Summary of my research project #1

Tenant's Right to the City: Contested Urban Citizenship in Redeveloping Hong Kong

This research, based in Hong Kong, investigates the massive urban redevelopment led by the Urban Renewal Authority and the increasing debates ever since its establishment in 2001. It concerns how urban renewal shapes “urban citizenship” in relation to production of space. It calls attention to the systematic production of dislocation as a result of urban renewal and emerging serviced apartment as new dwelling in gentrified, redeveloped area. By juxtaposing two kind of tenants, those being displaced and those being embraced in the redevelopment vision, and the way they are accommodated in the city, it aims to understand the dynamics between changing dwelling and geographies of care and needs. There are low-income tenants who often provide care work being displaced. Meanwhile, there are increasing international elites living in serviced apartments enjoying privatized care yet often being ignorant to local urban politics that makes the luxurious dwelling possible. By examining changing tenancy exhibited in urban renewal cases in Sham Shui Po and Wanchai, the research is aiming to illustrate the dynamics between tenancy, urban redevelopment, and practice of urban citizenship. All of this then leads to reworking on the issue about tenant’s right to the city.
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中文版本：

香港自2001年起由都市重建局全面推進都市再發展，操作尺度、方式和速度都引起各方關注議論，許多人關心「強制收地」影響持分者權益，然相關「租客」的討論卻較缺乏。這份研究關注都市重建規劃制度對於「都市公民身份」（urban citizenship）和空間社會生產的形塑影響，企圖由居住空間(dwelling)、日常生活照護和需求(care and needs)兩面向來了解「新都市公民」和都市地景變化的多重關係，尤其是沒有地產權的租客（tenants）。本研究欲檢視再發展的香港城市中兩種極端的租客，低收入的新移民以及因應跨國資本流動而增加的外籍白領菁英，試圖理解新移民如何在都市中提供照護勞動(doing care work without being cared)卻無法安居，而跨國白領階層居住於「服務式公寓」（serviced apartment）中卻漠然於匿名隱形的照護服務提供(privatized care)。透過深水埗和灣仔兩區重建案例的比較，本研究希望能描繪重建過程如何促進系統性的空間生產、社會壓迫，呈現極端租客居住空間生產之間的扣連，並據此討論「租客」作為都市公民身分實存的具體表現和都市政治意義。