【by Enoch Yee-lok Tam, June 2025】
Since the handover of sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong’s social activism and political movements have garnered increasing global exposure and intense discussion, reaching a peak in the mid-to-late 2010s. During this period, two major political protests—the Umbrella Movement of 2014 and the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement of 2019—captured international attention. Both movements were deeply intertwined with the struggle for a more democratic system and universal suffrage under the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), often characterized as an authoritarian and socialist regime. Hong Kong’s social activism, as a small administrative region fighting for its autonomy amidst the influence of the world’s two largest superpowers—the United States and the PRC—within the broader context of the New Cold War, has become a focal point of international discourse.[1] However, this global attention risks obscuring an earlier period, specifically the late 1990s and much of the 2000s, when Hong Kong’s social activism was primarily shaped by local efforts to achieve self-determination and to advocate for more diverse ways of living under the prevailing systems of neoliberalism.
In this essay, I aim to examine the rise of intellectual activism that has shaped and redefined social activism in Hong Kong since the handover. As will become evident, intellectual activism in Hong Kong has not merely been expressed through the growing visibility of public intellectuals and academic scholars advocating pro-grassroots, pro-democracy, and often left-leaning ideologies. Equally significant has been the multifaceted discursive practices and trajectories directed toward knowledge formation. This intellectual intervention encompasses not only contributions to public debates, such as televised discussions, but also forms an organic and essential foundation for the praxis of social activism. This mode of intellectual participation, however, should not be understood as spontaneous or isolated expressions. Rather, it is best seen as a response to the evolving social and political formations associated with Hong Kong’s postcolonial condition. More specifically, I argue that intellectual activism within Hong Kong’s social movements—through its efforts to imagine discursive and knowledge frameworks capable of challenging prevailing epistemic and ideological orders—represents a social and cultural strategy to address perceived threats to marginalized grassroots communities. These threats arise from the domination of an authoritarian state, neoliberal governance, and the increasing alignment between the two. This process warrants attention because of the complex socio-political configurations it seeks to negotiate. These negotiations are evident not only in the tendency of intellectual activism to provide ideological support for alternative social ideas and beliefs by cultivating imaginative solutions to socio-political domination but also in its moments of intervention that suggest an active decolonizing impulse. Such interventions envision the potential reformulation of the existing socio-political order, offering a critical lens through which to understand the intersections of intellectual activism and social transformation in postcolonial Hong Kong.
In this earlier phase, left-leaning, progressive, and anti-capitalist activism began to emerge as a significant force. For example, a series of spatially focused protests against urban redevelopment and gentrification projects in the 2000s highlighted a growing trend of anti-developmentalism and anti-authoritarianism.[2] These movements operated alongside the broader struggle for democratic reform and universal suffrage, marking the local activism scene with a distinct and multifaceted character. One of the most notable examples of this era was the Preservation of Star Ferry Pier and Queen’s Pier Movement (2006–2007). During this movement, local activists occupied the soon-to-be-demolished Queen’s Pier, demanding a more participatory and democratic process in urban redevelopment and related policymaking. At the same time, they advanced a counter-narrative challenging the commodification of urban space for commercial and economic purposes in Hong Kong’s highly dense environment.[3] To achieve these goals, the formation of intellectual activism proved as pivotal as the direct actions of social activism. Intellectual discourse played a crucial role in confronting and dismantling the hegemonic neoliberal ideology that dictated how the city should be managed and how individuals should conform to the prevailing social order. By fostering critical dialogue and alternative visions of urban living, intellectual activism complemented the practical efforts of grassroots movements, collectively working to challenge the dominant structures of power and ideology shaping post-handover Hong Kong.
