Publication Date
2020
Document Type
Article
Journal Article Version
Accepted Manuscript
Volume
79
Issue
1
Abstract
This article addresses conflicts over local beliefs in both discourse and practice in contemporary China, especially in the process of protecting local beliefs as China’s national intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in the twenty-first century. These local beliefs were stigmatized as “feudal superstitions” in revolution- ary China and were revived in public since the reform era started in 1978. With influence from UNESCO, the project to protect ICH has spread all over China since 2004, and many local beliefs are promoted as China’s national ICH. Drawing on my ethnographic case study of “receiving aunties (Ehuang and Nüying)” in Hongtong County, Shanxi Province, I argue that the catego- ries of “superstition” and ICH are both disempowering and empowering, and the new naming should allow for more space for local communities to achieve social equity and justice.
Keywords
local beliefs, feudal superstition, intangible cultural heritage, Hongtong Zouqin Xisu, "receiving Aunties". Ehuang and Nüying
Subject
Superstition; Traditions; Justice; Equity
Publisher
Nanzan University Anthropological Institute
Recommended Citation
You, Ziying, "Conflicts over Local Beliefs: "Feudal Superstitions" as Intangible Cultural Heritage in Contemporary China" (2020). Asian Ethnology, , 137-159. Retrieved from https://openworks.wooster.edu/facpub/417