Women’s online participation and the transformation of citizenship in Hong Kong Principal researcher: Iam Chong Co-researcher: Oiwan Lam
The research project explores the dynamics of the insurgency of multiple counter and alternative public spheres in the context of Guangzhou (mainland China) and Honk Kong characterised by authoritarianism and post-colonial power. This is especially relevant in the milieu of ICTs, because of the advances in the new technologies – China has the biggest labour army employed in ICTs, as well as the largest number of ICT users. Discussions about the China model and the China miracle make such explorations of citizenship particularly pertinent. The research project focuses on women organisations and activists, their uses of new media and online platforms, and their implications for citizenship. The team is undertaking field work in Guangzhou and Hong Kong, conducting interviews with both members of established women NGOs and online activists engaged in the online citizen rights movement. China and Hong Kong's situations differ while still being historically linked. The team carries out qualitative interviews to try and understand the development of feminism, leading to its increased institutionalisation in Hong Kong, and in contrast looks at lesbian groups and individual activists. In China, the participants in the research are a women’s issues-related NGO and women bloggers – opinion leaders, activists or dissidents. The researchers hope that the research would help the state-party embedded women NGOs to develop a certain self-reflexivity. They also hope that the findings from the research would contribute to cultivating a self-awareness of developing alternative forms of gender citizenships.
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