Cultivating Legitimacy and Deconstructing Indigeneity: The Case of a Community Farm in Hong Kong

I will discuss the chapter on the everyday forms of resistance and the discursive strategies for place-making in this presentation about my thesis, the entirety of which documents both the forces that are draining the... [ view full abstract ]

I will discuss the chapter on the everyday forms of resistance and the discursive strategies for place-making in this presentation about my thesis, the entirety of which documents both the forces that are draining the vitality out of a migrant village in Hong Kong as well as all of the creative and highly functional ways in which a community farm on the site is pushing back against real estate encroachments. I will highlight two concepts in particular so as to to cater to the backgrounds and interests of a Middlebury audience: (i) farming as an activity that does not merely produce food per say, but also a sense of history along with a social network, and also to legitimize the identity of a disadvantaged social group via performance, as part of a larger project of decolonization, and (ii) how "indigeneity" was constructed and is constantly remade until today to stand in direct opposition to "non-indigeneity," a social construct that facilitates and justifies unjust spatial practices. I have used a combination of participant observation, grounded ethnography, and naturalistic inquiry in my research. I will conclude that Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement shall ignore the contributions to the project of decolonization of these spaces at its own perils.