Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
Accepted Paper:
Determination over predetermination: Fengshui divination as a means to change one’s destiny in contemporary Hong Kong
Lai Hung Yu
(The University of Oxford)
Divinatory counselling addresses stress, doubts, and anxiety, exemplifications of fortune and destiny, by giving a direction or proposal to practitioners how they can work or re-work on the predetermined everyday crisis.
Paper long abstract:
The existing literature on destiny shows that people are far from passively fatalistic: instead, they proactively seek either to fulfil or to change the destiny believed to have been predetermined for them. Hong Kong is a city that is famous for its high cost of living and high-pressure education system. The political and pandemic situations in recent years have added more uncertainty to the already uneasy lives of the local inhabitants. Unlike many existing research on divination which focus on diviners, my fieldwork on Fengshui divination in contemporary Hong Kong looks at how divination practitioners, including masters, clients, and divination learners, use and value divination in their everyday lives. I found that many people apply Fengshui divination repeatedly in their habitual spaces, such as their homes, to cope with their daily lives/ uncertainty and intervene to change their destinies.
Looking beyond the tension between agency and predetermination, I suggest that Fengshui divination creates a formalised space within which practitioners can transcend the human realm and alter the destiny predetermined for them in the cosmic realm. Ongoing learning and practice of Fengshui divination, and adherence to its advice, demonstrate practitioners’ determination and effort to improve their fortunes proactively, thereby proving that they deserve a better destiny.