Top-down Patriotism and Bottom-up Nationalization in Hong Kong

This paper maps the discursive struggles between different versions of nationalization in post 1997 Hong Kong. Once a de-nationalized colony, Hong Kong has been caught up in the cross road where previous de-sinicized discourses of localism, internationalism and cosmopolitism are re-negotiating with the new discourses of nationalism and patriotism. Visible top-down call for patriotism has been met with equally visible public resistance, while the less visible bottom-up nationalization processes have been very effective in bringing the imagination of the nation closer to the general public. The paper explores Hong Kong’s bottom-up nationalization in terms of four aspects of everyday experience: national spatiality, social diversity, ethnic connections and the national market. By thick ethnographic description, the paper traces the less visible but no less powerful nationalization processes in everyday encounters, in which the nation takes shape through the redrawing of psychological boundaries between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese people in daily life.