Contesting "Law and Order": Immigrants' Encounters with "Rule of Law" in Postcolonial Hong Kong

This article investigates the "rule of law" as a sociocultural concept that has concrete effects on the lives of newly arrived Chinese mainland immigrants in postcolonial Hong Kong. I investigate a seeming paradox: how in Hong Kong the "rule of law"seen as a key symbol of freedom-acted as a vehicle of oppression, and not just belonging, for recently arrived immigrants from mainland China. Through this discussion of how "law" served as a vehicle for immigrants' both belonging to and contestation of the state, I also show how immigrants began to question the basic assumptions of freedom and fairness believed to be inherent to the practice of the rule of law in Hong Kong-as they grappled with novel understandings of the law and new possibilities of exercising rights-based claims.