[Community Conversation] How Big is “Local”? 本土有幾大?

[Updated 23 October 2018: For friends who might have missed this community talk, here are the webcast and photo album.]



Thursday, 4 October 2018, 7:30 pm
Richmond Public Library
7700 Minoru Gate, Richmond
Free and open to the public (Program in Cantonese)

Registration required.

For Hong Kong, what is deemed “local” is a multi-layered historical experience shared by generations of immigrants and emigrants. Each of these layers has given the place unique cultural characteristics. The talk urges us to uncover and cherish these global footprints. They have provided the resources for Hong Kongers to connect with extensive overseas communities, to capture unusual opportunities, and sail through political storms. What will be the strategic steps to take as Hong Kongers face an assertive China and an uncertain global future?

對香港而言,「本土」是由不同年代往來進出的人群所分享的、叠加交織的歷史經驗,而每一代人又都賦予這個地方獨特的文化性格。本演講旨在喚起我們發現並珍視這些遺留在香港的全球烙印,因為它們曾是香港人與海外廣大社群聯繫的重要資源,也藉由這些資源使他們得以獲取種種難得機遇和避過各種政治風浪。面對自信滿滿的中國以及前路不定的全球處境,香港人將會採取甚麼應對策略?

Helen F. Siu is a professor of Anthropology and former chair of the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. She grew up in Hong Kong and attended Carleton College and Stanford University. Prof. Siu has conducted decades of fieldwork in South China, exploring agrarian change, the nature of the socialist state, and the refashioning of identities. Lately, she has become interested in rural-urban interface in China, inter-Asian connections, and China-Africa encounters. Prof. Siu has served in numerous funding and research assessment committees in the United States, Europe, and Asia, and she was the founding director of the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, which is devoted to cross-disciplinary research and global collaborations. Her recent publications include Asia Inside Out (2 volumes; Harvard University Press, 2015); Tracing China: A Forty-Year Ethnographic Journey (Hong Kong University Press, 2016); and “China-Africa Encounters: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Realities,” Annual Review of Anthropology 46 (November 2017).

蕭鳳霞,美國耶魯大學人類學系教授,曾任耶魯大學東亞研究委員會主席 。香港土生土長,後負笈美國。多年來致力探討南中國的文化、歷史和政經變遷,並在珠江三角洲進行廣泛的田野考察。近年則聚焦研究香港邁向國際大都會過程中的文化轉變、亚洲互聯以及中非交往。除研究外,她更出任美國、香港和亞洲多個學術研究撥款委員會成員, 並於香港大學創建香港人文社會研究所,促進跨學科、跨地域研究課題。近作包括两卷《翻展亚洲》(哈佛大學出版社, 2015)及《踏迹尋中:四十年華南田野之旅》(香港大學出版社,2016)。

This community conversation is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative and co-sponsored by the UBC Department of Asian Studies, Richmond Public Library, and the Vancouver Hong Kong Forum Society.

Prof. Helen Siu will also be the Speaker of the 2018–2019 Yip So Man Wat Memorial Lecture. Please kindly visit the web site of the UBC Department of Asian Studies to register for that event.

Registration for the October 4 (Richmond Public Library) Event

Online registration is now closed. To find out if it is still possible to attend, please email us @ hksi.ubc@ubc.ca.