New Ways of Making Intangible Cultural Heritage in Contemporary China

This is an in-person event hosted by the International Centre for Chinese Heritage and Archaeology (ICCHA), which will take place in Room 612, 6th floor of the UCL Institute of Archaeology. This seminar is free and open to all. All welcome! 

Abstract 

Since the ratification of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Convention in 2004, China has had the largest number of ICH elements on UNESCO’s representative ICH list. Meanwhile, China has nominated over 100,000 ICH elements onto official representative ICH lists. This “ICH fever” in China is driven by a national campaign for “creative transformation and innovative development” of cultural heritage, which has led to new forms of “ICH-making” by various groups of social players in China.

This research, funded by the China National Social Sciences Fund (2019-2024), examines six emerging forms of ICH-making in contemporary China, namely ICH tourism, cultural ecological protection zones, ICH museums, ICH cultural industrial zones, ICH cultural and creative products, and ICH live-streaming and e-commerce. Through fieldwork at multiple sites across China, including Yunnan, Zhejiang, Guizhou, Shaanxi, Beijing, Fujian, and Ningxia, the study investigates the understanding of different social players, such as officials, ICH practitioners, business managers, community members, and visitors/consumers. Their engagement with ICH-making processes, along with their experiences, challenges, and expectations in ICH practices, will also be explored in depth.

About the Speaker

Junjie Su earned his PhD from the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific, Deakin University, Australia. Dr Su is the Director of the Yunnan Provincial Research Base of Intangible Cultural Heritage; an Associate Professor at the School of Ethnology and Sociology, Yunnan University, China; and an Expert Member of the International Committee of Intangible Cultural Heritage of ICOMOS. He is currently a visiting scholar at the UCL Institute of Archaeology.  Dr Su’s research interests concern critical heritage studies, heritage tourism, authentication and heritagisation, museology, arts and cultural management, and cultural & creative industries.

Dr Su’s research appears on International Journal of Heritage Studies, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, etc., and his latest book is Intangible Cultural Heritage and Tourism in China (Channel View Publications, 2023, UK). Dr Su is the Principal Investigator of the China National Social Sciences Fund Project on Intangible Cultural Heritage in China, and he is working as an expert on UNESCO’s project on the economic dimensions of Intangible cultural heritage safeguarding. He also acts as an invited senior advisor for a European Research Council-funded research on ethnic music in China.