Navigating Belonging in Hong Kong: Transcultural Capital, the Authenticity Dilemma and Collaborative Arts-based Research

This paper presents a study of what it means to belong, for young people from South Asian backgrounds in Hong Kong. The work draws from a collaborative visual and linguistic ethnographic arts-based research project called Navigating Belonging, which responded to ongoing and historical oppression of minoritised ethnic groups in Hong Kong. Through narrative generated in interaction and through participatory photography, participants explored their understandings of belonging. In this paper we pay close attention to the narratives of belonging that emerged during the project’s creative practice workshops, alongside the writing, photography, and digital storytelling that were the creative outputs of the project. We focus on the talk of two participants, Rani and Amir, undergraduate students at a university in Hong Kong. In our analysis we invoke the concept of transculturality. We describe and explain how – through their narratives – our participants deploy their transcultural capital as they address questions of the authenticity of their belonging. In our conclusions we highlight the transformative power of arts-based ethnographic research to engender critical reflection that challenges essentialist notions of identity and belonging, for minoritised youth of South Asian descent in Hong Kong. Finally, we suggest implications of our findings for policy development for this population.