Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Echo Wang Lei, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

In conducting what Irus Braverman calls a ‘theory-oriented ethnography’ of subaltern urban space during the 2019 anti-extradition law protests in Hong Kong, it is possible to demonstrate how certain spaces collide against and are messily entangled within the city’s larger urban assemblage. The subaltern space that is studied, Chungking Mansions, is a sixty-year-old mixed-use building complex that is home to a sizable percentage of the city’s ethnic minority population. As such, it is a paradoxical site: to some, it is the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong, or even its ‘last ghetto’; to others, it is a thriving hub of alternative or non-hegemonic processes of globalisation.

Using the theoretical contributions of the likes of Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, and Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos—and applying them to three specific incidents that occurred in or around Chungking Mansions during the 2019 protests—this presentation aims to show how studying the subaltern spatio-legal assemblage that makes up Chungking Mansions allows for a better understanding of the co-constitutive relationship between law, space, and power. Reading subaltern space, therefore, offers new ways of reading the relationship between the law and the city.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dhiraj Nainani is currently a PhD student at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law and a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies at the National University of Singapore. He also has an LLB and LLM from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research involves studying the intersection of law, urban space, and conceptions of power through the lens of a ‘theory-oriented ethnography’.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to arios@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.