Chow’s theory of conceptual art as trap, it traces HKAU’s entanglement in the history of Hong Kong art groups, regional labour organizing, and efforts to reground the term ‘artist’. Studying HKAU requires various conceptual frameworks: Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics; Laikwan Pang’s multiple sovereignties; Sandro Mezzandra and Brett Neilson’s border-as-method; Linda Lai Chiu-han’s performative research; and Frank Vigneron’s plastician. The article explores how being ‘plastic’ – a union displaced; a union whose registration with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is perpetually negotiated – has helped HKAU pose important questions about solidarity and sovereignty in art.

Choreographing atmospheres in Copenhagen: Processes and positions between home and public

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802110229
Author(s):  
Mikkel Bille ◽  
Bettina Hauge
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Atmosphere ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Dynamic Positioning ◽  
Social Character ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
The City

This article explores how people choreograph spaces to feel particular ways through material objects and intangible phenomena like light and sound. Drawing on theories of atmospheres and ethnographic fieldwork in Copenhagen, we argue that while there has been a proliferation of research on atmospheres in urban studies, we also need to attend empirically to the processes through which they come into being, consolidate and coagulate. Through exploring the interplay between domestic and urban spaces, we highlight the volatility and inherently social character of atmospheres. This entails how people’s dynamic positioning within an urban atmosphere comes to matter for people’s sense of the city. We exemplify with one such sensation of the city through the concept of ‘midding’, as the feeling of comfortably being on the perimeter of a situation. Exploring atmospheric positionings and processes enlightens our understanding of the urban atmosphere and shows how shared atmospheric moments connect people in time and space, stressing the importance of urban design to allow for such sharing.

Contesting brandscapes in Hong Kong: Exploring youth activist experiences of the contemporary consumerist landscape

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 1087-1104
Author(s):  
Sonia Lam-Knott
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Special Administrative Region ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Administrative Region ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The City

Since the 2000s, Hong Kong has become inundated with retail centres, such that the territory is now known as ‘Mall City’, a condition now problematised by youth activists in the city. This article is interested in why these youths take issue with this form of urban development. By tracing the emergence of the contemporary consumerist landscape from the colonial era to the present, it is shown that the current manifestation and characteristics of Hong Kong’s brandscapes are the product of unequal power dynamics between the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government, estate developers and the Hong Kong citizenry in shaping the city. By bringing youth activist voices to the forefront through the use of ethnographic data, the discussion then examines youth activist accounts detailing the experiential dimensions of living in this consumerist landscape, noting the feelings of alienation and exploitation circulating within the vernacular domains of Hong Kong society. The article concludes by reviewing the different ways these youths have attempted to reconfigure their relationship with this brandscape, and thus challenge the control the HKSAR government and estate developers have over Hong Kong urban space.

scholarly journals De-colonizing public spaces in Malaysia: dating in Kuala Lumpur

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-629
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Nawratek ◽  
Asma Mehan
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Global City ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

This article discusses places and practices of young heterosexual Malaysian Muslims dating in non-private urban spaces. It is based on research conducted in Kuala Lumpur in two consecutive summers 2016 and 2017. Malaysian law (Khalwat law) does not allow for two unrelated people (where at least one of them is Muslim) of opposite sexes to be within ‘suspicious proximity’ of one another in public. This law significantly influences behaviors and activities in urban spaces in KL. In addition to the legal framework, the beliefs of Malaysian Muslims significantly influence the way they perceive space and how they behave in the city. The article discusses the empirical theme, beginning with the participants’ narratives of their engagement with the dominant sexual and gender order in non-private spaces of KL. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews and observations, this article draws upon a qualitative research project and questions the analytical usefulness of the notion of public space (as a Western construct) in the context of an Islamic, post-colonial, tropical, global city.

scholarly journals How the Presence of Newly Arrived Migrants Challenges Urban Spaces: Three Perspectives from Recent Literature

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-32
Author(s):  
Martina Bovo
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Spatial Dimension ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Research Subject ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The City

This article explores the notion of arrival spaces in the recent urban studies literature, and it outlines three emerging perspectives on their role and the associated processes and complexities. Recently, within changing migratory trajectories, the dimension of arrival has gained increasing relevance, and scholars have discussed the growing complexity underpinning it. Within this framework, some contributions reflect on the role of arrival spaces, which currently represent a rapidly changing research subject. However, by the term ‘arrival space,’ authors refer to various types of space, and the article argues that a clearer reference to the spatial dimension of arrival is needed. Spaces are contexts where different actors interact and intervene in the city, and their understanding represents a preliminary step for future research. In this sense, this contribution aims to unpack the previous decade’s debate on arrival spaces. It outlines three main perspectives: The first discusses the role of trans-local contexts, working as nodes in international migration networks; the second follows the debate on arrival neighborhoods; the third suggests that arrival spaces may be defined as all those parts of the urban fabric with which newcomers interact at the moment of arrival. Finally, drawing from this review, the article underlines that arrival spaces are not only specialized areas with migrant newcomers’ concentration, but they may also be ordinary urban spaces that temporarily work for arrival. Hence, future research should further deepen this perspective and more explicitly investigate the relation of arrival spaces to the city and its actors.

scholarly journals Migrant margins: The streetlife of discrimination

2018 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 968-983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne M. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Urban Studies ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Global Migration ◽  
The City

The streetlife of discrimination emerges in the intersections of global migration and urban marginalisation. Focusing on livelihoods forged by migrants on four peripheral streets in Birmingham, Bristol, Leicester and Manchester, this article draws on face-to-face surveys with over 350 self-employed proprietors. Despite significant variables amongst proprietors, these individuals had all become traders on streets in marginalised parts of UK cities, and the article addresses whether ‘race’ matters more than class for how certain groups become emplaced in the city. Narratives of inequality and racism feature prominently in the proprietors’ accounts of where they settled in the city and what limited forms of work are available in the urban margins. Yet as significant to proprietors’ experiences of trade are repertoires of entrepreneurial agility and cross-cultural exchange. Through the concept of the ‘migrant margins’ the article explores the overlap of human capacities and structural discrimination that spans global and urban space. It combines urban sociological understandings of ‘race’ and inequality with fluid understandings of makeshift city-making that have emerged in post-colonial urban studies. Such combinations encourage connections between the histories and geographies of how people and places become bordered, together with city-making practices that are both marginal and transgressive.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document