Introduction

This chapter will discuss various interpretations of stakeholders involved in the heritage-making processes. Its purpose is to explore the social and historic construction of heritage and the role played in this by institutions, from an anthropological perspective. Nations have long undertaken the process of heritage-making but, since they ratified the UNESCO Conventions, this has taken on a new dimension. National inventories have been collated so that candidacies can be submitted to international lists and, in turn, the benefits of this cultural showcase return to the nation. This chapter takes a comparative perspective, looking at China and Switzerland. It also focuses on the logic underlying processes of selection, which involves both political and administrative bodies. The evaluation of how cultural heritage acts, and is interpreted by various stakeholders, is based on ethnographic fieldwork, which will be outlined along with an analysis of which practices and narratives almost inevitably produce friction. The case studies presented highlight the complexity of cultural meanings and frictions among multilayered stakeholders who claim their ‘rights to cultural heritage’ and, in doing so, challenge the norms and values that it carries which, they feel, must be transmitted to the next generation.

When I arrived at Peking University in 1995 and began fieldwork in a small neighbourhood between Beida and Tsinghua, the notion of heritage principally referred to the past built environment (beautiful historic buildings of classical/imperial China), which contrasted sharply with ordinary mixed habitations from the Mao era (dazayuan) in very bad conditions.