Powerless or perilous? Ageing women as an emerging social force in Hong Kong
Organizer
Department of Cultural Studies, Lingnan University; Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Programme, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, Lingnan University
Event Title
Cultural Studies Seminar Series, 2006-07
Document Type
Public Seminar
Date
10-23-2006
Time
4:30 p.m. -- 6:00 p.m.
Venue
Room 101, 1/F, B Y Lam Building, Lingnan University
Description
Ageing women have so often been represented in government policy rhetoric, gerontology literatures and journalistic discourse as the genderless, powerless and passive objects of welfare and services; by and large, as a social problem that needs to be monitored and managed. Taking a cultural research approach, this thesis explores ageing women’s actual practices in Hong Kong social movements and aims to re-represent ageing women as active social agents capable of generating multiple ‘tactical identities’ enabling them to participate in and interact with an environment that poses concrete challenges to their participation.
In filling the gap between research on social movements and in social gerontology, both massively studied areas but ones whose mutual interactions are rare, this thesis reviews the social participations of three women at their late 60s and early 70s, who have been actively involved around issues of involuntary removal in public housing, and in health care and rent issues. The research explores how ageing women have used the notions of ‘Old Hong Kong’ and ‘Old residents’—a rhetoric long bound up with their life histories in Hong Kong—to create a ‘mask of ageing’ in negotiation and interaction with the authorities, with neighbours, their community and, most importantly, their children. On the other hand, by acting as mothers, as grandmothers and as the ‘por por’ (‘older woman’ in Cantonese) living next door, ageing women in effect compose collectives and form networks in their community to support their independent mode of living. The thesis argues that a new politics of ageing which addresses the everyday realities of ageing women’s lives is essential if we are to offer an alternative interpretation of their ageing experiences.
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Luk, K.-l. (2006, October 23). Powerless or perilous? Ageing women as an emerging social force in Hong Kong [Video podcast]. Retrieved from http://commons.ln.edu.hk/videos/429
Additional Information
Speaker
Ms LUK Kit-ling is currently the Research Development Officer in the Asia-Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies, Lingnan University. She has been actively engaged in community organizing and housing rights movements.
Cultural Studies Seminar Series, 2006-07
The public seminar was part of the Cultural Studies Seminar Series, an ongoing series of informal talks, jointly organized by the Department of Cultural Studies and Kwan Fong Cultural Research and Development Programme (KFCRD), Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, in which researchers in dialogue with leading cultural critics, designers, producers and entrepreneurs working in and around Hong Kong. Aimed at an undergraduate audience, the Seminar used a “chat show” format to encourage students to join in the discussion of new cultural research and development projects.