Negotiating culture, economics and community politics : the practice of Lei Yue Mun tourism in postcolonial Hong Kong

This article is based on an on-going research project that examines how tourism is constructed in Hong Kong by using the specific tourist spot, Lei Yue Mun, as a case study. The article's aim is to demonstrate how the local agents of a small, squatter-based community with a distinctive history and cultural traditions may, without making any claim to indigenousness or aboriginality, manage a local economy and engage in cultural negotiation at the metropolitan, national and global levels. Their economic practices lead the authors to enquire whether preservationism or invoking historical traditions from the margins is the most significant form or strategy of cultural tourism.