From boats to streets: material culture and the reinvention of Tanka identity in Hong Kong

This article examines how the Tanka, or Boat People—one of Hong Kong’s officially recognized Indigenous groups—negotiate their identity following the decline of the fishing industry. Based on a two-month ethnographic study in Tai-O, a historic fishing village on Lantau Island, the research investigates how material culture mediates the transformation of Tanka identity as communities transition from sea- to land-based living. Through participant observation, interviews, and analysis of ethnographic objects such as stilt houses and dragon boat team vests, the study explores how memory, ritual, and everyday material practices sustain belonging despite occupational and spatial change. The article proposes the concept of post-occupational ethnicity to describe how ethnic identity persists after the loss of its traditional economic base, being reimagined instead through heritage and performative practices. By situating Tai-O within broader anthropological debates on materiality, identity, and cultural persistence, this study contributes to understanding how marginalized communities in post-industrial contexts reinvent ethnicity through selective engagement with material culture and collective memory.