Urban Asias – Essays on Futurity Past and Present

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6
Envisioning Future
Pasts
Heritage and Emergent Activism in
Postcolonial Macau and Hong Kong
Cecilia L. Chu
Over the past decade, the protection of historic buildings and landscapes
has been a major issue preoccupying states and civil societies in Asia.
Governments, businesses and NGOs across the region have engaged with
heritage conservation to achieve a multitude of purposes. The most notable
is the promotion of tourism, where investment in heritage assets and turning
them into cultural capital has become key to city branding and urban
revitalization. At the same time, heritage activities have also proved to be
effective in strengthening national pride and community empowerment.
This is especially apparent in places that have gained recognition from international
heritage organizations such as UNESCO. In many cities, the promotion
of heritage to the outside world often goes in tandem with a surge
of interest among citizens in revisiting their own histories and preserving
local cultures. These phenomena point to an emergent “heritage paradigm”
in Asia, where the shaping of local identities and economies are becoming
increasingly connected to the accelerating globalization of heritage and
cultures.1
There is by now a significant amount of critical writing that discusses
heritage making as part and parcel of globalizing capitalism and its
role in the ongoing commodification of the environment. 2 The emphasis on
adding economic value to cultural assets suggests that conservation practice
is becoming more aligned with a neoliberal model of business management,
where the evaluation of heritage is increasingly carried out according to various
sets of calculable impacts and cost-benefits. 3 At the same time, there is
a gradual shift in the responsibility for heritage protection from the state to