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The Revival and Restructuring of a Traditional Folk Festival: Cultural Landscape and Memory in Guangzhou, South China

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  • Huiling Chen

    (Centre for Cultural Industry and Cultural Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
    School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510220, China)

  • Wei Tao

    (Centre for Cultural Industry and Cultural Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
    School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China)

Abstract

Landscape is an important object for research on local culture from a cultural geographical perspective. It is the spatial nature of memory that has seen the integrative study of memory and landscape receive increased attention from human geographers. The Qiqiao Festival is a traditional folk festival in the Lingnan region of Southern China. After half a century of suppression, the Qiqiao Festival in Zhucun was publically revitalized as the Guangzhou Qiqiao Cultural Festival, which coincided with the changing structure and significance of the landscape. This paper selected Zhucun, a typical urban village, as its case study and constructed an index system of festival landscapes. Through in-depth interviews, this paper studied the revival and restructure process of the Qiqiao Festival, and the role that landscapes play in the formation mechanism of memory on the part of subjects with different identities. The results showed that the elite and the local government selectively restructure festival landscapes, replacing authentic landscapes with “official” ones. The selection and production of a festival landscape constructed different memories among the subjects, where the festival memory of grassroots villagers was self-constructed and mostly came from traditional festival landscape elements while top-down interventions in the festival landscape constructed a different “official” memory for citizens and migrants to those of the villagers. The contemporary festival deviates from the original, which has weakened the conscious degree of cultural evolution and has had a reaction on the authenticity of memory. This research serves a reference for approaches in planning and conserving intangible cultural heritage in historic villages.

Suggested Citation

  • Huiling Chen & Wei Tao, 2017. "The Revival and Restructuring of a Traditional Folk Festival: Cultural Landscape and Memory in Guangzhou, South China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-18, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:10:p:1767-:d:114175
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Don Mitchell, 2017. "A relational approach to landscape and urbanism: the view from an exclusive suburb," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 277-290, April.
    2. Duncan Light & Craig Young, 2010. "Political Identity, Public Memory and Urban Space: A Case Study of , Bucharest from 1906 to the Present," Europe-Asia Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(9), pages 1453-1478.
    3. Honglian Hua & Shangyi Zhou, 2015. "Human-Environment System Boundaries: A Case Study of the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces as a World Heritage Cultural Landscape," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(8), pages 1-23, August.
    4. Talja Blokland, 2009. "Celebrating Local Histories and Defining Neighbourhood Communities: Place-making in a Gentrified Neighbourhood," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 46(8), pages 1593-1610, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. S M Minhus & Liang Huie, 2021. "The Tendency of Traditional Costume at Heritage Festival for Cultural Revival," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, May.
    2. Ülkü İnceköse, 2019. "The Sustainability of an Urban Ritual in the Collective Memory: Bergama Kermesi," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-17, May.
    3. Kai-Chih Chang & Tsuifang Hsieh, 2017. "From Having Fun to Applause: The Study of Relationships among Festival Benefits, Festival Identity and Festival Support by Viewpoints of the Hosts and Guests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-15, December.
    4. Jinkun Yang & Eddie C. M. Hui & Wei Lang & Xun Li, 2018. "Land Ownership, Rent-Seeking, and Rural Gentrification: Reconstructing Villages for Sustainable Urbanization in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-17, June.
    5. Zhenjie Liao & Guangquan Dai, 2020. "Inheritance and Dissemination of Cultural Collective Memory: An Analysis of a Traditional Festival," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440209, January.

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