A general tendency in the decade following the handover was clearly toward a model of social activism that involved collectives of activist intellectuals, aiming to provoke ideological and political engagement in the public sphere. From a broader historical perspective, the dynamics of intellectual activism discussed here were not unique to Hong Kong but reflected a trend that had been explored in postcolonial studies for decades. In her seminal article “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, Gayatri Spivak introduced the concept of “epistemic violence” to describe the erasure of the knowledge of marginalized groups and how this erasure undermines their capacity to speak and be heard.[4] Sociologist Anna Lundberg further contends that the issue is not merely that others fail to listen, but that marginalized groups are rarely recognized as subjects who possess knowledge and understanding.[5] Drawing on Miranda Fricker’s notion of “double structural discrimination,” Lundberg argues that “epistemic violence” enables privileged groups to exert primary control over society’s analytical resources. The role of the intellectual activist, therefore, is to create channels through which the suppressed experiences and knowledge of marginalized groups can be articulated and acknowledged.[6]
In post-handover Hong Kong, where the conditions of postcolonial authoritarianism and neoliberal developmentalism brought about profound changes in political and social structures as well as in people’s thought patterns, intellectual activists often played a critical role in contesting epistemic violence. They embodied alternative beliefs and attitudes that challenged the hegemonic social discourse of the time. Consider, for instance, Chen Yun-chung, an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology during the Preservation of Queen’s Pier Movement (hereafter referred to as the Queen’s Pier Movement), has a personal history and intellectual trajectory that have significantly shaped his academic and activist endeavors. Born in Malaysia, Chen pursued his undergraduate studies in Taiwan, earned his Ph.D. in the United States, and began teaching in Hong Kong in 2007. These experiences prompted him to develop the concept of “international localism” (國際在地主義), a framework that emphasizes engaging with local politics in the places where one resides while actively participating in social activism to address and improve local social conditions.[7] As a member of Local Action (本土行動), Chen actively wrote and advocated for reclaiming public space for collective use and redefining localism and local identity based on his experiences as an activist involved in a series of local movements. He also engaged in open debates with officials and pro-establishment politicians.[8] Chen exemplified the archetype of the intellectual activist—or activist intellectual—that was prevalent in Hong Kong’s social movements during this period. This image of the intellectual activist, characterized by a deep commitment to ideological and political engagement in opposition to epistemic negligence and violence, resonated strongly with the socially and politically motivated youth of the time, particularly those with higher education backgrounds. Such figures not only contested the dominant narratives of the state but also inspired a generation of activists to envision alternative futures for Hong Kong, grounded in critical thought and collective action.
A similar dynamic was evident in the social movements of the late 2000s and early 2010s. Prominent intellectual activists, such as cultural studies scholar Ip Yam-chong and philosopher Hui Yuk, were notable not only for their participation in direct actions and the production of alternative discourses in mass media and public debates but also for publishing works that provided theoretical and epistemological frameworks for radical and transformative social activism. For instance, Ip’s book Direct Action (《直接行動》, 2010) challenged the public’s perception of direct action as mere random violence by offering a concise historical account of the development of this activist strategy. Similarly, Hui’s A Theory of Occupy: From Paris Commune to Occupy Central (《佔領論：從巴黎公社到佔領中環》, 2012) laid a theoretical foundation for the strategy of occupation, which was employed during the 2011–12 Occupy Central movement.
Not all intellectual activists emerged from academia. A notable example is Kong King-chu, a senior journalist-turned-documentary filmmaker and the then-director of the local independent publisher Step Forward Multimedia (進一步多媒體). Drawing on her extensive experience in utilizing video and written formats during her career in mass media, Kong transitioned from mainstream journalism to independent filmmaking and publishing in the mid-1990s to engage more directly with social activism. Through her documentary films and publications, she consistently highlighted issues of social justice. These included documenting the activism of individuals like Reverend Franco Mella, who has advocated for the rights of children from cross-border marriages for over two decades, and female activists involved in the Anti-WTO protests. Kong’s work exemplified a distinctively humanistic intellectual activist outlook, grounded in a commitment to grassroots communities, local identities, and human rights. This approach adhered to the political and ethical dimensions of intellectual activism by raising public awareness of injustice, critiquing repressive and oppressive social orders, and fostering visions of justice and hope.[9] Her contributions underscore the vital role of intellectual activism in bridging the gap between theoretical critique and practical engagement, thereby enriching the landscape of Hong Kong’s social movements through both documentation and advocacy.
