Finding place in the liquid city : mobility and identity in Lan Kwai Fong

Abstract

Mobility, the extent and ease that people can move around the globe, is emerging as a key differentiator between people. The increasing fluidity and fleeting nature of people’s social, economic, and political lives has led scholars to label mobility a key stratifying factor today. This study looks at the socio-structural factors which shape how people of different mobility construct and anchor identity during experiences in a global nightscape; Lan Kwai Fong nightlife district, Hong Kong. Over six months, the researcher conducted ethnographic observations and formal interviews with the people of Lan Kwai Fong. Using rhythmanalysis and a liquid modern perspective, the researcher describes an everyday life of deformation and reformation as the middling mobile class navigated lives of change and stability. Upon travelling and navigating the city, subjects claimed mobile identities and lifestyles tethered to Lan Kwai Fong and specific venues within. Through these identities and the constant flow of mobility around the globe, these segregations endure across spaces and into immobile life. The mobile are swept up into a compartmentalised mobile version of Hong Kong, which has places like Lan Kwai Fong as a major node. The immobile population of Hong Kong are transparently excluded as their everyday life does not cross over – if by some aberration they do cross, they feel as they do not belong. This research offers a holistic exposition of a life that flows between mobility/immobility and solid/liquid forms. It shows the transitions from one to the other, and people’s aspirations and efforts to guide their life towards either of the poles. These efforts reorder the city into a configuration stratified by mobility capability and form.