Description
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'Where are you from?' is a question you can't avoid as a traveller, migrant or foreigner. But what if you live in a state of which you don't feel you belong to its nation? What if your national identity is not an important identity marker at all? As a result of globalization, political and cultural boundaries often don't coincide anymore. This makes it very hard to define to what national culture one belongs, which is exactly the case for Hong Kongers. After having been colonized by Great Britain for over a century, Hong Kong was reunited with/returned to China in 1997. During colonial rule Hong Kongers managed to construct a very own and unique Hong Kong culture, unlike adopting a British identity or holding on to Chinese culture. Therefore nationalism is a rather confusing topic to most Hong Kongers nowadays. "On the road towards feelings of belonging" is the result of anthropological research in Hong Kong. It helps us understand Hong Kong culture, in relation to Chineseness and Chinese culture, and ultimately questions the need for a national identity and its accompanying loyalty to a nation.
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Ca, ThuyThuy Ca (1990) has obtained her degree in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University. As part of her bachelor's thesis she conducted fieldwork research in Hong Kong. She studied the dynamics of cultural identity and feelings of belonging that she experiences herself too, being born to Vietnamese parents and growing up in the Netherlands.
