Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: (Un)Authorised Heritage Discourse and Practice in China
- Section 1 (Re)constructions, (Re)inventions, and Representations of Heritage
- Section 2 Creating Identities: Constructing Pasts, Disseminating Heritage
- Section 3 History, Nostalgia, and Heritage: Urban and Rural
- Section 4 Appropriations and Commodifications of Ethnic Heritage
- 10 ‘Even if you don't want to Drink, you still have to Drink’: The Yi and Alcohol in History and Heritage
- 11 ‘Ethnic Heritage’ on the New Frontier: The Idealisation and Commodification of Ethnic ‘Otherness’ in Xinjiang
- Afterword: Historicising and Globalising the Heritage Turn in China
- Index
- Publications / Asian Heritages
5 - Contemporary Fabrication of Pasts and the Creation of New Identities?: Open-Air Museums and Historical Theme Parks in the UK and China
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: (Un)Authorised Heritage Discourse and Practice in China
- Section 1 (Re)constructions, (Re)inventions, and Representations of Heritage
- Section 2 Creating Identities: Constructing Pasts, Disseminating Heritage
- Section 3 History, Nostalgia, and Heritage: Urban and Rural
- Section 4 Appropriations and Commodifications of Ethnic Heritage
- 10 ‘Even if you don't want to Drink, you still have to Drink’: The Yi and Alcohol in History and Heritage
- 11 ‘Ethnic Heritage’ on the New Frontier: The Idealisation and Commodification of Ethnic ‘Otherness’ in Xinjiang
- Afterword: Historicising and Globalising the Heritage Turn in China
- Index
- Publications / Asian Heritages
Summary
Abstract
This chapter examines the selective usage of history, relics and practice to reconstruct specific versions of the past. The open-air Beamish Museum in Durham, UK and the historical theme parks in Hangzhou and Kaifeng, China are used as comparative case studies to unpack first, how ‘heritage’ is conceptualised in each context, and second, how particular versions of the past are selected, (re)invented, disseminated and consumed for contemporary purposes. Set within a theoretical framework of ‘living heritage’ and an analytical framework of the overlapping themes of authenticity, identity and national pride, tourism and education, the chapter examines the different ways in which the appropriation of cultural heritage takes place at each site. In doing so, we draw attention to the disparate interpretations of conservation practice and the idea of ‘living heritage’ in the UK and China and debate their continued relevance in the contemporary heritage discourse.
Keywords: living heritage, perceived authenticity, open-air museums, historical theme parks
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to examine the selective usage of history, relics and practice to reconstruct specific versions of the past. The open-air Beamish Museum in Durham, UK and the Song Dynasty theme parks in Hangzhou and Kaifeng, China are used as comparative case studies to unpack first, how ‘heritage’ is conceptualised in each context; and second, how particular versions of the past are selected, (re)invented, disseminated and consumed for contemporary purposes. Using the over-lapping themes of authenticity, the (re)construction of identities, tourism and education as an analytical framework, the different ways in which the appropriation of cultural heritage takes place at each site is critically examined. In doing so, we draw attention to the disparate interpretations of conservation practice and the idea of ‘living heritage’ in the UK and China and debate their continued relevance in the contemporary heritage discourse. The theoretical context within which these interpretations are positioned is briefly introduced below.
Theoretical Framework
From the birth of the conservation ethic during the nineteenth century in Europe (Delafons 1997) ‘Western’ interpretations of heritage and approaches to its identification, selection and subsequent management have experienced relative long-term stability (Hudson & James, 2007).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Heritage Turn in ChinaThe Reinvention, Dissemination and Consumption of Heritage, pp. 131 - 168Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020