HKU Press, 2011.
by Gordon Mathews, Professor of Anthropology at CUHK

Reservation & Contact: Heipo Leung
cefc@cefc.com.hk / tel: 2876 6910

Abstract:

Chungking Mansions, a dilapidated seventeen-story commercial and residential structure in the heart of Hong Kong’s tourist district, is home to a remarkably motley group of people. Traders, laborers, and asylum seekers from all over Asia and Africa live and work there, and even backpacking tourists rent rooms in what is possibly the most globalized spot on the plan¬et. But as Ghetto at the Center of the World shows us, the Mansions is a world away from the gleaming headquarters of mul¬tinational corporations — instead it epitomizes the way globaliza¬tion actually works for most of the world’s people. Through candid stories that both instruct and enthrall, Gordon Mathews lays bare the building’s residents’ intricate connections to the international circu¬lation of goods, money, and ideas.

Speaker:

Gordon Mathews is professor of anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Global Culture/Individual Identity: Searching for Home in the Cultural Supermarket and What Makes Life Worth Living? How Japanese and Americans Make Sense of Their Worlds, coauthor of Hong Kong, China: Learning to Belong to a Nation, and coeditor of several books.

ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME!

This seminar will be held in English.
Sebastian Veg, Director of the CEFC, will chair the session.
Snacks and drinks will be served after the seminar.
Seats are limited. Please confirm your attendance.