The role of history, nostalgia and heritage in the construction and indigenisation of state led political and economic identities in contemporary China

IMAGE: Image of one of the billboards at the Great Tang All Day Mall – Qujiang district, Xi’an.

Abstract

Over the years interlocutors have pointed to the role of elites in the selective utilisation of history, memory, nostalgia and heritage within modern China; particularly, scholars have pointed to the role of Confucianism, humiliation history and totalitarian nostalgia within these hegemonic processes. However, with the exception of work on Shanghai, there is a paucity of investigations on the role of local elites in the utilisation of local historical-geographic discourses within contemporary China. Acknowledging this lacuna in the extant literature, this chapter argues that ‘local elites’–defined as coalitions of local officials, developers, commercialists and/or urban conservationists–are increasingly coming together to utilise local histories, memory, nostalgia and heritage as a tool of urban marketing and place-branding. To unpack this argument, this chapter therefore explores local state coalitions dedicated to urban development in the cities of Shanghai, Wuhan and Xi’an.