Tracing trans-regional discursive flows in Pink Dot Hong Kong promotional videos
(Homo)normativities and nationalism, activism and ambivalence
In this article, we extend discourse analytical research that has focused on Pink Dot events in Singapore to events in
Hong Kong. As such we engage queer Sinophone perspectives to examine the simultaneously local and transregional epistemological flows that
converge and diverge within the margins of the Sinophone cultural sphere. Using a multimodal analysis of two Pink Dot Hong Kong promotional
videos, we investigate the extent to which these videos follow the (homo)normative and (homo)nationalist discursive strategies identified in
the literature on Pink Dot Singapore. Our analysis suggests that ambivalences surrounding national identity, citizenship and state-sponsored
national values in the Hong Kong videos bring into question readings of the Pink Dot movement as a (homo)nationalist enterprise, thus
indicating an emergent relocalization of Pink Dot strategies that draws attention to how queer movements in Hong Kong are currently being
shaped within the city’s broader sociopolitical context.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Hong Kong and Singapore: Perspectives from queer Sinophone cultures
- 3.Intra-regional flows: From tongzhi discourse to Singaporean homonationalism (and back again)
- 4.Analytical approach
- 5.Pink Dot HK 2014 – Embrace our differences. Celebrate diversity!
- 6.Pink Dot 2018 – Pink Ambassadors 粉紅大使 – Angus Leung and Scott Adams
- 7.Concluding remarks
- Notes
-
References
References (44)
References
Barr, Michael. 2019. Singapore: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris & Co. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chiang, Howard. 2013. (De) provincialising China: Queer historicism and Sinophone postcolonial critique. In Queer Sinophone Cultures, Howard Chiang & Ari Larissa Heinrich (eds). 19–43. New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chiang, Howard & Heinrich, Ari Larissa (eds). 2013. Queer Sinophone Cultures. New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chou, Wah-Shan. 2001. Homosexuality and the cultural politics of tongzhi in Chinese societies. In Gay and Lesbian Asia: Culture, Identity, Community, Gerard Sullivan & Peter A. Jackson (eds), 27–46. New York: Haworth Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chua, Lynette J. 2012. Pragmatic resistance, law, and social movements in authoritarian states: The case of gay collective action in Singapore. Law & Society Review 46(4): 713–748. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chua, Lynette J. 2014. Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State. Singapore: NUS Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
George, Cherian. 2000. Singapore the Air-Conditioned Nation: Essays on the Politics of Comfort and Control 1990–2000. Singapore: Landmark Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hall, Kira, Levon, Erez & Milani, Tommaso M. 2019. Navigating normativities: Gender and sexuality in text and talk. Language in Society 48(4): 481–489. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Johnstone, Barbara. 2009. Stance, style, and the linguistic individual. In Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives, Alexandra Jaffe (ed), 29–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kam, Lucetta Y. L. 2017. Return, come out: Queer lives in postcolonial Hong Kong. In Hong Kong Culture and Society in the New Millennium, Yiu-Wai Chu (ed). 165–178. Singapore: Springer. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kong, Travis S. K. 2011. Chinese Male Homosexualities: Memba, Tongzhi and Golden Boy. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kong, Travis S. K., Lau, Sky H. L. & Li, Eva C. Y. 2015. The fourth wave? A critical reflection on the tongzhi movement in Hong Kong. In The Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia, Mark McLelland & Vera Mackie (eds), 188–201. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kress, Gunther. 2014. Multimodal discourse analysis. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, James Paul Gee & Michael Handford (eds), 35–50. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kress, Gunther R. & van Leeuwen, Theo. 2006. Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design. London: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lam, Wai-man. 2005. Depoliticization, citizenship, and the politics of community in Hong Kong. Citizenship Studies 9(3): 309–322. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lau, Holning S. 2011. Grounding conversations on sexuality and Asian law. University of California Davis Law Review 441: 773–802.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lau, Siu-kai. 2002. Tung Chee-hwa’s governing strategy: The shortfall in politics. In The First Tung Chee-hwa Administration: The First Five Years of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Siu-kai Lau (ed), 1–40. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lazar, Michelle M. 2017. Homonationalist discourse as a politics of pragmatic resistance in Singapore’s Pink Dot movement: Towards a southern praxis. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21(3): 420–441. