What does it mean to be British? To answer this, Multiracial Britishness takes us to an underexplored site of Britishness – the former British colony of Hong Kong. Vivian Kong asks how colonial hierarchies, the racial and cultural diversity of the British Empire, and global ideologies complicate the meaning of being British. Using multi-lingual sources and oral history, Kong traces the experiences of multiracial residents in 1910-45 Hong Kong.

Guiding us through Hong Kong's global networks, and the colony's co-existing exclusive and cosmopolitan social spaces, this book uncovers the long history of multiracial Britishness. Kong argues that Britishness existed in the colony in multiple, hyphenated forms – as a racial category, but also as privileges, a means of survival, and a form of cultural and national belonging. This book offers us an important reminder that multiracial inhabitants of the British Empire were just as active in the making of Britishness as the British state and white Britons.

The Speaker

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Vivian Kong is a social historian of colonial Hong Kong and the Co-Director of the newly founded Hong Kong History Centre at the University of Bristol.

Her research to-date has focused on Hong Kong and its transnational connections, and she has published on migration, identities, and civil society in interwar Hong Kong. She is now working on a new book project about a Eurasian woman who was born in Hong Kong, grew up in Cornwall, worked in London, and died in Singapore.

PROGRAMME

Time: 7 pm – 8 pm, Hong Kong Time
(Reception starts at 6:30 pm)

Admission: In Person at $160 for members, $200 for guests /non-members (Light refreshments are included in the admission fee)

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