The Authoritarian Ear: Reorienting Political Aurality and Acoustic Citizenship in Hong Kong

Governmentality comes with forms of political rationality that govern who listens, where, how, and to whom. An urban acoustic habitus is necessarily a biopolitical form of acoustic citizenship. Authoritarian governance limits acoustic being and crafts monopoly on acoustic citizenship. I call this exercise of power the authoritarian ear. One notorious example is the official ban of “Glory to Hong Kong” on May 8, 2024 in Hong Kong. The anthem was widely performed during the 2019 protests on the eve of the enactment of the Hong Kong security laws. In this paradigmatic example, sound, aurality, and the law intersect, delimiting the spoken and the heard. A new acoustic habitus emerged. Local street musicians were arrested after performing the song. When it was mistakenly played as the “national” anthem at international sporting events, this triggered a government ban on the song because it “endangered national security.” Joining song to space, singing and listening marked unprecedented political territories that I call political aurality. The authoritarian ear emerges at moments in response to the realization that sounding and listening must be governed to facilitate occupation of a new political territory. This article draws on ethnographic research, online archives, and legal cases to trace how Hong Kong's political aurality becomes entangled with the new lawscape. Taking “Glory to Hong Kong” and other banned protest slogans as case studies, the article posits that authoritarian legality has contributed to emerging state apparatuses and politicized listening that delimit everyday hearing and utterances at this critical juncture.