Sports as a lens: The contours of local and national belonging in post-handover Hong Kong

Abstract

Through the lens of sport, this article explores the trajectories of local and national belonging in various forms and degrees, which, in turn, bespeak the evolving Hong Kong–China relationship in the larger socio-political context of post-handover Hong Kong. With an eye to cross-border sports competitions (e.g., the Hong Kong-China football rivalry), sport-related events (e.g. gala performance and sports demonstrations by Chinese Olympic gold medalists in Hong Kong) as well as their media representation and repercussion, this article examines the multifarious articulations of local and national identifications registered in the athletes’ and the spectators’ performing bodies, their mediated images and embodiments. The ultimate goal of this article is to tease out the body and identity politics embedded in the production, mediatization and narrativization of local-national relations in an array of official and non-official discourses disclosed through sports practice and viewership partaken in different scenarios.