A critical-discursive investigation of smart heritage politics in China from macro-political, meso-institutional and micro-user perspectives

Abstract

The emerging concept of ‘smart’ in the field of cultural heritage in China is shaping new relationships between cultural representation, production, consumption and regulation. The study conducted an urban anthropological exploration of the transformation and construction of smart cultural heritage in Hangzhou, China in 2022–2023. Over 40 stakeholders were interviewed, including officials, heritage experts, museum curators and directors, technicians, and museum visitors. The paper explores the smart heritage politics in China from the macro-political, meso-institutional and micro-user perspectives. This study illustrates the role of smart cultural heritage as a ‘social technological imagination’ and highlights the existence of intercultural communication deficits and disparities between stakeholders. It reveals inconsistencies between the official Chinese technological narratives and the reality of the perceived impacts. The top-down proliferation of smart heritage discourses in China, driven by the authoritarian bureaucracy and leading-edge ICT companies, has overshadowed the voices and experiences of grassroots practitioners and users.