[Webinar] Hongkongers’ International Front: The Global Politics of Diaspora during and after the 2019 Anti-Extradition Protest

[Updated 1 May 2022: For those who might have missed this webinar, here are the webcast and the photos.]


Webinar
Thursday, 28 April 2022, 19:00–20:30 PDT
Hongkongers’ International Front: The Global Politics of Diaspora during and after the 2019 Anti-Extradition Protest
Prof. Ming-sho Ho, National Taiwan University
via Zoom

A City Reassembled event
Registration required

The flare-up over Hong Kong’s proposed extradition bill in 2019 gave rise to a global wave of organization among overseas Hongkongers, which has persisted after the decline of the protest movement as a result of COVID and government repression. Based on 85 in-depth interviews with overseas activists as well as data drawn from social and news media on events in six cities, this presentation will examine the pro-democracy campaigns of Hong Kong’s diasporic communities. Newly emergent organizations are mostly decentralized and loosely connected. Responding to the rise and fall of protests in the home city, campaigners have shifted from offering logistical supplies to sheltering refugees as well as advocating for a global resistance against China’s authoritarian expansion. Counter-protests by supporters of the PRC have increased publicity for the campaign but have also threatened the safety of individual campaigners. With the exception of the case of Taiwan, Hongkongers have found it difficult to localize their agenda in their host countries. As well, their efforts have been frustrated by the growing polarization within Western democracies.

Ming-sho Ho is a professor in the Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University, and the Director of the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology (Taiwan). His research interests include social movements, labor, and environmental issues. He has published Challenging Beijing’s Mandate from Heaven: Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement (2019) and Taiwan’s Working Class Formation: Fractured Solidarity in State-Owned Enterprises (2014).

This webinar is organized by the UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative and co-sponsored by: Department of Asian Studies, Department of History, Centre for Chinese Research, Centre for Migration Studies, Asian Canadian and Asian Migration Studies, Public Humanities Hub, and the Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster.

Registration for: “Hongkongers’ International Front: The Global Politics of Diaspora during and after the 2019 Anti-Extradition Protest”

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