Anti-hierarchical activism in Hong Kong: the post-80s youth

In 2009, a political youth movement known as the Post-80s emerged in Hong Kong to protest against the construction of a high-speed railway. While local academics and government officials framed the motivations of these youth protesters using economic rationales, I argue here that the Post-80s are better understood as conveying their dissatisfaction towards existing political structures in the city. This profile sets out Post-80s criticisms of the entrenched hierarchical dynamics in Hong Kong political culture that has shaped interactions between the government, political parties and the wider population, and discusses how the Post-80s have responded to the representational imbalances imposed by these hierarchical practices in the local political sphere by advocating for a way of doing politics where individual voices (as opposed to the collective) are emphasized, and where horizontal structures are used. I conclude by exploring the repercussions of this critique on recent political discourses and protests observed in Hong Kong.