Contemporary China Centre Conference, Deconstructed: Heritage and Urban Space

Hosted by the Contemporary China Centre, University of Westminster.

About this event

Since China ratified the UNESCO World Heritage Convention in 1985, heritage discourse has become intertwined with all kinds of spaces. This has included not only world-famous heritage sites such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City but also spaces that have not previously been regarded by state institutions as worthy of celebration, such as colonial buildings, neighbourhoods delineated by popular religion, and abandoned factories. Rapid urban development has constituted a constant threat to all but the most revered heritage sites and yet municipal authorities have also selectively preserved or reconstructed colonial, religious and industrial spaces (among others) in order to redevelop inner-city neighbourhoods, produce unique city brands and generate tourist revenue. This panel continues the Contemporary China Centre Conference Deconstructed format, bringing together international experts to examine municipal attempts at the heritagization of urban space, as well as the extent to which these projects have been successful in their aims.

Chair: Professor Harriet Evans (University of Westminster)

Speakers

Dr Philipp Demgenski

Dr Philipp Demgenski is Assistant Professor in Anthropology in the Department of Sociology at Zhejiang University. He is also a senior research partner at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. He was previously a member of the “UNESCO Frictions” project, researching the implementation of the “UNESCO 2003 Convention for the safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” in China, Brazil and Greece. He is the author of Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City, published in 2024 by Michigan University Press. His current research explores the role of digital technologies in shaping future cities in China. On this panel, he will draw on his work on urban redevelopment and heritage-making in Qingdao, probing the conundrums of the political mandate to preserve rather than demolish old urban neighbourhoods.

Dr Luo Pan

Dr Luo Pan received her doctoral degree in 2011 from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, as an anthropology major. Since 2014, she has worked as an associate researcher in the Department of Research at the Chinese National Museum of Ethnology. Her research priorities include museum anthropology and the history of ethnographic museums in China, as well as cultural heritage and spatial strategies. Her talk focuses on spatial negotiations between the state and local actors in Quanzhou, with a focus on how religious practices based on the Pu-jing neighbourhood system have helped local residents in preserving the meanings of traditional space in the city.

Dr Paul Kendall

Dr Paul Kendall is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese cultural studies at the University of Westminster. His monograph, The Sounds of Social Space: Branding, Built Environment, and Leisure in Urban China (2019), focused on the production of social space in Kaili, a small city in southwest China, through its branding as “the homeland of one hundred festivals,” ethnicized public spaces, high-decibel soundscapes, amateur music-making practices and inhabitants’ conceptualizations of music, ethnicity and the city. His current work examines the ways in which conceptualisations of the Third Front have shifted from military secret under Mao Zedong and economic anachronism under Deng Xiaoping to industrial heritage in the present day. His talk for this panel will specifically examine the emergence of Third Front museums in Guizhou.