Highway for a "Lineage": The study of the Fu settlement at Western New Territories, Hong Kong
Abstract:
Powerful, dominant and long-lived lineages of the New Territories of Hong Kong are well documented in historical and anthropological literature. These lineages are cited as models of patrilineal descent ideology, and as demonstrations of the ability of lineages to support and organize their members and to wield political power. This study examines a new aspect of New Territory lineages. Only in the last few decades, a small surname group in Sham Tseng transformed itself into a “lineage”. By documentary research in government and corporate and private papers, and by extensive fieldwork and interview, this study reveals that the FU “lineage”, established on claims of patrilineal descent, was organized differently from the classical lineages traced in previous studies. The lineage was an administrative convenience, established along lines of settlement locality. This study explains the present state of understanding of a new phenomenon in the social history of the New Territories: a legally recognized lineage which lacks the basic ideology of lineage described by classic studies of kinship and society in South China.
Speaker:
Mr Carl LAU
Teaching Fellow I, Department of Social Sciences
Before joining the Institute in 2008, Mr Carl Lau has taught in secondary schools in Hong Kong for more than 7 years. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto with major in Environmental & Resource Management and minors in History & Economics. He had completed a MA (China Studies) program and a MPhil (History and Anthropology) program at HKUST. Currently he is doing his PhD. program in history and anthropology at the Division of Humanities, HKUST.