Then & Now | Research on Hong Kong affairs outsourced to overseas universities as local academics skirt national security ‘red lines’
- As is the case in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, academics in Hong Kong now see certain topics of research as too sensitive for critical examination
- With the risk of critical academic commentary being branded ‘soft resistance’ or worse, it’s no wonder ‘Hong Kong Studies’ centres are multiplying overseas
Ever more frequently, top-quality research and writing on a variety of Hong Kong themes is no longer undertaken locally.
As Hong Kong’s already febrile political climate becomes increasingly constricted, expressions of intellectual difference (however innocuous or mainstream these views may have been only a few years ago) become labelled as potentially dangerous “soft resistance” – or worse.
In lockstep, creative space for these alternative viewpoints, and their serious scholarly discussion and evaluation, steadily contracts.
In this constantly shifting environment, many academics, writers, artists and independent researchers have quietly decamped elsewhere. Centres of excellence related to “Hong Kong Studies” are now situated within various overseas universities; Sydney, Vancouver and Bristol are particularly notable.
These more distant vantage points can offer various displaced individuals some unexpected perspectives on Hong Kong; according to many who have made the jump, the overall atmosphere found elsewhere these days is far more breathable – literally and metaphorically – than anything now experienced at home.
Earlier precedents for these scholarly migrations exist from other places where dramatically rearranged political climates made certain research and publication endeavours insurmountably difficult to achieve with the requisite degree of intellectual freedom.
