Politics and PTSD: The case of Hong Kong BN(O) visa arrivals in the UK

This article adopts an ethnographic perspective to present the mental health situation of arrivals from Hong Kong (HK) to the UK on the British National (Overseas) – BN(O) – visa. In the months after the 2019–2020 HK protests, Western and Chinese media announced the onset of a mental health crisis. I discuss the construction of this crisis in terms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and disaster mental health, which translate the role of trauma from the clinical sphere into a marker of a moral economy. I also argue that the UK and the People's Republic of China classify populations according to ontological structures of distress for political gain. In this way, they participate in ‘damage-centred’ research, which regards BN(O) visa holders in the UK as victims without agency and subject to global players. By taking an anthropological stance on the debates surrounding this nascent immigrant group, I assert that PTSD is always political and that mental health integrates itself into larger goals Hongkongers have regarding their future educational, housing and employment prospects in the UK.