Understanding the Hong Kong music curriculum through the lenses of posthumanism, postcolonialism, and poststructural psychoanalysis

Abstract

AbstractThe use of “post‐isms” has become increasingly prominent in academic discourse because it offers new perspectives for gaining insight into current developments in human society and the historical dimension of culture. In the Hong Kong educational context, the concept of “post‐isms” has permeated the current music curriculum. The curriculum guide alludes to posthumanist primary interests, was created in the postcolonial state after the return of the sovereignty of Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997, and is associated with poststructural psychoanalysis that values the subjectivity of listeners. This article investigates the entanglement of the Hong Kong music curriculum and the “post‐isms” from the perspectives of posthumanism, postcolonialism, and poststructural psychoanalysis. It is found that the curriculum guide demonstrates a commitment to ecology/human relations through both cross‐species communication and understanding, as well as pro‐nature humanism. It entangles with the concept of hybridity in postcolonialism and functions as a strategy of disavowal of the colonial legacy and the cultivation of the original national identity. The guide also perceives music as an agency that produces subjectivity by positioning the listener as subject. By investigating the Hong Kong music curriculum through the three lenses, implications for music curriculum development were drawn. It is urged that only when a music curriculum takes into account the multidimensionality of music can it reveal the greatest potential of music.