(IN)TANGIBLE HERITAGE(S)

Abstract

This paper attempts to answer the question: How can community micro-regeneration projects in Chinese cities be situated and contextualised as particular kinds of practices to build resilient historic communities? The research discussed in this paper focuses on residential historic district – hutong areas in Beijing. Chinese cities’ rapid urbanisation has put the residential historic parts at the risk of being neglected and unwanted. This process is criticised for leading to inequality, social injustice and deterioration of the heritage. In this context, micro-regeneration has been viewed as an ‘experimental’ approach to cope with these issues and enhance life quality at the community level. By creating green spaces, improving biodiversity, empowering residents, and adopting low consumption building methods, micro-regeneration projects such as co-productive micro-gardens attempt to create sustainable communities on both a physical and social level. Through lectures, workshops, exhibitions and collaborative constructions, the projects endeavour to transform ordinary people’s awareness of heritage conservation and advocate that keeping the authenticity and respecting residents’ lifestyle are the ways of heritage conservation in residential historic areas. This research situates government-supported regeneration practices engaging various actors in residential historic spaces within a global discourse of community resilience. This paper explores the co-productive procedure, resource network and collaborative governance during and after the micro-regeneration process and resituates the community resilience discourse through the lens of space and the notion of co-production. One example of the co-produced micro-garden project located in a Beijing hutong neighbourhood will be presented and discussed. The research argues that the co-productive community micro-regeneration can be a powerful tool to enhance heritage conservation and community resilience, by improving residents’ sense of belonging, exercising agency, promoting self-governance and combining community strengths to thrive in changing circumstances.