Abstract
This chapter problematizes a growing preservation discourse in China by discussing its impacts upon urban renewal and the residents living in an old, dilapidated inner city neighbourhood in Qingdao. While a group of history and heritage enthusiasts call for “authentic” preservation of the area’s architecture, the city government wants to turn it into a place for cultural consumption and tourism. The individual memories of residents living in the inner city, however, neither fit the official narratives nor those of the authenticity-seeking heritage enthusiasts. This chapter critically engages the existing preservation discourse and argues that the exclusive focus on preserving architectural remains actually stands in the way of a more inclusive and appropriate way of dealing with inner city problems.
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Notes
- 1.
It was the name of a fishing village located in the area before the Germans occupied it.
- 2.
Screen walls were erected at entrances inside courtyards to shelter the interior from the prying eyes of outsiders.
- 3.
Based on data provided by informants.
- 4.
China’s hukou system came into being in its current form in the 1950s (Fan 2008). It divides the entire country into two groups: those holding a rural and those holding with an urban household registration. The goal was to prevent the rural population from flooding into cities. An urban hukou offers significant advantages in terms of welfare , benefits, and subsidies. Since membership in either group is assigned at birth and inherited from the mother, Potter and Potter (1990: 296) refer to this birth-ascribed stratification as displaying “caste-like features”.
- 5.
Chronic illnesses have been identified as one major cause of impoverishment in China, especially among retirees (Wu et al. 2010: 105).
- 6.
As of December 2016, 1 yuan equalled 0.14 Euro.
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Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Prof. Dolores Koenig of the American University in Washington DC for the time and effort spent editing and commenting on earlier versions of this article.
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Demgenski, P. (2018). Living in the “Past”: The Effects of a Growing Preservation Discourse in Contemporary Urban China. In: Ding, Y., Marinelli, M., Zhang, X. (eds) China: A Historical Geography of the Urban. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64042-6_10
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