Literacies remaking public places: the Umbrella Movement of Hong Kong, 2014

Abstract

AbstractWe approach Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, also known as Occupy Central, encountered in 2 days in November 2014 as an exemplar of literacy as placemaking. As a contemporary city‐based resistance movement, the creation and subsequent resemiotisation of literacy artefacts were an important element of spatialised practice in asserting a new and dynamic sense of citizenship. In their collaborative design, shared commitment to certain values and expressions of political resistance, these occupation sites may be read as an instantiation of Goodsell's concept of public space. The initial research site of engagement gave rise to a dataset of photographs that the authors examined together as discourses in place, informed by cultural knowledge of Hong Kong. Selecting two photographs, we broaden out beyond the linguistic features of texts to consider processes of creative semiotic remediation. We suggest that in such placemaking activities, the Umbrella Movement activists embodied Giroux's concept of literacy as emancipatory practice. Finally, we make suggestions as to how this study might be connected to a critical pedagogy of place.