Local Voices and New Narratives in Xinye Village The Economy of Nostalgia and Heritage

The present chapter is influenced by critical heritage scholars who understand heritage as a process rather than a particular object, place or practice, or, differently put, understand heritage as a verb and as something that both discursively and materially transforms places and practices. It illustrates the complex and changing rural heritagescape in China through a case study of Xinye village in Zhejiang province. The focus is on how the heritagisation process has involved and given rise to multiple stakeholders and actors with different social and cultural capital in and outside the village, and the different ways they engage with and make sense of heritage. It pays particular attention to how the heritage is mediated and visualised on film, analysing a range of different TV productions, and how performance and entertainment are essential aspects of the heritagisation process.