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28 JUL 2025 (MON) 16:05–16:25 

  • Writer: GEOG HKU
    GEOG HKU
  • 6 days ago
  • 1 min read

Between Care and Control: Family Planning and Health Care Work in Vietnamese Refugee Camps in Hong Kong

Miss SHI Zhaohe

( Supervisor: Prof Wesley Attewell )


Abstract:

This research examines the everyday operations of care and control that shaped the experiences of Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong’s camps from the late 1970s to the 1990s. In these camps, the Hong Kong colonial government, in collaboration with UNHCR and various international and local agencies, provided health care, disease management, and family planning services. Drawing on archival sources, this study situates the administration of care work within broader discussions of humanitarianism and biopolitics, tracing how welfare provision structured daily life, health practices, and gender relations in the camps. My research examines how medical check-ups, birth control services, and vaccination programs were used to monitor and control the refugee population. It also looks at how the organisation of logistics, labour, and living spaces reflected the government’s concerns about disease and security. At the same time, it considers the agency of refugees themselves, who navigated, contested, and sometimes appropriated these structures of care in pursuit of survival and autonomy. By focusing on the day-to-day realities of care and control in the camps, this research adds to our understanding of humanitarian aid and colonial management. It shows how medical and welfare services could be used both to govern refugees and to help them survive, and how these systems influenced ideas about health, gender, and security in a time of crisis.

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