Article published In:
Occupy Hong Kong: Historicizing ProtestEdited by John Flowerdew and Rodney H. Jones
[Journal of Language and Politics 15:5] 2016
► pp. 609–642
Edited by John Flowerdew and Rodney H. Jones
[Journal of Language and Politics 15:5] 2016
► pp. 609–642
Itineraries of protest signage
Semiotic landscape and the mythologizing of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement
The pro-democracy occupation of three commercial and retail areas in Hong Kong that lasted over two months in the fall of 2014 – known as the Umbrella Movement – created a myth of Utopia (Barthes 1984 [1954]). In this paper, we track the itineraries (Scollon 2008) and resemiotizations (Iedema 2003) of the protest signage to show how they mythologized the Movement by “branding space”, “regulating and disciplining actions”, and “unifying the voice of protest”. We argue that the semiotic processes and effects involved in the emplacement and widespread distribution of the protest signage were not only key in the mobilization during the Movement but also the emergence and reinforcement of a “new” Hongkonger identity in the long run.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Background of the Umbrella Movement
- 3.Signs of protest: circulation and reterritorialization
- 4.Resemiotizing protest signage
- 4.1Branding space
- 4.2Regulating and disciplining actions
- 4.3Unifying the voice of protest
- 5.Discussion: Mobility, locality, and the mythology of Hongkongers
- Notes
-
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