Everyday Hybridity

Dr Paul O'Connor
Sociology/Cultural Studies/Anthropology
Hong Kong/Ethnicity/Everyday Life
Lecturing in Anthropology at CUHK

Author of "Islam in Hong Kong: Muslims and Everyday Life in China's World City"
Hong Kong University Press 2012


This blog discusses my research on Muslims, religious minorities, and ethnicity in Hong Kong. It also looks at social theory, and everyday life academia, issues of multiculturalism, racism in Hong Kong, visual culture, skateboarding culture, and prefigurative politics.

contact: Dr Paul O'Connor
everydayhybridity@gmail.com
http://uq.academia.edu/PaulOConnor
twitter.com/peejayohhsee

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  1. One set of stories I have collected, or have been attentive to listen to and remember, are those of the commutes that people make to work. From an everyday life perspective these routines are both mundane and in essence repetitively uniform. However, the manner in which people approach them and talk about them is often remarkable. We see a variety of tactics, spatial analysis, and personal creativity infused with the commute. A recent posting I made responded to the rather reduced notion of commuting reported in the UK census. It provided a un-dynamic idea of the commute. Not providing ways for us to consider that many people utilised multiple transports to get to work. In Hong Kong people might go bus, tram, MTR. Or various other combinations including a good spell walking. I think the world needs an exegesis on the everyday nature of the commute in Hong Kong. One that engages with the human aspect rather than the statistical.  This is research I am developing. It also takes me to make reference to Iain Borden’s new book ‘Drive’ which looks particularly at the culture of motorway driving and its integration with moving through a landscape. I think mine is in the post.

    One set of stories I have collected, or have been attentive to listen to and remember, are those of the commutes that people make to work. From an everyday life perspective these routines are both mundane and in essence repetitively uniform. However, the manner in which people approach them and talk about them is often remarkable. We see a variety of tactics, spatial analysis, and personal creativity infused with the commute.

    A recent posting I made responded to the rather reduced notion of commuting reported in the UK census. It provided a un-dynamic idea of the commute. Not providing ways for us to consider that many people utilised multiple transports to get to work.

    In Hong Kong people might go bus, tram, MTR. Or various other combinations including a good spell walking. I think the world needs an exegesis on the everyday nature of the commute in Hong Kong. One that engages with the human aspect rather than the statistical. 

    This is research I am developing.

    It also takes me to make reference to Iain Borden’s new book ‘Drive’ which looks particularly at the culture of motorway driving and its integration with moving through a landscape. I think mine is in the post.

     
     

  2. bermudianabroad:

    carlosesoto:

    mrsgoldfrond:

    Cramped Apartments in Hong Kong Shot From Above

    In an effort to raise awareness of the unseemly living conditions in Hong Kong, these cramped apartments in Hong Kong by photographer Benny Lam are shot from above to show the reality of workers in this metropolis. If you thought your dorm or apartment in New York were small, you may be a bit more appreciative after sifting through these cramped apartments in Hong Kong.

    Cramped Hong Kong Living

    There’s not much for me to add to this. Just let the pictures speak for themselves.

    Great shots

     
     

  3. Great tumblr blog here called students portraits. It provides a series of pictures of students from different countries and their living spaces. More precisely their student rooms, digs, study spaces etc. I remember being in halls and documenting my room. I still have the photo somewhere and it really captures a moment in time. It is a simple photo of the room, no-one present, but it is evocative of all the time I spent there studying, writing, hanging out with friends, oversleeping, recovering from the flu…

     
     
  4. This looks good! I shall be seeking this out one day soon. humanscalecities: Everyday Urbanism

    This looks good!

    I shall be seeking this out one day soon.

    humanscalecities:

    Everyday Urbanism

     
     

  5. No news - That is the way it should be

    This week in class we discussed Georges Perec’s very brief writing “Approaches to What?” from his book “Species of Spaces”.

    This slight text is a catalyst for much deeper thought.

    “The daily papers talk of everything except the daily. The papers annoy me, they teach me nothing. What they recount doesn’t concern me, doesn’t ask me questions, and doesn’t answer the questions I ask, or would like to ask”.

    Perec is caustic towards the scandal that papers report. He demands why the mundane scandal of poverty is not addressed, but the car crash is.

    The text has been my shadow this week. Today I see that the Guardian is reporting that there was no violent crime in New York this Monday. This is much more worthy of headline news, yet sadly still it is notable because it is remarkable, not banal. The Guardian also reported demonstrations by a group of women complaining against sexism in the media. One held a placard “We want news not boobs”, an attack on the UK tabloid “Page 3” in the The Sun newspaper. However well placed this argument is, the sexism of The Sun permeates every page, and the sensationalism of its reportage highlight that eradicating “Page 3” will do very little to counter sexism, or deliver news of any quality.

    A friend has told me that his father-in-law regards all news a simply the modern equivalent of watching gladiators at the colosseum. It would appear that there are plenty that would agree with him.

    Perec’s evocative passage has been picked up by many a blogger. I shall leave you with a few entries I found from a simple search.

