A Water History of Hong Kong
Please note that attendance is strictly by registration only.
This documentary adopts a traditional historical approach, drawing on published sources and archival manuscripts from both Hong Kong and London. It explores five key themes:
1) water, infrastructures, and the environment; 2) water and society; 3) water, culture, and foodways; 4) water usage and management and 5) water and industries.
By weaving these strands together, the documentary offers a timely and original contribution to the environmental, political, social, and economic history of Hong Kong. It also resonates with global conversations on climate change, highlighting how past strategies were developed to cope with water crises in a rapidly urbanising city with limited welfare provisions and a narrow tax base—conditions still mirrored in many regions today.
Through historicising natural disasters and water emergencies, the documentary deepens academic discourse on environmental change and urbanisation, while offering valuable lessons for contemporary challenges. After the documentary, there will be a Q&A session in which the speakers will respond to questions from the audience, and the discussant will provide commentary on the project.
This event constitutes a private premiere restricted exclusively to invited guests, students, and faculty members of Nanyang Technological University. It is conducted solely for educational purposes, carries no admission fee, and has no age restriction. The documentary is an original production created and owned by the investigators as the rights holders.
Speakers:
Dr. Florence Mok is a Nanyang Assistant Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University. She is a historian of colonial Hong Kong and modern China, with an interest in environmental history, the Cold War, and state-society relations. She is the founder of the Hong Kong Research Hub (HKRH).
Dr. Jack Greatrex is Assistant Professor of Urban History at the College of Integrative Studies, Singapore Management University. His work covers histories of infrastructures in Hong Kong, more-than-human life in Malaya, and ecological networks from Tokelau to Tokyo.
Dr. Siu-hei Lai is a socio-cultural anthropologist and currently Lecturer at the Integrative Center for Humanities Innovation (ICHI), Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University. He has a wide range of research interests – youth, migration, agrarian change, technology, governing, ageing society – coalescing around the theme of aspirations in Thailand and Hong Kong.
Mr. Sahil Bhagat is a Research Associate in the History Department at Nanyang Technological University. His research pertains to the transnational labour and environmental histories of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.
Discussant:
Prof. John Carroll is Principal Lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Hong Kong, where he directs the MA programme in Hong Kong History and teaches courses on the history of Hong Kong, the British Empire, museums, and tourism. His research interests include the history of Hong Kong and encounters between China and the West.