Local Relations and Their Postcolonial Outlooks

With an eye to museum exhibitions, governments’ narratives, historical accounts and scholarly analyses, among others, Chapter 1 examines the underlying political, social and cultural connotations in different narratives about Hong Kong. By uncovering the hegemony of representing Hong Kong through “the Hong Kong story”, the chapter exposes the unequal powers at work, arguing for the need to hybridize different local milieus, positionings and perspectives by redistributing significances to both human and nonhuman agencies and rekindling connections to Hong Kong’s local on different levels. Highlighting the interconnection between the social, political and cultural realms in facilitating representation, interpretation and mediation, the chapter maps out the multiple realities, contrasting stances and varied connotations wherein different “Hong Kongs” are constructed and local relations are entailed in varying constellations.