Tracing trans-regional discursive flows in Pink Dot Hong Kong promotional videos

Abstract

Abstract In this article, we extend discourse analytical research that has focused on Pink Dot events in Singapore to events in Hong Kong. As such we engage queer Sinophone perspectives to examine the simultaneously local and transregional epistemological flows that converge and diverge within the margins of the Sinophone cultural sphere. Using a multimodal analysis of two Pink Dot Hong Kong promotional videos, we investigate the extent to which these videos follow the (homo)normative and (homo)nationalist discursive strategies identified in the literature on Pink Dot Singapore. Our analysis suggests that ambivalences surrounding national identity, citizenship and state-sponsored national values in the Hong Kong videos bring into question readings of the Pink Dot movement as a (homo)nationalist enterprise, thus indicating an emergent relocalization of Pink Dot strategies that draws attention to how queer movements in Hong Kong are currently being shaped within the city’s broader sociopolitical context.