A City Inscribed event. Registration i s strongly encouraged.
Scholars and pundits continue to discuss the issue of Hong Kong’s right to self-determination under Chinese rule eve n after the Umbrella Movement has ended. The one perspective that frames th e conflicts between Hong Kong and China in nationalist terms has attracted much attention in particular. The city’s inability to implement direct elec tion\, and its various social and economic problems are seen\, from this na tionalist perspective\, as linked to China’s intervention in Hong Kong’s in ternal affairs\, and political independence from China is offered as a reme dy. As I will explain\, the source of this unfreedom is not the Chinese sta te alone\, but an entanglement of multiple forms of power that include the state and the capitalist form of control. When a nationalist perspective ig nores how generalized domination results from the integration of the state with capitalist form of power\, it is inadequate. The nation that may emerg e out of this perspective will subsequently remain subservient as it mainta ins its adherence to capitalism and continues its membership in a global ca pitalist system over which China exercises hegemony.
Wai Kit Choi is Associate Professor of Sociology at California State Unive rsity\, Los Angeles\, and was a Fulbright Scholar from 2009 to 2010. His re search interests are in globalization\, historical sociology\, and sociolog ical theory. He has published in journals such as Journal of Historical Sociology\, Postcolonial Studies and Science & Society. H e also has an article on Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement forthcoming in the j ournal Perspective on Global Development and Technology.
This
seminar is organized by the Hong Kong Studies Initiative and co-sponsored by the Department of Asian Studies
\, the
Centre for Chinese Research\, the Department of History\, <
strong>St. John’s College\, and the Department of Sociology
.
