Cultural heritage, ethnic tourism, and minority-state relations amongst the Orochen in north-east China

In this paper, I describe the impact of cultural heritage classifications amongst the Orochen ethnic minority in north-east China. Building upon the expanding literature on critical heritage studies, I argue that while heritage is often used as a top-down strategy by the Chinese state for rural and economic development, particularly in minority areas, it is important to consider the bottom-up experiences of heritage-making and the use of heritage by minority actors to facilitate development and generate improvements in their own minority communities. Presenting an ethnographic case-study from the Orochen township of Tuohe, I show how heritage does not operate through the prism of a static and hierarchical relationship between a ‘Han-Chinese’ state, on the one hand, and a small-numbered ‘ethnic minority’, on the other. Instead, it is driven largely by Orochen themselves and, in particular, ethnic minority cadres and intellectuals who use heritage and the corollary allocation of funding to channel development projects and fulfil the needs and expectations of local communities. In the process, I argue that heritage-making must be seen as a dual process in China, increasing governmentality and interpellation of minority actors while simultaneously creating spaces for cultural autonomy, innovation, and alternate expressions of modernity and tradition.