Blacky, Tramp, and Bobby: The Forgotten Dog Purge in Hong Kong’s Progressive Seventies
Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Research Seminar
Blacky, Tramp, and Bobby: The Forgotten Dog Purge in Hong Kong’s Progressive Seventies
Professor Catherine Chan
Department of History
Lingnan University
Date and Time: March 12, 2024 | 12:30-1:30 pm (HKT) / March 11, 2024 | 9:30-10:30 pm (PDT)
Venue: Lecture Hall at May Hall, HKU
Join us in person at May Hall or via Zoom using the following link:
https://hku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WivLaOrORnm6GZ6aDL2mMw
(Light refreshments will be served for those attending the seminar in person)
Abstract
1970s Hong Kong is usually remembered as a period of optimism, progress, and constructive reinvention. The MacLehose administration, the longest in the history of British Hong Kong, introduced a series of social reforms—free education, more housing projects, better social welfare, etc.—to regain local support following the social disturbances of 1966 and 1967. The well-publicised ‘Hongkong Clean Campaign,’ which ran for years in hopes of improving the city’s sanitation, was more than a call to sweep the city’s streets and housing estates clean. Delving into the anti-dog movement that climaxed during the campaign, my study sheds light on the darker side of Hong Kong’s progressive seventies. It aims to show that on the other side of the Hong Kong administration’s attempts to improve general sanitation, the city-wide cleanup saw the construction and subsequent purging of certain ‘undesirables.’ This resulted in the irrational slaughter of thousands of dogs and the restructuring of human-canine relations, particularly with the lumping of domesticated, stray, and feral dogs into the same category of ‘nuisance.’
About the Speaker
Catherine Chan is Research Assistant Professor in History at Lingnan University. She is a social and urban historian of diaspora, heritage issues, and human-animal relations in East and Southeast Asia. Chan has published on the Macanese diaspora and is currently working on a project concerning the history of dogs in British Hong Kong.
About the Series
This series aims to introduce a wide range of cutting-edge research in various disciplines and areas.
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