Borders & Barricades: A Study of the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement in Hong Kong

Abstract

Amidst the global rise of resistance against crises and discontent, space performs an elementary role in pursuing changes to the status quo. Hong Kong’s administrative boundaries have been in continuous shifts throughout the process of British occupation and now from the impending expiration of the city’s Special Administrative Region status in 2047. Between appearing and disappearing borders, Hong Kong is suspended in entangled states of impermanence. Increasingly, political mechanisms are proposed to diminish the city’s border with China. The Extradition Law Amendment Bill introduced in 2019 is one of the latest examples of such a mechanism that challenges the threshold and identity of Hong Kong.

This thesis studies the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement by contextualizing its spatial practices within Hong Kong’s spatial narrative and postcolonial identity. In the opening chapter, this thesis correlates the latest social movement with the city’s physical and legislative borders, highlighting the spatial implications of the proposed extradition law. The following chapter positions the movement and the proposed legislation as a border within the chronology of Hong Kong’s historical protests, highlighting the continuity of spatial practices by both the state and the people of Hong Kong. Finally, the Movement is dissected to understand specific mechanisms used as counter-borders for challenging control in politicized spaces. Through this investigation, this research intends to highlight the inherent intertwined relationship between space, control and time in the pursuit of societal change.