Deploying Weapons of the Weak in Civil Society: Political Culture in Hong Kong and Taiwan

Part of a special issue on art, power, and social change. A study was conducted to examine how cultures that have been oppressed take repertoires of resistance and turn them into civil speech. Data were obtained from analysis of 144 political cartoons from Hong Kong published in the two months befor...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Lo, Ming-Cheng M. 1965- (Author) ; Bettinger, Christopher P. (Author) ; Fan, Yun (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2006
In: Social justice
Year: 2006, Volume: 33, Issue: 2, Pages: 77-104
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Keywords:
Social Sciences
Elections
Social Contract
Culture
Community Involvement
Social Movements
Political Participation
Civil Society
Description
Summary:Part of a special issue on art, power, and social change. A study was conducted to examine how cultures that have been oppressed take repertoires of resistance and turn them into civil speech. Data were obtained from analysis of 144 political cartoons from Hong Kong published in the two months before the 1995 Legislative Council elections and analysis of 232 political cartoons from Taiwan published two months prior to the 2000 elections. Findings revealed that the cultural inheritance of double consciousness and cynical humor enabled individuals in Hong Kong and Taiwan to participate as public citizens. Drawing on their pasts, these two nascent civil societies develop scripts that enable actors to imagine embracing the fractured self or living with the enemy. In both cases, double consciousness and cynical humor, rather than being irrelevant or disabling, provide a cultural resource for the public to envision mutual engagement across deep-seated divisions. Findings are discussed in detail.