Cultural Citizenship and ‘Minority’ Belonging Through the Curriculum in Post-Handover Hong Kong

Cultural institutions, such as museums, provide archetypal venues for the creation and promulgation of the ‘cultural’ element of citizenship. Likewise, education, as an instrument for the creation of the ‘good citizen’ both demonstrates the (cultural) values of the ‘nation’, and offers a reflection of what (and who) this includes. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, a semi-autonomous political entity within the broader context of China, presents a peculiar case for the exploration of ‘citizenship’. Since the Handover, Hong Kong has experienced fundamental changes to how both the notion of the ‘good citizen’ and ‘citizenship’ are conceptualised and mobilised by the regime. In recent years, there has been a drastic shift towards a focus on ‘patriotism’ and ‘national education’ which has eclipsed or reversed many of the previous changes in how these notions have bene conceptualised. These shifts have impacted the ways in which ‘minority’ and ‘minoritised’ communities in Hong Kong can ‘belong’, and the extent to which they are able to access their full rights as (cultural) citizens. The ‘myth of homogeneity’ espoused, implicitly and explicitly, in much of the media in and about Hong Kong is contrasted with the fact of Hong Kong’s diversity and cosmopolitanism. This paper explores the development of the notion of ‘the citizen’ in Hong Kong from the establishment of the Special Administrative Region in 1997 to the present from a cultural citizenship perspective. By drawing on official documents, parliamentary records, mass media sources, and social organisations’ reports, this paper critically examines the development of ‘citizenship’ through curricula since the Handover. In particular, this paper seeks to examine the ways in which ‘the citizen’ is constructed which facilitate, or preclude, the representation of Hong Kong’s ethnic diversity.