This paper is an analysis of ethnographic data collected by participant observation of the Anti-Double Rent Movement in Hong Kong and 16 unstructured interviews of its participant between the period March 1993 and March 1994. Synthesizing the theory of Snow (et. al. 1986), Melucci (1988) as well as Klandermans (1992) on frame alignment and identity construction, and adopting the analysis tools employed by Snow and Anderson (1992) and Hunt and Benford (1994), this paper seeks to demonstrated how participants of the Anti-Double Rent Movement constructed a collective identity as victims and resisted the label of being political applied to them by the mass media....[ Read more ]

This paper is an analysis of ethnographic data collected by participant observation of the Anti-Double Rent Movement in Hong Kong and 16 unstructured interviews of its participant between the period March 1993 and March 1994. Synthesizing the theory of Snow (et. al. 1986), Melucci (1988) as well as Klandermans (1992) on frame alignment and identity construction, and adopting the analysis tools employed by Snow and Anderson (1992) and Hunt and Benford (1994), this paper seeks to demonstrated how participants of the Anti-Double Rent Movement constructed a collective identity as victims and resisted the label of being political applied to them by the mass media.

Four types of identity talk among the participants of the Anti-Double Rent Movement have been identified in this paper, namely, the HORROR STORIES, NOSTALGIC TALES, HOI FONG NGAU STORIES, as well as the ENLIGHTENMENT STORIES. Organized around common themes, different types of identity talk had demonstrated how protestors defined themselves as victims instead of the beneficiaries in the public housing programme in Hong Kong, as well as defined the Hong Kong Government and the Housing Authority as greedy merchants disguised as benefactor. The four types of identity talk also carried an important function of mobilizing participants and extending the pool of potential participants in the Anti-Double Rent Movement.