A Chinese Discourse of Heritage

This Element presents an alternative approach to critical heritage studies by attending to forgotten or transformed cultural, historical ideas of heritage. It focuses on the Chinese term guji, one today perceived as the same with modern concept of cultural heritage. After a macro analysis of how guji is understood differently in contemporary and historical China, it comes to cultural-historical discourse analysis of guji recorded in the local gazetteers of the Quzhou city from 1500s to 1920s, revealing its way of categorization as boundary negotiation, and its cultural modes of meaning-making and remembering with or without physical concerns, including the site traceable or otherwise. After a holistic view of this Chinese discourse as reflected in a particular guji, it concludes with a philosophical lens to highlight the alternative existence of heritage in the word guji and the uses of heritage depend much on the uses of language.