Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Place-Making and Communication Practice: Everyday Precarity in a Night Market in Hong Kong

Mon, May 29, 9:30 to 10:45, Hilton San Diego Bayfront, Floor: 3, Aqua Salon D

Abstract

This study is situated in a night market consisting of unlicensed hawkers in Hong Kong. The existing research on informal economies has presumed the relation of place and class as a given backdrop: informal economy is a static workplace for the poor. To problematize this presumption, this paper uses Cultural Discourse Analysis (Carbaugh, 2007, 2016) to explore how hawkers constitute their identities and the meanings of place. Drawing from the participant observation and semi-structured interviews with 15 hawkers conducted between 2015 and 2016, two cultural terms of class identifications (i.e. the poor and businessman); and a term relating to the power dynamics in place, giving face, have been identified. The analysis shows these terms and associated practices constitute hawkers as precarious beings in place. This paper hopes to contribute to highlighting the constitutive role of place-based communication practice in making everyday precarity in place and contextualize precarity in developing Asia.

Author