A Ghost Story: Electoral Reform and Hong Kong Popular Theater

Abstract

This chapter examines the cultural dimension of Hong Kong’s Occupy Central movement by analyzing a theatrical production from the period in light of Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology. It argues that despite its purported focus on legal issues surrounding electoral reform, Occupy Central addresses more fundamental tensions about “Britishness” and “Chineseness” that structure Hong Kong identity. It posits that such tensions are creatively registered in Marcus Woo’s Find Ghost Do the CE and that Derrida’s Specters of Marx provides a framework for bringing them to light. It concludes by asking what it might mean to do justice to the complexity of Hong Kong identity in a time of constitutional uncertainty.