The Future Will Remember: A Historical Approach to Restoring Muffled Voices in Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory: The Macau Experience

Abstract

Using the case of Macau’s joss-stick manufacturing, this study contributes to existing dialogue on issues surrounding the institutionalisation of ICH safeguarding and the consequential devitalisation of intangible values in the process of inventory. Through a close analysis of official documents, old English- and Chinese-language newspapers, pre-existing documentation, and oral and written interviews with the founders of Macau’s sole incense manufacturer, Veng Lei Laboratory (永利紙料), I will demonstrate the government’s scramble to compile an inventory of elements that lack depth and representation and the absence of communal involvement in the course of selection and inventory. Contrasting the history of the joss-stick industry with the official discourse, this study argues that the heritagisation of craftsmanship flattens the dynamics of the past experiences of practitioners and further muffles their voices. Providing an intervention to heritage studies from the historical perspective, it encourages a more careful consideration of the necessity of heritagising elements before they are inventoried.