The existence and dilemmas of metropolitan fisheries have been overlooked in research on the resilience of
coastal marine socio-ecological systems. Yet, they could produce a model of sustainable fisheries with significant
global impact. To fill that research gap, this study investigates an inshore fishery population that has sustained
itself within Hong Kong's rapid urban development, seeking to understand the reasons for its survival. The results
indicate that the values of self-reliance and entrepreneurialism exacted by fishing enabled the fishers to make
necessary adaptations and reposition themselves in mariculture and service industries. These new ventures,
while retaining marine-based livelihoods, draw the fishers away from fishing activities. The paradox of this
value-based resilience of a metropolitan fishery is discussed for its potential to generate policies to strengthen
linkages among the fishers’ business activities and to create a sustainable fishery model useful in other contexts.

Although the idea of freedom has been well studied as an ideal in political philosophy, relatively little scholarship has focused on the human experience of freedom. Drawing on ethnographic research between 2012 and 2013, I examine how freedom was achieved by people who practice freeganism and freecycling in Hong Kong. I show that the freedom that these people pursue, either individually or collectively, is not a freedom without constraints but a freedom that must be attained through the exercise of deliberation, restraint, and self-discipline. While freegans seek liberation by withdrawing from the world and practicing self-cultivation (chushi asceticism), freecyclers do so by engaging with worldly affairs in order to create social changes (rushi asceticism). In both cases, by reimagining freedom as ethical practices rather than a right that comes naturally with birth, freegans and freecyclers in Hong Kong are able to experience moments of freedom despite inevitable structural constraints.