The trajectory of intellectual activism in the first fifteen years following the handover of Hong Kong prompted Mirana May Szeto, then an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong, to broaden the scope of what she described as unilateral “grassroots activism,” which had primarily been associated with human rights and citizens’ welfare. In collaboration with her colleague Pun Ngai, Szeto sought to develop a more expansive framework of intellectual activism, culminating in what she termed “cultural activism.” This concept extended the narrow focus on basic labor rights within worker movements to encompass a multi-layered and multidirectional form of activism that integrated civic movements, consumer movements, labor movements, environmental protests, and cultural preservation efforts.[10] Under the rubric of cultural activism, alliances were envisioned to form horizontally across organizations, decentralizing traditional decision-making structures and fostering collaborative networks. Intellectual activists contributed to this broader trend by discursively redefining and revalorizing previously marginalized or neglected ideas. As Szeto argued, cultural activism provides a framework through which a constellation of ideas and practices—such as democratized urban redevelopment, environmental protection, community-based economies, resistance to hegemony, migrant rights, civic rights, and the formation of cultural identity—can be interconnected. This approach emphasized the importance of cultural activism as a means of fostering holistic and inclusive social movements that address a wide spectrum of socio-political and cultural concerns.[11]
One of the most prominent examples of this cultural activism trend was the Queen’s Pier Movement—a campaign advocating for the democratization of urban planning and the decommodification of public space. What set this movement apart from other forms of social activism focused on human rights was that the “subaltern” in this case was not a marginalized group of people, but rather the commons—spaces and resources reclaimed by the government for either public projects or private commodification. This emphasis on non-human commonality marked a significant departure from traditional activism and introduced a new dimension to the discourse. Equally significant was the emergence of a new subjectivity, which Mirana Szeto has described as part of a decolonization project. This decolonized identity was redefined not from a national perspective but through a grassroots reinterpretation of space and history. Activists emphasized how common people had historically shared and utilized such spaces, thereby grounding their demands in the collective memory and lived experiences of the community. However, Szeto’s conceptualization of decolonization extended beyond the cultural identification of a specific locale. It also encompassed resistance to neoliberalism and the commodification of the commons—processes that included the privatization of public services, policymaking, urban planning, and infrastructure. These neoliberal tendencies, while deeply embedded in governance and economic systems, are often difficult for the general public to recognize as forms of domination. Intellectual activists played a crucial role in this context, providing the language and discourses necessary to articulate the struggles against neoliberalism and commodification. They helped clarify what the activism stood against and, more importantly, what it aspired toward. Thus, the decolonizing discourse of Hong Kong’s intellectual activism can be understood not only as a means for young activists to affirm and reimagine their local grassroots identity but also as an urgent call to challenge the status quo. This challenge was manifested through the act of commoning—collectively utilizing and redefining spaces as shared commons—and through redirecting widespread dissatisfaction and anger into a yearning for a more democratized mode of political participation. This dual focus on reclaiming the commons and fostering democratic engagement highlights the transformative potential of intellectual activism in reshaping social and political landscapes.
In addition to the aforementioned group of scholars participating in local activism, the decolonization of this trend of intellectual activism was further shaped by a younger generation of intellectuals and scholars, notably those who identified themselves as the “Post-’80s Generation” (八十後青年). The mid-2000s witnessed the rise of youth counterculture, accompanied by the reimagining of a decolonized subjectivity as a distinctly local phenomenon. This paradigm of decolonization, largely driven by the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, was exemplified by young figures such as Chan King-fai, Chow Sze-chung, Eddie Hoi-dick Chu, and others.[12] Given the prominence of social activism in Hong Kong society during this period, the widespread popularity of these individuals among local citizens is hardly surprising. They were not only regarded as key activist leaders, deeply involved in shaping and directing social movements and political protests, but also as influential opinion leaders who actively contributed to public debates and the formation of alternative knowledge.
