Safeguarding and Promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage in China: Entrepreneurs, Government, and Artists

This paper analyses the national-level intangible cultural heritage (ICH) stone carving in Quyang, Hebei Province, by adopting a critical heritage approach. It extends the value of existing research on ICH commoditisation and localised authorised heritage discourse (AHD) by showing how entrepreneurs who are also local cultural practitioners play a significant rolein enhancing the official heritage discourse. Specifically, it examines howprominent entrepreneurs, in collaboration with the government and academic institutions, contribute to enhancing AHD by emphasising artistic and economic value. This collaboration contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the interaction between economic capital and heritage discourse. It reveals a broader trend in which economic capital significantly impacts social capital and cultural acknowledgement, thereby bolstering official AHD on the role of stone carving in poverty alleviation and cultural industry expansion. It also highlights how this AHD idealises heritage, often overlooking its inherent diversity and the various values that encompass economic resilience, emotion, communal memory, and identity. Finally, I illustrate how locals gravitate towards AHD despite their ambivalence and disagreements withthe selection criteria endorsed by official discourse.