State Institutions as Building Blocks of China's Infrastructures of Memory – The Case of Intangible Heritage

Abstract

The past is continuously reinterpreted to serve the interests of the present. Over the last two centuries of turbulent Chinese history, the past has been redefined through narratives and categorisations. How does the party-state manage the diversity and complexity of China's past, and what implications does this have for state–society relations in China? Based on a case study of China's adoption of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention, this article argues that the Chinese party-state creates “infrastructures of memory,” which enable it to actively manage China's diverse past through selective institutionalisation. This process creates a “cognitive map” of tangible and rationalised relations and boundaries between vernacular memories as interpreted by the state. Although this map is to shape and direct Chinese collective memory and identity, it also sparks contestation among members of the populace who seek to preserve vernacular and multiple memories of their socio-cultural past.

Politics of Memory, Heritage, and Diversity in Modern China

“…Assmann, 2008b: 57ff). When associated with consumption and entertainment activities, memory infrastructures play a crucial role in linking official cultural memories with personal experiences and emotions with the purpose of creating comprehensive “cognitive maps designed to shape collective memory over time” (Maags, 2023: 17). An intimate overlap of “conceptual, emotional and physical” dimensions of memory (Brown and O’Brien, 2022) is achieved through an individual immersive experience and the commercialised performance of tourist interactions.…”

“…A central contradiction of memory politics arises between such official narratives endorsed by the party-state, which tend towards a commercialised, performative and instrumental approach to the past, and heterogeneous engagements with inherited cultural traditions and/or living heritage reflected in the everyday practices of communities and individuals. As such, top-down efforts in homogenisation are rife with negotiations, reinterpretations, and alternative discourses – themes that run through the papers in this issue: in the debates over ethnic identity in the Hanfu movement (Law and Qin, 2022); in informal memory infrastructures that are “in the hands of the people” (Gilgan, 2023: 5); in the necessary international negotiations within UNESCO that deny China unilateral control over heritage initiatives and categories (Nakano, 2022); in the discussion of a Chinese inheritor's secret archive of ancient scripts made inaccessible to the authorities (Maags, 2023: 15).…”

“…Maags (2023) analyses how the Chinese party-state actively manages the diversity and complexity of China's past through selective institutionalisation. Her study focuses on the state adoption of the UNESCO Convention on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH), in which heritage bureaucracy is flourishing in the selection of sites and designation of protection regulations and goals.…”

“…Such is reflected in a steadily growing budget for heritage protection and management, while local government policies work to integrate heritage protection with the development of mass tourism and associated rural development schemes (Oakes, 2019; Shepherd, 2009). Third, China internalised procedures and standards to protect tangible and intangible heritage as set out by UNESCO; establishing an elaborate epistemic, institutional, and commercial infrastructure for their implementation (Maags, 2023; Zhu and Maags, 2020). Fourth, under President Xi, the party-state, more than ever before, continues to promote the appraisal of ancient heritage and archaeological museums as an important way to enhance China's soft power abroad while renewing the ideological emphasis on China's “spiritual civilisation” (Williams, 2020) at home.…”

“…Human-to-human inheritance of complex skills, tacit knowledge, and spiritual rituals, as well as written manifestations of personal identity and collective meaning, tend towards marginalisation within a landscape of museal concrete/steel spaces and the growth of digitally driven memory infrastructures. Here, heritage is subjected to “museumification in which it is secularised, de-contextualised, and displayed for educational or leisure purposes of the public” (Maags, 2023: 14). While Ryckmans described China as “a country so steeped in history,” contemporary memory infrastructures increasingly disconnect people from former memory practices, immersing the public instead in an abstract, state-curated national history.…”