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lazar, Michelle M. forthcoming. Semiotics of homonationalism. In The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, Kira Hall & Rusty Barrett (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lee, Po-han. 2019. Queer Asia’s body without organs: In the making of queer/decolonial politics. In Queer Asia: Decolonising and Reimagining Sexuality and Gender, Daniel Luther & Jennifer Ung-Loh (eds), 219–242. London: Zed Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Leong, Laurence Wai Teng. 2012. Sexual vigilantes invade gender spaces. In Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures, Audrey Yue & Jun Zubillaga-Pow (eds), 59–69. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Leung, Helen Hok-Sze. 2008. Undercurrents: Queer Culture and Postcolonial Hong Kong. Vancouver: UBC Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Luther, Daniel & Ung-Loh, Jennifer (eds). 2019. Queer Asia: Decolonising and Reimagining Sexuality and Gender. London: Zed Books.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Martin, Fran. 2014. Transnational queer sinophone cultures. In The Routledge Handbook of Sexuality Studies in East Asia, Mark McLelland & Vera Mackie (eds), 53–66. New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Martin, Fran, Jackson, Peter A., McLelland, Mark & Yue, Audrey (eds). 2008. AsiaPacifiQueer: Rethinking Genders and Sexualities. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Milani, Tommaso M. & Lazar, Michelle M. 2017. Seeing from the South: Discourse, gender and sexuality from southern perspectives. Journal of Sociolinguistics 21(3): 307–319. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Milani, Tommaso M. & Levon, Erez. 2016. Sexing diversity: Linguistic landscapes of homonationalism. Language & Communication 511: 69–86. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Milani, Tommaso M. & Levon, Erez. 2019. Israel as homotopia: Language, space, and vicious belonging. Language in Society 48(4): 607–628. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ochs, Elinor. 1996. Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (eds), 438–469. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Phillips, Robert. 2014. ‘And I am also gay’: Illiberal pragmatics, neoliberal homonormativity and LGBT activism in Singapore. Anthropologica 56(1): 45–54.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Puar, Jasbir K. 2007. Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. Raleigh, NC: Duke University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Schiffrin, Deborah. 1994. Approaches to Discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Shih, Shu-mei. 2007. Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations across the Pacific. Berkeley: University of California Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tan, Chris. 2015. Pink dot: Cultural and sexual citizenship in gay Singapore. Anthropological Quarterly 88(4): 969–996. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tan, Chris. 2016. A ‘great affective divide’: How gay Singaporeans overcome their double alienation. Anthropological Forum 26(1): 17–36. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wong, Alvin K. 2020. Queer vernacularism: Minor transnationalism across Hong Kong and Singapore. Cultural Dynamics 32 (1–2): 49–67. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wong, Andrew D. 2005. The reappropriation of tongzhi. Language in Society 34(5): 763–793. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wong, Day. 2007. Rethinking the coming home alternative: Hybridization and coming out politics in Hong Kong’s anti-homophobia parades. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 8(4): 600–616. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wong, Day. 2004. (Post-)identity politics and Anti-normalization: (Homo)sexual rights movement. In Remaking Citizenship in Hong Kong, Agnes S. Ku & Pun Ngai (eds), 195–214. London: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wong, Kai Yeung. 2015. Taking transgender rights seriously: A rights-based model of gender recognition in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Law Journal 45(1): 109–126.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Yue, Audrey. 2012. Queer Singapore: A critical introduction. In Queer Singapore: Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures, Audrey Yue & Jun Zubillaga-Pow (eds), 1–25. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Yue, Audrey. 2017. Trans-Singapore: Some notes towards queer Asia as method. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 18(1): 10–24. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Yue, Audrey & Leung, Helen Hok-Sze. 2017. Notes towards the queer Asian city: Singapore and Hong Kong. Urban Studies 54(3): 747–764. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Rowlett, Benedict J. L. & Christian Go
2024.
“The Amazingly Fabulous Tuk tuk Race”: mobility and carnival praxis in the semiotic landscape of Phnom Penh Pride.
Social Semiotics 34:3
► pp. 430 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Pak, Vincent
2023.
Lighting, signing, showing: The circulability of Pink Dot's counterpublic discourse in Singapore.
Journal of Sociolinguistics 27:1
► pp. 24 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 august 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.