World Heritage as discourse: knowledge, discipline and dissonance in Fujian Tulou sites

Abstract

The study examines the official discourse of World Heritage Fujian Tulou in China, and compares it with the authorised heritage discourse defined by Smith. I find that although, textually, the former is antithetical to the latter by emphasising the harmony between human habitat and nature, in practice it is as hegemonic as the Western authorised heritage discourse. The Chinese harmony discourse tends to provide a single narrative for the site’s value and privileges expert knowledge over local voices, while it empowers government by ignoring local residents’ capability within heritage conservation. Moreover, the harmony discourse frames, articulates and constitutes non-heritage practices such as public health and moral norms, to legitimise the governmental power. As a result, the harmony discourse, supposedly aiming at maintaining a harmonious society, has created profound dissonance among the inhabitants.

Keywords:

• World Heritage
• Fujian Tulou
• discourse
• discipline
• dissonance

Acknowledgements

This study is sponsored by Global Heritage Fund’s fellowship program. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the International Conference ‘Why Does the Past Matter’, organized by University of Massachusetts Center of Heritage and Society. 4 May 2011. I thank Jeffrey Olick, Krishan Kumar, Sarah Corse, John Shepherd, Diane Barthel-Bouchier and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the paper.

Notes

1. The value justification of Fujian Tulou, though provided by UNESCO on the World Heritage Centre’s website, is originally developed by China’s State Administration of Cultural Heritage. Therefore, regardless of the publisher, any narrative of Fujian Tulou in this paper is the Chinese understanding of the buildings.

2. Fujian Tulou is not the only Chinese World Heritage Site whose narrative is articulated for national purposes. Since China’s ratification of the World Heritage Convention in 1985, it has actively employed the Convention for its nationalistic ends. A number of scholarly works have demonstrated this, such as Hamlish (2000) on the Forbidden City, and Hevia (2001) on the Mountain resort and its outlying temples in Chengde.

3. All quoted texts were collected from my interviews with officials, professionals and local inhabitants. To keep their personal information confidential, anything that may identify them is concealed in this paper.

4. A datum that can be found in SACH (2008, 52).