Conference at Lund University 17-18 June, 2015
In an increasingly diverse Chinese society there is today a multitude of actors that celebrate diverse identities, representations of the past and heritage sites. These actors include local governments, cultural heritage bureaus, tourism companies, the media, scholars, and different civil society groups and local communities. The official cultural heritage discourse is today contested through alternative understandings, although the different actors have different cultural, political and economic capital to make their voices heard and shape heritage policy, management and use. Local communities for example often celebrate local cultural and religious identities and traditions at heritage sites, or at sites not always recognized as such by the state. Negotiations and conflicts over the meaning and management of heritage sites and place-making occur in the interface of an authoritarian state, market forces, and globalization, where the Internet, social media, and film, play important roles in shaping and mediating the debates, images and celebrations.