For instance, Chow Sze-chung, who later completed his Ph.D. on Hong Kong agriculture at the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University, defended the Queen’s Pier Movement against criticisms of embracing colonialism. He argued, on the contrary, that the movement represented a form of decolonization by reconstructing an alternative narrative of Hong Kong’s history through the exercise of citizens’ civic rights in public space.[13] Similarly, Chan King-fai, in one of his articles, connected the activism of the 2000s with that of the 1970s, describing both as “the fierce struggles of grassroots people” against the colonial legacy of ruthless capitalist urban planning and development.[14] For Chan, the true embrace of colonialism was not the grassroots struggle at colonial-era architecture but rather the uncritical postcolonial continuation of colonial governance models. Eddie Chu, who was elected as a Legislative Council member in 2016, offered a comparable perspective. He described another colonial-era structure repurposed as a public space as embodying “a history of Hong Kong social activism.” Chu argued that the series of movements aimed at preserving colonial architecture were not regressive efforts to embrace colonialism but rather progressive attempts to remember the local history of activism. He viewed this as a way to decolonize the understanding of Hong Kong, reframing it not merely as a financial hub devoid of history but as a place with a rich legacy of grassroots resistance and collective memory.[15] Through their activism and intellectual contributions, these young figures exemplified the evolving dynamics of decolonization in Hong Kong’s social movements. By challenging dominant narratives and reconstructing local history, they redefined what it meant to resist colonial legacies and fostered a deeper awareness of Hong Kong’s grassroots struggles within the broader context of intellectual activism.
The decolonial dimension of intellectual activism is particularly noteworthy, as it recurred throughout Hong Kong’s social activism in the 2000s and has come to be regarded as a significant initiative in returning politics to the grassroots. To be clear, the practice of intellectual activism—establishing discursive and intellectual channels for amplifying the voices of the subaltern—has long been a central theme in postcolonial subaltern studies, and it featured prominently in Hong Kong’s postcolonial social movements. As observed in the previously discussed movements, the contributions of intellectual activists were often characterized by rigorous ideological and political engagement, aimed at addressing the epistemic neglect and violence embedded within the prevailing social order. Moreover, given the pro-decolonial stance of intellectual activism, these activists frequently sought to revisit and reinterpret local history from a grassroots perspective, with the aim of reshaping local subjectivity. The Queen’s Pier Movement is particularly illuminating in this regard. While it ostensibly called for the preservation of a colonial architectural structure—and, by extension, colonial memory—at its core, the movement was a call to rewrite the story of this colonial icon by revisiting and foregrounding grassroots memories associated with it. Through the efforts of intellectual activists, who sought to recover and highlight the forgotten and hidden histories of grassroots struggles, such decolonial projects quickly gained traction and emerged as a significant and increasingly dominant trend in Hong Kong’s social activism. However, the trajectory of decolonial intellectual activism faced challenges in the 2010s, as activism addressing the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China shifted towards regionalism and took a populist localist turn. One notable example is Chin Wan, who initially supported the Queen’s Pier Movement by emphasizing its demands for democratic planning and the preservation of the site as a means of safeguarding the memory of grassroots activism.[16] However, he later became a leading proponent of anti-mainland localism. This subsequent rise of anti-mainland localism became a dominant theme in social activism during this period. This ongoing process of reshaping intellectual activism through the lens of regionalism and localism, and the broader social implications associated with it, warrants further exploration—an analysis that extends beyond the scope of this brief essay.
* Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Research Grants Council [project number: 23602424].
AUTHOR
Enoch Yee-lok Tam is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Digital Arts and Creative Industries at Lingnan University. His research engages with film historiography in Chinese-language film, Hong Kong film history and film policy, and East Asia’s creative and media industries. Currently, he is working on a book project examining the development of Hong Kong’s independent documentaries in the post-handover period.
NOTES
[1] Pang Laikwan, “Hong Kong’s Political Struggles Amidst a New Global Order,” position politics, https://positionspolitics.org/hong-kongs-political-struggles-amidst-a-new-global-order/. Retrieved on 3 March 2025.
