Building homeland heritage: multiple homes among the Chinese diaspora and the politics on heritage management in China

Abstract

Community involvement is arguably a key component behind sustainable heritage management. Under strict government control, however, local community-led initiatives are difficult to find in China. Nonetheless, through remittances and philanthropic contributions to their respective communities, the Chinese diaspora have long been seen as an important source of foreign capital and a driving force behind homeland development. A transregional study (mainland China, Hong Kong and Canada) was carried out to explore the relationship between local communities in China and the diaspora, how each party was involved (or not) and the factors that affect their engagement in a government-initiated clanship heritage project in post-reform China. Investigating how different ‘associated people’ perceive, construct and even manipulate heritage, this study found that participation is not only related to wealth, success or status, but also to residential orientations, self-perceptions of the motherland and notions of authentic and/or symbolic roots. The study offers insight into the nature and politics of heritage management in contemporary China. Furthermore, it contributes to our understanding of how multiple homes can affect diasporic interpretations of, and connections with, the homeland.

Keywords:

• Community participation
• diaspora
• heritage management
• politics
• multiple homes
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Bolt (1996) found that the economic contribution of the diaspora was key to the nation’s rapid post-reform development. Between 1979 and 1991, the main sources of foreign direct investment originated from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and then South East Asia.

2. The Bureau of Culture is a government department responsible for managing traditional cultural properties (wenwu in Chinese). Related cultural activities (performance arts, traditional festivals), and the conservation of national recognised cultural heritage (archaeological sites and artefacts as well as temples and museums), are part of its duties.

3. China joined the UNESCO heritage programme in 2003 and announced the first batch of Intangible Cultural Heritage listings in 2006. This signifies a changing attitude toward traditional culture. Before this time, clanship and religious activities were considered to be superstitious and were forbidden for decades during the Maoist period in China (until 1976).

4. ‘Trans regional’ was chosen in lieu of ‘transnational’ due to this study concerning the relationships between regions rather than nations.

5. Living in Hong Kong, we frequented the local Tang community of Ping Shan. (Tang is the Cantonese transliteration of the surname ‘Deng’). Retired village elders were often found gathered around their ancestral hall. They introduced us to the leaders of their clansmen association and helped us to identify contacts in Dengzhou. Two trips were made to Dengzhou. As for Canada, online correspondence proved useful. Due to time and monetary constraints, only the first author visited Dengcun and Toronto, spending a month in each place. Interviews were kept as informal as possible and, when appropriate, photographs were used to guide discussion. Party officials were interviewed to obtain ‘official information’. Likewise clansmen and lineage association representatives were interrogated. Individuals who had made significant contributions were asked why they were willing to contribute. Pseudonyms have been used to protect our informants’ rights to remain anonymous. A total of 34 semi-structured interviews were conducted.

6. Native place titles were subsequently inherited, even among overseas-born Chinese, who continue to claim their grandfather’s native place as their own (Louie 2001).

7. A prerequisite for heritage is its historical depth. Here, ‘new heritage’ is defined as a place not yet officially recognised as heritage, but is a symbol for collective understandings of a local community (the cultural creator) and its contribution is a ‘materialisation of local memories’ (Harrison 2010), which project the hopes and dreams of the community.