Contesting “Law and Order”: Immigrants’ Encounters with “Rule of Law” in Postcolonial Hong Kong

Abstract

This article investigates the "rule of law" as a sociocultural concept that has concrete effects on the lives of newly arrived Chinese mainland immigrants in postcolonial Hong Kong. I investigate a seeming paradox: how in Hong Kong the "rule of law"seen as a key symbol of freedom-acted as a vehicle of oppression, and not just belonging, for recently arrived immigrants from mainland China. Through this discussion of how "law" served as a vehicle for immigrants' both belonging to and contestation of the state, I also show how immigrants began to question the basic assumptions of freedom and fairness believed to be inherent to the practice of the rule of law in Hong Kong-as they grappled with novel understandings of the law and new possibilities of exercising rights-based claims. [rule of law, immigration,

Time and Relational Possibility: Cultural Anthropology in 2017

“…American Anthropologist ’s cross‐discipline virtual issue highlights Franz Boas's classic work on bodily plasticity (Boas ; Gravlee, Bernard, and Leonard ; Sparks and Jantz ), other classic essays on acculturation (Redfield, Linton, and Herskovits ) and urban experience (Mayer ), and (mostly) more recent commentary that prefigures many of the issues taken up this year, such as migrant temporality (Andersson ; Coutin ; Oka ), diasporic nationalism and other questions of belonging (Chavez ; Markowitz, Helman, and Shir‐Vertesh ; Thiranagama ; Vora ; Werner and Barcus ), and how borders and bodies are made to matter (De León ; Fassin and D'Halluin ; McGuire ); this virtual issue also includes several contributions from archaeologists that likewise resonate with work published this year (Anthony ; Cobb ; Monroe ). PoLAR ’s virtual issue highlights past work on the politics and law of migration, especially in relation to borders (Brenneis ; Cabot ; Chock ; Coutin ; Galemba ; Glenn‐Levin Rodriguez ; Goldstein ; Hoag ; Horton ; T. Kelly ; Kobelinsky ; McKinley ; Newendorp ; Sandvik ).…”

Untitled

“…In Hong Kong Cantonese, the word noidei (内地, neidi in Mandarin) is a neutral term that indicates what lies across the border-that is, mainland China. It is at the Shenzhen-Hong Kong border that noidei begins; and this is where the rule of law, freedom, nonviolence, and all other values cherished by Hong Kong society as the core of its identity are understood to stop short (see Chang 2003Chang , 2016Newendorp 2011). Under this formulation, Shenzhen is rarely, if ever, distinguished from the rest of mainland China in any meaningful way.…”

Rule-of-Law Ethnography

“…It is place conscious insofar as, unlike formal institutional ethnographies, an ethnographically sensitive study of the rule of law has no predetermined site, like an apex or military court (e.g., Hajjar 2005, Lokaneeta 2017), the archives of a defunct state agency (e.g., Markovits 2010, Verdery 2014), or police stations and patrols (e.g., Fassin 2013, Jauregui 2016). All of these sites might recommend themselves, but a service center for migrants (Newendorp 2011) or a transnational advocacy organization (Rajah 2014) might too. Whatever the site, the researcher is interested in locating and following the rule-of-law idea or some other idea with which it is related through observable arrangements of meaning that change over time.…”

“…But in that case the extension of ethnography to the idea will depend on empirical observation and theoretical reflection, not on preliminary design. Newendorp's (2008Newendorp's ( , 2011) study of a social service center for immigrants to Hong Kong from mainland China is an instance of this latter mode of inquiry. Newendorp encountered a deep ambivalence toward the rule of law among the immigrants at the center that demanded scrutiny.…”