Jennifer Eagleton, Discursive change in Hong Kong: Sociopolitical dynamics, metaphor, and one country, two systems. New York: Lexington Books, 2022. Pp. 404. Hb. $120.

Abstract

tals to Trump and support for a smart border, Clinton used the language of emotion to invoke notions of the US as a compassionate, welcoming nation of immigrants. This merging of affect and historical discourses with the neoliberal language of technical efficiency, Demata argues, formed part of Democrats’ larger political strategy of recontextualising family values discourse, long a pillar of conservative rhetoric, as progressive immigration policy. As populist and neoliberal discourses contend to define a post-global world, Demata reminds us how borders—including the plights of those attempting to cross them—can serve as symbols of social order as well as proxies for political struggle. Although brief, his study offers important insights into how the recontextualisation of political discourses, namely, of family values, the aesthetics of exclusion, and the neoliberal ethics of modernity, contribute to ideological discursive formation and contemporary political language.