Reading ICH in Cultural Space: China’s National Cultural Ecosystem (Experimental) Conservation Areas

In 2007, the Chinese Ministry of Culture launched a new and experimental project for safeguarding intangible cultural heritage (ICH): establishing the National Cultural Ecosystem Conservation Area (NCECA). Since the first instance of the Southern Fujian NCECA, the project has now come to cover 21 areas. This chapter uses the puppetry tradition of the southern Fujian area as an example to examine the link between the concept of NCECA and ICH items, which involves the connections and interplay of three core elements: people, item knowledge systems, and cultural-natural-historical backgrounds. As an experimental project of the Chinese government, the establishment of NCECA is a core result of China’s recent thinking on the safeguarding of ICH overall. The project involves a reading of ICH items in cultural space and represents a practice that approaches collective cultural identities, which, though intangible, are important and closely related to local people’s daily life.