The IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume 1 – Issue – I

The IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume 1 – Issue – I

The IAFOR Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume 1 – Issue – I

Occupy Central was a 79-day experiment in urban identity. Occupy—the Umbrella
Revolution of 2014—rearranged space on the streets of Hong Kong. This rearranging
suggests a geography of presence. Such a geography will explain how spaces of transit
become spaces of meaning, how impersonal landscapes become imbued with memory.
This paper takes up the warring ideologies—the accommodating and the
discontented—as well as the range of lived experiences the erupted during Occupy. It
connects the events of Occupy to Hong Kong’s core identity: its Chineseness, its status
as a world city, and its postcolonial legacy. On the political level Occupy seemed
doomed to fail. Yet on the level of signification it subverted an urban landscape through
a reimagining of presence.
Keywords: Occupy Central, umbrella movement, world city, Chineseness, urban
landscape

Holger Briel