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This article inquires into the effects of heritagisation on popular religious practices in Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China. With the establishment of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) inventory system in China, numerous popular religious practices, such as procession of local deities, ancestor worship, temple festivals, exorcisms, divination, and spirit mediumship, are free of the stigma of “feudal superstition” and are now recognised as ICH. Based on the fieldwork conducted in the prefecture city of Zhanjiang (Guangdong Province, China) on the local festival tradition of Nianli, I examine how local communities respond to the Party-state’s efforts to safeguard ICH through two processes: the commodification and the transmission of ritual practice. How does the heritage-making process affect the commodification of ritual practice? And what impact has the participation of a plurality of new actors in ICH transmission had on the methods of transmission of local ritual knowledge?
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Shanshan Zheng (2023) studied this question.
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