Happy Valley heterotopia: representing colonial order in a Hong Kong “other space”

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to trace the development of Hong Kong's Happy Valley from a space associated with dangerous miasmas to the site of a racecourse, recreation ground and a series of cemeteries for the colony's foreign communities while examining the relationship between the exclusion of Chinese from Happy Valley and the notion of colonial order.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper makes use of empirical evidence from historical documents, such as newspapers and government records, and applies Michel Foucault's notion of the heterotopia as a theoretical model.

Findings

This paper provides insights into the relationship between space and power in the colonial setting. It demonstrates that the imposition of colonial order in Happy Valley was a process that involved the exclusion of Chinese and that the various ways in which this order was reinforced, contested and negotiated revealed it to be shallow and incomplete.

Originality/value

This paper sheds light on an underexamined but important colonial space in 19th and early 20th century Hong Kong and complicates the notion of colonial control.

Citation

Vaughan, L.N. (2023), "Happy Valley heterotopia: representing colonial order in a Hong Kong “other space”", Social Transformations in Chinese Societies, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 29-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/STICS-10-2021-0009