Narrating China’s Special Economic Zones: A Study on the Spatial Narrative of Zhuhai Museum

As a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) that has grown rapidly following China’s Reform and Opening-up policy, Zhuhai has undergone extensive urban spatial restructuring, industrial upgrading, and urban image reshaping over the past forty years. As a city museum, the Zhuhai Museum plays a crucial role not only in exhibiting the city’s history but also in narrating the success stories of the city’s transformation. Based on field research and semi-structured interviews conducted between June and December 2024, this paper explores how the Zhuhai Museum uses spatial narrative to integrate the memories of fishing villages, achievements of reform, and intangible cultural heritage (ICH) into its exhibition planning, bridging the historical gap between the pre-SEZ and the SEZ eras. The study finds that the museum operates through a tripartite logic of historical scene reconstruction, materialization of institutional discourse, participatory cultural practices and shared identity formation to translate policy discourse into tangible cultural symbols, highlighting the transformative impact of the Reform and Opening-up policy in Zhuhai. In this process, the voices of ordinary citizens are often marginalized or overlooked. However, the contemporary ICH initiatives provide citizens with opportunities to re-engage in the Museum’s spatial construction through participation in public education activities.