The Fluid City: A Cinematic Urban Tectonic Study on the (Re)Production of Publicness in Contemporary Hong Kong


Li, Zhuozhang (2021) The Fluid City: A Cinematic Urban Tectonic Study on the (Re)Production of Publicness in Contemporary Hong Kong. Doctor of Philosophy thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

This study explores the cinematic representation of socio-spatial practices by ordinary people in contemporary Hong Kong, to investigate the (re)production of publicness in everyday urban space and the historical changes of the appropriation. Situated in an Asian city that has been predominantly planned and built in pursuit of economic gains under global capitalism, this study questions the dominant conception of urban space (i.e., the dichotomy of public and private), which is largely based on a Western-centric model. With such domination, the neglect and misapprehension of the everyday discourse of the locale, being elusive per se, can be found not merely in the construction of the city but also the discussion in the discipline of urban studies. The aim here is, therefore, to first articulate the overlooked and fragmented everyday practices and to reveal their relationship with the urban built environment and established social order. By highlighting Hong Kong urban cinema as a remarkable archive of descriptions of how the city is being lived and practised, a cinematic urban tectonic study is developed in this thesis to discover a hidden thread fabricated by multiple pieces that all relate to the production of everyday urban space. This novel perspective, with a set of interdisciplinary research methods such as mapping and film analysis woven tight together, examines both the historical development of urban environments and the transformation of everyday lived spaces in Hong Kong. The investigation of the former illustrates deliberate layers of the city in terms of physical, social and psychological factors. It is followed by a series of detailed analysis of the informal everyday practices depicted in 28 local films at multiple levels (namely rooftops, elevated passages and ground-level urban spaces) and in different periods of time (from 1979 to 2018), which conducts a longitudinal study of everyday urban space in Hong Kong city and cinema. Drawing from traditional Chinese literary and philosophical ideals, this study exposes a fluid, alternative social structure (and its spatialisation) as the space of jianghu that defy, appropriate, coexist with or are diminished by the hegemonic order of the city. At the same time, the study demonstrates the capacity of cinema as an analytic and complement tool to expand our understanding of the everyday urban space within specific social, geographical and cultural context, thus overcoming the taken-for-granted and reductive discussions in urban studies.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctor of Philosophy)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Hong Kong, cinematic urban tectonic, everyday urban space, Hong Kong urban cinema
Divisions: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of the Arts
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 10 Feb 2022 11:55
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 21:16
DOI: 10.17638/03146701
Supervisors:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3146701
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