Life and death in Hong Kong in an age of cosmopolitanism

Abstract

AbstractRecent events in Hong Kong direct attention to a disturbing trend – the neglect of (selected) life. The society is increasingly discarding its policies and practices concerning immigrant workers, foreign pregnant women and impoverished men and women, whom it deems unworthy of protection or assistance. In this article, I argue for a radical cosmopolitanism that would entail a commitment not only to preventing the taking of life and building a non‐killing society but also to the elimination of the structural conditions that disallow life to the point of death. Drawing on recent bio‐political debates in Hong Kong, I consider the sovereign right over life and death within the neoliberal state. I argue that the state predicates neoliberal sovereignty on a systemic indifference to life; it calculates its bio‐political decisions according to a bio‐arithmetic of economic productivity and social responsibility; and it allows those whom it deems unworthy ‘to die’. As a potential counter discourse, I outline the coordinates and discuss the implications of a commitment to a radical cosmopolitanism.