30 OCT 2026 (FRI) 15:00-15:15
Updated: 2 days ago
HKU GEOGRAPHY: Monthly Research Talks
Visibility beyond the Visual: Refuge and Resonance in Gentrifying Hong Kong
Date: 30 October 2026 (Friday)
Time: 15:00-15:15 (HKT)
(No registration required)
Abstract:
In this article, we offer a comparative analysis of two marginalised groups, sex workers and foreign domestic helpers, as they seek to negotiate their visibility in two of Hong Kong’s gentrifying neighbourhoods, Sai Ying Pun and Sham Shui Po. Using data from semi-structured interviews, landscape photography, ethnographic observation, surveys of land use, and archival materials collected over a roughly four-year period, we analyse this visibility through a framework built around the politics of aesthetics, or the mental and material architectures used to perceive and interpret the sensory world on an everyday basis. Across our two cases and the two marginalised groups that feature in our analysis, we find that resonating with local norms and expectations—blending into the local landscape—is crucial to survival. We argue that Hong Kong’s longstanding role as a place of refuge is therefore contingent upon this resonance. Further, we join with others in arguing that urban research concerned with the plight of marginalised groups made especially vulnerable by processes of urban change must reimagine its methodologies in order to better understand the many dimensions of the politics of visibility that exceed the strictly visual.
Professor Ben Gerlofs
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, HKU
