Heritage Management and Making in the Decolonized and Deindustrialized Harbin: Evolving concepts of heritage and beyond

Abstract

Heritage practice was initially framed in terms of architectural history rather than social history, which considers heritage as an object with innate values and, as regards cultural heritage, focuses on the built environment while emphasizing artistic and technical values. The academic field of heritage studies which was later formed in the 1980s investigates heritage mainly from the standpoints of historians and sociologists. Thus, it regards heritage as a process associated with societal values. In the past decades, the dichotomy of heritage defined as tangible objects and intangible processes has been overwhelmingly influential, which makes these two understandings of heritage seem to be mutually exclusive. This chapter focuses on the official and unofficial ways of managing and making (official and unofficial) colonial heritage and industrial heritage in the city of Harbin in China. The examples provided illustrate the inconsistency in heritage practices due to the object–process dichotomy of heritage. It is argued that such dichotomy and inconsistency are a result of considering (or not) different value types when adopting a value-based approach to heritage and it is suggested that the different value systems should not compete but be reconciled. The case study of Harbin shows that these inherently different heritage things and processes are similar, not in terms of the past, but the future. As such, the concept of heritage is, in essence, future oriented rather than past based. To conclude, this chapter calls for clearly demarcating the concept of heritage and asks, "What is not heritage?" Show more