Social Networks and Ethnonational Hinges in Hong Kong: A Relational Approach to Ethnonational Identification

ABSTRACT: Hong Kong is a storied city of dynamic ethnonational identities, with attention growing around a Hongkonger identity purportedly distinct from a Chinese one. Using mixed methods, this article critically appraises the social construction of the Hongkonger identity by adopting a relational approach to ethnonational identification. Multivariate regressions on identity indices in a 2019 citywide survey and qualitative interviews with youth on ethnonational identification cast light on novel interpretive associations drawn between (1) a Hongkonger civic identity and (2) a pan-Chinese racial identity. Rather than being cast into a binary, these two identifications are interlocked in this article in what I will call ethnonational hinges: symbolic hinges through which individuals switch between the two identities to appease dislocated segments of their social networks (nonfamilial and familial ties) with competing worldviews, abetted by a moral cognitive impulse for conformity inculcated in Chinese networking culture. KEYWORDS: ethnonational identification, Hong Kong, group boundaries, race, cultural schemas.