Happy Valley heterotopia: representing colonial order in a Hong Kong 'other space'

Autor: L. Nicole Vaughan
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Social Transformations in Chinese Societies. 19:29-40
ISSN: 1871-2673
DOI: 10.1108/stics-10-2021-0009
Popis: Purpose This paper aims to trace the development of Hong Kong's Happy Valley from a space associated with dangerous miasmas to the site of a racecourse, recreation ground and a series of cemeteries for the colony's foreign communities while examining the relationship between the exclusion of Chinese from Happy Valley and the notion of colonial order. Design/methodology/approach This paper makes use of empirical evidence from historical documents, such as newspapers and government records, and applies Michel Foucault's notion of the heterotopia as a theoretical model. Findings This paper provides insights into the relationship between space and power in the colonial setting. It demonstrates that the imposition of colonial order in Happy Valley was a process that involved the exclusion of Chinese and that the various ways in which this order was reinforced, contested and negotiated revealed it to be shallow and incomplete. Originality/value This paper sheds light on an underexamined but important colonial space in 19th and early 20th century Hong Kong and complicates the notion of colonial control.
Databáze: OpenAIRE