“My community doesn’t belong to me anymore!”: Tourism-driven spatial change and radicalized identity politics in Hong Kong

Chapter 5 empirically examines the changes in the street views of three border communities in Hong Kong in response to tourism-driven spatial changes. The late 2000s in Hong Kong witnessed the emergence of public grievances against mass mainland Chinese tourism and parallel trading. The consequential changes induced to local community landscapes and residents’ original lifestyles have brought about a series of unprecedented protests against mainlanders since 2012. Agitated by the fruitless political struggle of Occupy Central in late 2014 that demanded Beijing to give Hong Kong democracy, these “local first” and “my community first” protests have seemingly prompted more locals to self-identify as “Hongkongers” rather than as “Chinese”. This chapter aims to examine the tourism-driven changes at the community level and their relation with the emergence of radicalized identity politics in wider society. Empirically examined are the changing street views in three border communities between 2011 and 2017 (by the novel method of “Google mapping”) and the meanings that 26 young residents (aged 18–34) gave to these changes. Results indicate that the more the local space is shaped by tourism and parallel trading, the more likely that discontent against mainlanders and nostalgia for their original lifestyle were bred among the residents.