“Warrior Style Disobedience: Hong Kong’s New and Violent Contentious Repertoire"

Online Special Lecture

Wednesday, April 29, 2020 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM KST
Online

A talk by Andrew Junker

Department of Sociology, Chinese University of Hong Kong

 

In 2019 in Hong Kong, anti-government protesters adopted a tactical protest repertoire that emphasized provocative, nonlethal violence. Authorities, unwilling to make political concessions, responded by increased use of repression, triggering cycles of escalating violence from both sides, up to but not generally not crossing the threshold of lethality. Strong public support for the protesters did not diminish as violence escalated. The cumulative result has been to introduce nonlethal violence into the set of routine ways that people in Hong Kong enact protest. This paper, using the conceptual framework of “contentious repertoires,” examines the increase in violence, including its origins and causes, strategic rationality, ideological and cultural justifications, and social movement consequences, both constructive and destructive. Through a critical and sociological analysis, the paper illuminates complexity that is elided in how both pro- and anti-government advocates publicly represent the violence.