Situating Hong Kong Pet-Dog-Child Figures within Colonialist Flows and Disjunctures

Abstract

In this article the author works with posthuman research practices to think with and through the natureculture figure of the pet–dog–child to explore specific dog practices she keeps encountering within the postcolonial nexus of Hong Kong, Britain, and China. By tracing, gathering, and reassembling six knotty aspects of the pet–dog–child figure (i.e. population governance, gender-expressive dogs, the Peke, Victorian sentimentality, becoming ‘common’, and designer dog-bags) the author shows how connections, movements, and disjunctures about pet, dog, and child emerge. By situating Hong Kong dog practices within colonialist flows and disjunctures, the author opens up space for thinking differently about childhoods as situated and gestures towards new ways of reconfiguring Hong Kong childhoods.

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