(Im)possible to dream: a (self-)censored rhizomatic exploration into Hongkonger becoming-identity

Abstract

This thesis is a rhizomatic exploration into Hongkonger becoming-identity grounded in Deleuze and Guattari’s central philosophy of becoming, rhizome and assemblage. Beginning with a menacing nightmare which evokes strong emotions in me connecting to my (un)familiar homeland – Hong Kong, my research journey unfolds through a series of affective encounters, dreams, dialogues, and reflections situated within the socio-political context. Writing as a nomadic subject (Braidotti 1993), I embark on this (non-)methodological rhizomatic process, and plug into (Deleuze and Guattari 1988) different assemblages including psychoanalysis, schizoanalysis, psycho-social thinking, Social Dreaming (SD) and nomadic/sedentary spatial relating. This rhizomatic cartography engages with one of the main becoming-questions (Jackson and Mazzei 2023) that emerge: How do I relate to my Hongkonger identity and how is it becoming along the process of this work? Emphasising dynamicity, fluidity and complexity, the work conceptualises identity not as a fixed entity but as a dynamic process that de-re-territorialises. Along the becoming line of flight, elements emerge including fear, anxiety, sense of loss, loneliness, disconnection, panopticism, internalised surveillance, (self-)censorship and performative terror, as well as, on the contrary, the desire for movement and a sense of hope. Being caught up in-between being possible and impossible to be a Hongkonger, this thesis makes political, ethical, academic and psychotherapeutic contributions by troubling and rethinking with the political structures, bodies and their potential, SD matrix and – as I offer a post-structuralist way to see the matrix, expanding on Julian Manley’s (2009, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2024) Deleuzian perspective on SD as it deterritorialises along the process – the more-than-matrix. It employs a rhizomatic and nomadic ontology to reimagine subjectivity, identity, home, boundaries within the HK socio-political landscape, while also bringing to life the nomadic mode of spatial relating in the therapeutic setting. This thesis is not a linear account but always in the middle of becoming, an open invitation to think with and move with a practically Spinozian ontological question: What can our bodies do?