‘Oddball’ Hong Kong institute develops cutting edge Asian research - including ‘One Belt, One Road’

An “odd ball” has turned into an international hub for humanities research producing cutting-edge studies long before some become official policy, such as Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative.

The Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, a small research body set up at the University of Hong Kong in 2001, has attracted acclaimed scholars from around the world to undertake field research-oriented interdisciplinary studies, including on the maritime silk road.

“We consciously turn away from the look-north mindset and instead pursue an inter-Asia research agenda that takes us from Korea to the east coast of Africa,” said Helen Siu Fung-har, a professor of anthropology at Yale University and founder of the institute, at a 15th anniversary celebration last week.

“That decision was made almost 10 years ahead of China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy of today. No plagiarism here,” she added, drawing laughter from guests, including university president Professor Peter Mathieson.

“Let’s not allow boundary to define us, let us define our own boundary, and that’s very central to our thinking,” said Mathieson on the institute’s unorthodox agenda.

The occasion also marked the completion of a major renovation of May Hall, a grade-one historic building constructed in 1915 and now the institute’s home.