[2] See Enoch Yee-lok Tam, “Navigating Place, Space and Land: Hong Kong Social Activist Documentary Film in the Era of Post-colonial Neoliberal Developmentalism,” Screen 65.3 (2024): 395–414. See also Ip Iam-chong, “State, Class and Capital: Gentrification and New Urban Developmentalism in Hong Kong,” Critical Sociology 44.3 (2018): 391–562.
[3] See Chun Chun Ting, “The Star and the Queen: Heritage Conservation and the Emergence of a New Hong Kong Subject,” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 25.2 (2013): 80–129; and Yun-Chung Chen and Mirana M. Szeto, “Reclaiming Public Space Movement in Hong Kong: From Occupy Queen’s Pier to the Umbrella Movement,” in Jeffrey Hou and Sabine Knierbein, eds., City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2017), pp. 68–82.
[4] Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988), pp. 271–313.
[5] See Anna Lundberg, “What Should We Do as Intellectual Activists? A Comment on the Ethico-political in Knowledge Production,” in Marie Sandberg, Luca Rossi, Vasilis Galis, and Martin Bak Jørgensen, eds., Research Methodologies and Ethical Challenges in Digital Migration Studies: Caring For (Big) Data? (Bern: Springer Nature; 2022), p. 252.
[6] Ibid.
[7] See his interview “Better to Return Home” (不如歸去), Ming Pao Weekly, 28 May 2017. Retrieved from https://www.mpweekly.com/culture/cu0001/%E5%9B%9E%E6%AD%B8-%E6%98%9F%E6%9C%9F%E6%97%A5%E4%BA%BA%E7%89%A9-%E6%9C%AC%E5%9C%9F-34635.
[8] See for examples, Chen Yun-chung, “Star Ferry Pier, Queen’s Pier, and Fake Consultation” (天星、皇后與假諮詢), Ming Pao, 28 April 2007; Chen Yun-chung, “The Liberal and Nativist Imaginations of the Local” (開放派與土著派的本土想像), Apple Daily, 29 May 2013; and Chen’s interview in Or Wing-man, “The First Case of Preservation the Architecture and the Community in Hong Kong: A Long Growing Lesson for the Neighbours” (香港首項留屋留人保育 一次漫長的街坊成長課), HK01, 28 January 2016.
[9] Lundberg, “What Should We Do as Intellectual Activists?”; See also Uzoechi Nwagbara, “Political Power and Intellectual Activism in Tanure Ojaide’s The Activist,” Nebula 5.4 (2008): 225–253.
[10] Mirana May Szeto, “The Operational Logic and Relationship between Community Activism, Social Activism, and Political Activism” (區運、社運、政運的運作邏輯與關係), Thinking Hong Kong 5 (2014): 25–35.
[11] Ibid.
[12] For example, then-Associate Professor of the Department of Cultural Studies, Law Wing-sang, contributed to the social activism through his publications in both English and Chinese. His works, such as Collaborative Colonial Power: The Making of the Hong Kong Chinese (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009) and 《殖民無間道》 (Re-theorizing Colonial Power, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press [Hong Kong], 2007), became widely read and influential among the new generation of activists.
[13] Chow Sze-chung, “The True Meaning of Liberating the History of the Queen’s Pier” (解放皇后碼頭歷史的根本意義), Ming Pao, 22 August 2007.
[14] Chan King-fai, “Whose Hong Kong Story? Which Type of Hong Kong People” (誰的香港故事，什麼樣的香港人？), Ming Pao, 29 July 2007.
[15] Eddie Chu, “Demolishing the Pavilion, Protecting the Statue of Queen Victoria Forever” (涼亭被拆，女王像長存), In-Media, 22 August 2007. Retrieved from https://www.inmediahk.net/%E7%A4%BE%E9%81%8B/%E5%BA%B6%E6%B0%91%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB%E7%B3%BB%E5%88%97%E2%94%80%E2%94%80%E6%B6%BC%E4%BA%AD%E8%A2%AB%E6%8B%86%EF%BC%8C%E5%A5%B3%E7%8E%8B%E5%83%8F%E9%95%B7%E5%AD%98.
[16] See Chin Wan, “Star Ferry” (天星), Hong Kong Economic Journal, 18 January 2007.