About the Project 

The project asks what it means to belong, for people from South Asian backgrounds across generations in Hong Kong. Using linguistic and visual ethnography and co-production, the project addresses this question through the sociolinguistic study of narratives and through participatory photography. In so doing, it offers enhanced understanding of belonging and settlement to inform practice and policy.  

The project focuses on belonging in relation to integration, central to much critical scrutiny in Hong Kong and a concern in current debates about migration and citizenship worldwide. The often-overlooked ethnic diversity of Hong Kong highlights a longstanding presence of migrants and the descendants of migrants from South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan and Nepali) backgrounds. This project combines the study of language alongside arts practice to examine how new arrivals, long-term residents and those born in Hong Kong, are engaged in processes of belonging. That is, how are they dynamically constructing different, multiple belongings at a time when established notions of nationhood, and associated ideas of linguistic and cultural homogeneity, are being both reinforced and disputed.