Heritage construction in China: negotiation and contestation of decision-making and heritage discourses

Wei, Ran (2024) Heritage construction in China: negotiation and contestation of decision-making and heritage discourses. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the negotiation and contestation between the actors involved in the Regeneration Project of Cangxiang Street Historic District, in Anyang, a mid-sized city in China. The negotiation and contestation are manifested in the decision-making and implementation process of the Project and the actors’ heritage discourses of the historic district. Drawing upon the framework of fragmented authoritarianism, I argue that the decision-making and implementation process of the Project is led by the local government, yet influenced and challenged by the central government and nonstate actors. This process results from two interrelated dimensions of fragmentation, namely system fragmentation and fragmentation in state-society relations, as well as the authoritarian context of China. The reason for theorising decision-making and implementation in critical heritage studies is that I find that the Project is mostly determined by the local government’s authorised heritage discourse, whereas the nonstate actors’ heritage discourses are less visible. I argue this is because of the uneven power relations between the local government and the nonstate actors which determines whose heritage discourses can be materialised in the Project. In other words, power relations are more prominent in shaping heritage construction than value judgements. The latter’s role also partly depends on the former. Heritage construction is done through different actors’ power struggles largely bounded by the pre-existing heritage system which is essentially a part of the overall political system. To understand the complexity of heritage construction, it is necessary to understand how the political system of a given context operates. By integrating fragmented authoritarianism as an analytical tool into the theoretical framework, this thesis sheds light on heritage politics in contemporary China and, more importantly, calls for new research paradigms in critical heritage studies to combine concepts around power and politics to fully address the political essence of heritage construction.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Ran Wei
Library of Congress subject classification:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD100 Land Use J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government
Sets:	Departments > Geography and Environment
Supervisor:	Holman, Nancy and Mace, Alan
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4727

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