Caught between Two Transnationalisms: Mainland Chinese Students’ Emotional Conflicts in Recent Hong Kong Protests

Abstract

This article discusses minor transnationalism in China through a case study of mainland students’ emotional conflicts in the recent Hong Kong protests. Examining the emotional representations and experiences of mainland students through analysis of media texts and interviews, the article explains how their experiences are a product of tensions between two competing Chinese transnationalisms in Hong Kong against a backdrop of China's rise. Further unpacking the ways in which mainland students negotiate both nationalist and localist politics through their cross-border mobility, the article reflects on the possibility of a minor transnational positionality that decenters statist configurations of identity. It argues that the case of mainland students in Hong Kong illuminates how a hybridized political subject could emerge amid the effects of the new, Sino-centric version of Chinese transnationalism.