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Youth Activism, Identity Politics and Movement Repertoire in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China

Sun, June 26, 3:00 to 4:50pm, Shikokan (SK), Floor: BF, 002

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed waves of youth activism in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. During the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan in 2014, students occupied the Legislative Yuan for 24 days to oppose a services trade pact between Taipei and Beijing. Later the same year, students in Hong Kong initiated a class-boycott to oppose Beijing’s proposal for political reform. This ignited a 79-day civil disobedience campaign known as the Umbrella Movement. In Mainland China, feminist activists began in 2012 to conduct performative protests against sexist policies. Even though protests in the three locations aimed to address different issues, all are youth-led and captured public attention both at home and abroad.

What new repertoire have the activists taken on and carried out? What new discourses have they constructed? How did activists perceive and perform gender in movements? How did activists re/de-construct national identities through activism and re-imagine the relationship between resistance and state power? Most importantly, how and why did the movements happen in these three societies respectively and at around the same time?

Situated in the intersection of national identity, gender identity, and movement repertoire, our panel seeks answers to these questions by exploring the above movements and their precursors over the past decade. Against the backdrop of China’s rising influence over Greater China and beyond, our discussion will enrich discussions about state-society relations in three locations that have broadly comparable social and cultural backgrounds. In doing so, we aim to encourage the development of new perspectives on collective action in East Asia.

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