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Two Water Towns in the Qingpu District of Shanghai Semprebon

entails a crucial question against the backdrop Silverman have detected an intensification of
of current policies and practices, especially in the “heritage fever” as a polysemic instrument
contemporary times when cultural industries to serve economic and political projects [11] .
play relevant geopolitical roles [3-5] . The “Belt and Road Initiative” embodies
physically and spiritually the vision for also a
2. LITERATURE REVIEW: “cultural diplomacy” [12] where cross-national
TOURISM DEVELOPMENT exchanges strengthen the geopolitical
IN CHINESE HISTORICAL position of Beijing in the global arena.
SETTLEMENTS Beyond building a legitimizing political
The literature review addresses three aspects: narrative, at the same time, the heritage-
heritage management, tourism development, making process has served local
and the interferences between the two. administration to implement cultural-oriented
[6]
development strategies instrumentally . A
2.1 Heritage sites in China as a tool of similar interpretative key was put forward by
contemporary narrative other studies, which have drawn on how
The Cultural Revolution (1966‒1976) Chinese heritage policies have been shaped to
marked a problematic era in Chinese heritage- “serve the interest of the present”. Through
led policies, with historic relicts appointed as the process of “value appropriation,”
feudal and backward legacies not fitting in development agencies have financially
with the political ideology [6] . Denise Ho valorised common cultural practices,
observed that the display of historical objects inducing residents and institutions to
was “meant to spark political awakening, to “selectively and strategically appropriate
create a revolutionary narrative that included values developed at another, often higher
the viewers and to motivate them to scale” [12,13] .
[7]
participate in the realization” , identifying a From this angle, the instrumental role of
moral engagement in the leadership’s heritage as a “service of the newly envisaged
priorities. With the leadership of Deng futures” [14] led some scholars to identify an
Xiaoping, a new political cycle started, unbridgeable distance between acknowledged
promoting alternative paths to the realization cultural patrimony and history, intended as a
of the Communist State, grafting capitalistic true sequence of facts. For many authors,
mechanisms into a state-driven economy. In these gaps materialize a complex negotiation
concert, a more laical approach to the objects of conflicts [15] between cultural positions,
and symbols inherited from the past was political ideologies, economic interests, and
embodied and coupled with the attempt to local identities.
limit Western culture’s influences, which In the Chinese domain, the questions
were increasingly popular in China at that posed by the development of heritage sites
time. The recognition and valorisation of have attracted lively debates on policies’
Chinese traditional culture became part of a formulation and practices’ implementation.
broader process of national identity-building Zan stigmatised the dilemma between cultural
[8]
and branding . In addition to maintaining protection and economic development,
social cohesion [9] , the heritage discourse explicating that “the principal problem for
contributed to paving the road for a profound China’s tangible cultural heritage is economic
process of rediscovery of pre-revolutionary development, whose effects can be
roots, ancient traditions, and local folklore [10] . devastating on the valued physical
As a process that is still ongoing, it is placing environment and problematical for the in situ
the country in a dimension of continuity with social one” [16] .
its past, forging a distinctive national identity Since 2000, a cooperative project aimed
and opening new economic possibilities in at devising a set of principles to manage
underdeveloped sites, sometimes conceived Chinese heritage, was internationally co-
as exotic experiences. Blumenfield and participated by the Getty Conservation

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