    The passage itself reproduced

    More on Perec’s observations

    A brief posting

    A buddhist manifesto?

    Someone who doesn’t seem to like it sums up with a clear point

    I found this posted online too.

     
     

  6. I have been thinking about Goffman and Facebook again. His analogy of the Front Stage / Back Stage, tends to fit really well with Social Media. I have posted on this subject before, (here too) and I find the subject of Facebook quite compelling.

    So we go to the subject of quantity right now, rather than quality. Isn’t that what Social Media is really all about? Maximising the network connections, rather than the quality of the information stored. Meaningful posts on Facebook are best acknowledged by an intimate few, whilst “I’m never drinking again”, or “the kids have destroyed the carpet”, get endless responses, comments, and likes etc. 

    So what would the Facebook experience be like if we had only the basic information that our postings were being read? No numbers, not quantified accounts of their reach? The gifs above give a nice idea. on Grosser’s page he also acknowledges how this would translate to other websites. “4,235 people like this” becomes “people like this”, and after all those numbers ultimately become meaningless, so why not dispense with them. They offer a very false understanding of what the “real” impact of anything “social” on the web is. 

    Or perhaps we could turn up the emotional impact (Boesel has a different suggestion on this). Rather than the increasingly vacuous “like”, we could have “4,235 people liked this”, “cried at this”, “laughed at this”, “were sarcastic about this”, “reconsidered some of their life decisions because of this”, “accidentally clicked the mouse whilst looking at this”.

    However, the real issue here is that I have changed the tense. “Liked” rather than “Like” shows us that “Social Media” is temporal, that things have happened and moved on. Perhaps not something that we want to know. Part of the mystique is that it is supposedly timeless, that way we spend more time on it?

    Have a look at this posting by Whitney Erin Boesel and also the product and page she makes reference to by Benjamin Grosser.

     
     

  7. Got my first customer review via Amazon.

    It is great to see the book getting out there and finding an audience. I am humbled by people’s interest in the topic and what I have written. Thanks to the reviewer and the may people that have supported and propelled my research.

     
     
  8. There is a great piece in today’s SCMP about the changing fortunes of Happy Valley. Our old next door neighbour is interviewed and gives an interesting account of current changes. Speaking to many Happy Valley residents over the years I have come to realise that even a simple focus on just one street, Yuk Sau for example, opens you up to a really rich history. I have learnt a great deal about the different people who have worked here and how things have changed over the years. It also details profound social change. I think there is a real need for some in-depth historical sociological and anthropological explorations of places like this. It reminds me of George Perec’s “Life a User’s Manual”, tracing the contours of human life through a building, or a street corner.

    There is a great piece in today’s SCMP about the changing fortunes of Happy Valley. Our old next door neighbour is interviewed and gives an interesting account of current changes. Speaking to many Happy Valley residents over the years I have come to realise that even a simple focus on just one street, Yuk Sau for example, opens you up to a really rich history. I have learnt a great deal about the different people who have worked here and how things have changed over the years. It also details profound social change.

    I think there is a real need for some in-depth historical sociological and anthropological explorations of places like this. It reminds me of George Perec’s “Life a User’s Manual”, tracing the contours of human life through a building, or a street corner.

     
     
  9. Some folks have contacted me asking how to get hold of the book. It should be in the shops in Hong Kong by now, it is also easy to pick up a copy at HKU book shop on campus. Perhaps the easiest way to get hold of it is from HKU Press website. However they changed the webpage link and all my old web links haven’t been working for the last couple of days. So here it is again. Thanks to everyone who has been following the news of the book, and those who have already managed to get hold of a copy. It won’t be out in the US and UK till November, then you can get it on Amazon.

    Some folks have contacted me asking how to get hold of the book. It should be in the shops in Hong Kong by now, it is also easy to pick up a copy at HKU book shop on campus. Perhaps the easiest way to get hold of it is from HKU Press website. However they changed the webpage link and all my old web links haven’t been working for the last couple of days.

    So here it is again. Thanks to everyone who has been following the news of the book, and those who have already managed to get hold of a copy.

    It won’t be out in the US and UK till November, then you can get it on Amazon.

     
     

  10. Who Inherits your iTunes Library and your eBooks?

    This is another fascinating issue to ponder. Again demonstrating how technology at once makes life easier and more complicated by the same click of the mouse.

    Typically we can pass on our music and book collections to families members when we die. But the lifetime of gathering such cultural artefacts in the digital age is much more ambiguous. Digital rights to book and mp3s are not necessarily transferable. It is a peculiar notion to ponder.

    But it also re-instates by belief in the value of a book. Holding a book that your father read is a somatic experience. You engage with the same artefacts that populated someone else’s life. Someone’s everyday life. Even if their are not traces, not coffee mug stains, not underlines passages, no old receipt used spontaneously as a bookmark, the book holds emotional weight. This cannot translate through a kindle, or an iPod.

    The article I link to takes a purely financial appraisal of the issue. But to me is also a sensuous one too. Something to certainly ponder.