Reframing China’s heritage conservation discourse. Learning by testing civic engagement tools in a historic rural village

Abstract

Urban heritage conservation in China has been subject to severe criticism, although there is now a sense of paradigm shift. Charters, declarations and agendas had the merit of filtering down the international discourse on heritage, while more innovative approaches were arising. The UNESCO Historic Urban Landscape recommendation, offers a new angle from which to observe this process of change. The underlying argument of this article is that HUL can provide a platform to achieve greater sustainability in transforming historic sites in China, particularly in rural areas, overcoming, at the same time, the easy shortcut of the East-West discourse of difference in respect to heritage conservation. This is primarily due to the shifting focus from the materiality of heritage to its role in sustainable development with increasing attention on the role played by local communities. By presenting the proposal for the protection of the historic rural village of Shuang Wan in the Jiangsu Province, this paper aims to reflect on this shift showing its advantages but also some of the risks. These are inherent in a discourse of heritage in danger of legitimizing mere pro-growth development approaches, if not accompanied by participatory practices considerate of the specific social reality of China.

The Historic Urban Landscape approach to urban management: a systematic review

“…The interpretation and the implementation of the HUL would largely differ from one context to another, as it would be shaped by different forms of urban governance and institutional and social capacities. Few authors have addressed the multiple dimensions of the sustainability paradigm in an explicit way and vis-à-vis urban governance, or in relation to the specific social reality of local context, or of existing policies (Girard 2013;Veldpaus and Pereira Roders 2017;Verdini, Frassoldati, and Nolf 2017;Gunay 2018;Potdar, Namrata, and Sami 2018;Ripp and Rodwell 2018). Moreover, Casini (2017) critically assessed the multifaceted relationship between nationalism and UNESCO international regulations for the protection of cultural heritage.…”

Multidisciplinarity, Citizen Participation and Geographic Information System, Cross-Cutting Strategies for Sustainable Development in Rural Heritage. The Case Study of Valverde de Burguillos (Spain)

“…This model has prompted several local governments to develop urban strategies based on cultural heritage [33,34] and incorporating citizen perception, resulting in the development of local communities and the fulfilment of human needs. From within UNESCO, an invitation is extended to local governments to use this holistic approach, both in urban as well as rural settings [35][36][37][38][39].…”

Positioning Regional Design in Chinese Territorial Spatial Planning: An Exploratory Project in the Yangtze River Delta Megacity Region

“…The selection of these sites not only reflects the desire to investigate different landscape characteristics, but also results from the opportunities offered to collaborate with local authorities. Three pilot projects were implemented basing on an active collaboration with the local government: the village of Shuangwan [24] , the water town of Zhenze (Suzhou, Jiangsu Province), and the town of Shimen (Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province) which is detailed in this article. Spatially distributed and focusing alternately on towns, urban-rural edges, villages or interstitial spaces, these samples offer a representative panorama of the different conditions of the Jiangnan region and their various dynamics of transformation.…”

“…Specifically, Parkways explore how the existing networks of transport infrastructures (roads, canals, railways, etc.) in the 终，团队选择了一系列5km×5km和1km×1km的样本区作为试点进行更 深入的调研，具体举措包括田野调查、访谈、协作战略规划和设计探 索等(图6)。这些试点区域的选择不仅出于对不同景观特征的考量， 也需视地方政府的合作意愿而定。目前，在当地政府的积极配合下， 已有三个试点项目在有序进行中：江苏省苏州市双湾村 [24]…”