After Mobilization : Youth, political engagement and online performance in Hong Kong

My research addresses the process and ability of social actors who “act upon” social changes by generating self-interpretation and representation of social life, on the one hand, and the control over the values and cultural orientations against the authorities, on the other. While the existing literature on social movement and the Internet overemphasizes the exciting but fleeting moments of protest, advocacy, and confrontations, this article examines the intersections of social activism, online curative practices, and their everyday life. In this article, I choose three representative cases from my ethnographic project of Hong Kong young activists who joined the Umbrella Movement in 2014. I argue that despite their similar political experiences, there are three divergent forms of agency embodied in their cultural representations. They represent three discrete and contested contexts and effects, different in scope, efficacies, and nature. As a result, these contestations increasingly alienate the politicized crowd from the civil society and the establishment.