Hong Kong Studies Association Annual Conference 2025

The Hong Kong Studies Association (HKSA) is pleased to announce the call for paper (CfP) for its 2025 Annual Conference with the theme of (Re)envisioning Hong Kong(s).

Date: 13 -14 June 2025

Background: what is ‘Hong Kong’?

For nearly a century, Hong Kong has served as a geographic space for trans-local, -cultural, and -national encounters under the unique context of British colonialism and China’s One-country-two-system rule, shaping its place, people, and politics. Despite waves of emigration from the territory in the 1980s and 1990s, Hong Kong as a subject in the global context has often been subsumed or assimilated into broader categories or labels. However, this academic imagination of ‘Hong Kong’ falls short in the post-2019/post-National Security Law era, where an exodus of Hongkongers actively seeks agency, capacity, and influence, they are reimagining what it means to be "Hong Kong" or "Hongkonger" in new localities and trans-local contexts. This movement has sparked bottom-up attempts to revitalise Hong Kong's global cultural and intellectual presence, including its arts, languages, and ideas. It has also fostered new forms of social, cultural, educational, linguistic, and political engagement, creating dynamic landscapes across local, international, and virtual spaces.

In these complex contexts, Hong Kong can no longer be encapsulated by a singular academic framework. Simultaneously, the emergence of new Hong Kongs in diverse localities reveals and unsettles previously unnoticed or unquestioned structures of both ‘Hong Kong’ and their new habitats. In light of these developments, ‘Hong Kong’ may become a placeholder for subjects to study, reproduce, and reimagine; lenses to uncover existing social-cultural-political relationalities and structures within local, national, and global contexts; and novel phenomena shaped by Hongkongers navigating their new environments.

Annual conference details

This year’s Hong Kong Studies Association Annual Conference, held over two days, between 13 -14 June 2025, aims to expand the horizons of Hong Kong Studies by examining the diverse and multifaceted concept of "Hong Kongs." The conference poses a central question: How can we innovate theories, methods, and practices to better understand, capture, and reimagine the subjects or subjectivities encompassed by the term "Hong Kong"—including but not limited to a place, a culture, a lived experience and/or a concept?

The conference invites scholars, artists, independent researchers, and graduate students from a variety of disciplines to critically engage in this pivotal question. Alongside broadly defined sub-themes, we welcome any individual papers, organized panels, and creative works that interrogate the central question. The event will also feature keynote addresses, discussions on theoretical and methodological approaches, and community-driven roundtables and workshops. These elements emphasize the importance of collaborative knowledge production and its transformative potential for the field of Hong Kong Studies.

Panel and paper proposals

The conference invites submissions of abstracts exploring the following topics and beyond:

Identities and communities

• Migration patterns, diasporic experiences, and evolving identities of Hong Kongers across global contexts
• Hong Kong communities worldwide and their interconnected networks
• Representation and narratives of Hong Kong identities across local, international, and digital spaces
• Voices from marginalized communities within Hong Kong and its diaspora

Cultural expression and heritage

• Hong Kong in contemporary media, arts, and creative practices
• Preservation of cultural heritage and collective memory
• Historical transitions and their impact on Hong Kong's cultural landscape
• Documentation and interpretation of Hong Kong's past, present, and future

Global perspectives and connections

• Transnational activism and political networks related to Hong Kong
• Challenges and opportunities in studying Hong Kong from abroad
• International solidarity movements and cross-cultural dialogues

Theoretical and methodological approaches

• Theoretical frameworks and methodological innovations in Hong Kong Studies
• Hong Kong as both subject of study and methodological approach
• Critical perspectives on established paradigms in Hong Kong Studies
• New directions and unexplored aspects in the field

Paper submission

All proposals should be submitted by 3 March 2025.

Proposals for individual papers should include:

• Title of the paper
• Abstract (300 words) with 5 keywords
• Short bio with contact information

Proposals for panels (of three papers) should include:

• Panel title
• Title and abstract (300 words) with 5 keywords for each paper
• Short bio and contact information of each speaker

We will have a designated panel for PhD papers. Proposals for PhD papers should include:

• Title of the paper
• Abstract (300 words) with 5 keywords
• Short bio with contact information.

Submit your proposal

Selected PhD speakers will be invited to submit their full papers (6000 words) by 26 May 2025. Each PhD paper will be matched with a discussant. PhD speakers will receive a travel subsidy of £50 and compete for the Best PhD paper award. The best two papers will be awarded a prize.

We welcome submissions from academics at all stages of their career, as well as artists and practitioners. We especially encourage submission from postgraduate students and early career scholars, and papers that focus on or comparatively study the UK context.

Key dates

Registration information will be announced in due course.

This event is co-sponsored by the Hong Kong Studies Association and the British Academy.

This event is co-organised by Dr Elaine Chung, Ka Long Tung and Dr Terry Au-Yeung of Cardiff University, Dr Malte Kaeding of the University of Surrey, Dr Sui-Ting Kong of Durham University and Dr Wayne Wong of the University of Sheffield.

Enquiries

Questions about the conference can be directed to conference.hksa@gmail.com.