Delta on the Move Lecture Series

Oysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

2022-05-04 08:00:002022-05-04 09:00:00Asia/Hong_KongOysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

Delta on the Move Lecture Series
Oysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

Dr. Denise Y. Ho
(Yale University)

Date/Time: May 4, 2022 (8:00 am HKT)
Language: English
Venue: Conducted via Zoom
Enquiry: (Email) ihss@hku.hk

    2022-05-04 08:00:002022-05-04 09:00:00Asia/Hong_KongOysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

    Delta on the Move Lecture Series
    Oysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

    Dr. Denise Y. Ho
    (Yale University)

    Date/Time: May 4, 2022 (8:00 am HKT)
    Language: English
    Venue: Conducted via Zoom
    Enquiry: (Email) ihss@hku.hk

      Title:

      Oysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

      Speaker:

      Dr. Denise Y. Ho (Yale University)

      Date/Time:

      May 4, 2022 (8:00 am HKT)

      Language:

      English

      Enquiry:

      (Email) ihss@hku.hk

      Title:

      Oysterman and Refugee: Hong Kong and China Between the Tides, 1949 – 1997

      Speaker:

      Dr. Denise Y. Ho (Yale University)

      Date/Time:

      May 4, 2022 (8:00 am HKT)

      Language:

      English

      Enquiry:

      (Email) ihss@hku.hk

      Abstract

      This talk examines the Hong Kong-China maritime border since 1949.  It focuses on the oyster producing communities in the tidelands of the Pearl River Estuary, showing how oystermen — some of them also refugees — faced security threats exacerbated by the Cultural Revolution while they also leveraged the borderland’s opportunities.  The oyster industries are a case study in two forms of agricultural production: traditional land and labor relations on the Hong Kong coast, and collective agriculture in China’s socialist period, followed by decollectivization in the reform era.  By the end of the Mao years in 1976, China’s oyster industry well exceeded that of Hong Kong’s, but both systems were vulnerable to industrial pollution.  In the reform era and after, China’s oystermen built upon persistent networks to navigate their position between Hong Kong, Shenzhen, and the Pearl River Delta.  The prosperity of the China oysterman, rather than the Hong Kong refugee, illustrates the inversion of the border’s valence from a postcolonial past to a postsocialist future.

      About the Speaker

      Denise Y. Ho is assistant professor in the Department of History at Yale University.  She is the author of Curating Revolution: Politics on Display in Mao’s China (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and co-editor of Material Contradictions in Mao’s China (University of Washington Press, forthcoming).

      Organizer

      This is an event organized by the “Delta on the Move: The Becoming of the Greater Bay Region, 1700 – 2000” Research Cluster.

      POSTER