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View Hong Kong Shenzhen Border Experiance in a larger map |
When was the last time you went through passport control? What did they ask you? How did you feel?
This project explores the border experience at the Hong Kong Shenzhen Boundary an enforced barriers through examples of five regular border users. |
Introduction
A line that separates two systems within one country provokes a complex web of contradictions, conveniences and possibilities. Created a little over one hundred years ago at a negotiating table between two far off governments, but not enforced till the 1950 along a river separating fishing villages. In 1979 a renewed Chinese leadership embarked on a limited experiment in capitalism creating a special economic zone (SEZ) an attempt to capitalize on a global outsourcing model; which had seen its British Colonial neighbor rise to become a central part of the global manufacturing process.
Now thirty years on, Hong Kong has become ‘Asia’s global city’ a centre for finance and trade and the SEZ, known as Shenzhen has expanded beyond its own boundaries to become the world’s workshop. The border separates territories that though beginning as a contiguous landscape, have experiences vastly different history over the last sixty years. The past decades have seen a massive growth of mobility over the border. This project looked at only a minute and limited number of border users, but though them we can begin to see the impact of a highly regulated border on those who live their lives in its shadow.
Now thirty years on, Hong Kong has become ‘Asia’s global city’ a centre for finance and trade and the SEZ, known as Shenzhen has expanded beyond its own boundaries to become the world’s workshop. The border separates territories that though beginning as a contiguous landscape, have experiences vastly different history over the last sixty years. The past decades have seen a massive growth of mobility over the border. This project looked at only a minute and limited number of border users, but though them we can begin to see the impact of a highly regulated border on those who live their lives in its shadow.
Note. names and some identifying details have been changed to protect the anonymity of participants, map locations represent areas rather than specific locations
Copyright 2012
Copyright 2012