De la mediación a la construcción de representaciones colectivas

The two case studies selected are ideal choices to answer my research questions. Each represents a particular effect of the way World Heritage listing changes the values and stakeholders' understandings of the sites. West Lake, located in the city centre of Hangzhou, which is a well-off area in China, was listed on the WHL in 2011. Besides the changes to the built environment, the local government of Hangzhou has used the 'World Heritage' application to legitimise their huge urban regeneration effort, the 'West Lake Protection Project', since 2001 (ZhejiangXinhua net 2015). After being successfully inscribed, social media locally reported the news with the title ‘让世界读懂西湖’ (See Xinhuanet.com 2011; People.com 2011b; Hangzhou.com 2011), which in English means ‘How to translate the meaning of West Lake to the world’. One of the most influential national newspapers, the

China Daily (2011), interviewed a vice mayor of Hangzhou, who reportedly 'broke into tears’ because the international experts finally ‘understand the meaning of West Lake’, based on strenuous efforts to ‘translate the meaning of West Lake to the world’. In this sense, during the process of WHL, Chinese governments modified the value of West Lake to make it understandable for international authorities. This modification process might change the existing values of West Lake, and add new values, as well as influencing local people’s and tourists’ understandings of the sites. However, little consideration is given to how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explored their opportunities in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. How the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and

great beauty, captured by artists and given names by poets, is highly visible in the West Lake Landscape, with its islands, causeways, temples, pagodas and ornamental planting. The value of that tradition has persisted for seven centuries in West Lake and has spread across China and into Japan and Korea, turning it into a tradition of outstanding significance.

(source: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1334)

5_{Criteria (iii) : The villages of Xidi and Hongcun are graphic illustrations of a type of human settlement created during a}

feudal period and based on a prosperous trading economy. Criteria (iv) : In their buildings and their street patterns, the two villages of southern Anhui reflect the socio-economic structure of a long-lived settled period of Chinese history. Criteria (v):

The traditional non-urban settlements of China, which have to a very large extent disappeared during the past century, are exceptionally well preserved in the villages of Xidi and Hongcun.

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local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing, and local people’s and tourists’ responses to it, has also not been documented. Therefore, West Lake is a typical site useful in answering my first key question; does world heritage listing change the values attributed to the site and stakeholders' understanding of it?

In terms of Xidi and Hongcun, WHL has caused a dramatic increase in tourist numbers. It also brought local management policy changes that focus on strictly implementing the international ‘criteria’ to ensure the authenticity and integrity of the site (see for instance Ying and Zhou 2007; Gao and Woudstra 2011; Xu et al. 2012, 2014). Xu et al. (2014:805) observed that the management changes impacts on local people’s sense of place, as Hongcun locals considered they were being alienated from their houses. In this sense, WHL changed both the governments’ and local people’s understanding of the site. However, the literature on Xidi and Hongcun attributed the alienation of locals’ sense of place to both local governments and tourists. For instance, Xu et al. (2014:805) argues that the local government in Hongcun fossilised the village for the ‘convenience of administration and reflects the will of community elites and tourists with the power of discourse.’ However, there is little literature that carefully analyses the interrelations among tourists, local residents and governments. Therefore, Xidi and Hongcun is an excellent case study to explore the changes world heritage listing causes for tourists, local people and local governments. In addition, Xidi and Hongcun had been listed on the WHL for more than ten years, while West Lake had been inscribed only two years previously when I conducted my interviews in 2013. It is timely to track and compare how world heritage listing changes the values and stakeholders' understandings of sites that had been listed for a relatively long period for Xidi and Hongcun, and a newly inscribed property such as West Lake.

My second key question is ‘What role does tourism play in the way the values may change at Chinese World Heritage sites?’. Winter and Daly (2012:16) note that the transformation from pre to post-industrial society in Asia only took a short period of time compared to Western countries - from the late-twentieth-century to the early twenty-first century. In China, dramatic changes to economies and new forms of wealth accumulation have caused extremely uneven levels of development in different regions. Although the two selected world heritage properties are located relatively close to each other geographically (about 280 KM), West Lake is located in the city centre of Hangzhou, which is a well-off area in China,

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while Xidi and Hongcun are located in an area of relative poverty in Yi County6. West Lake is ‘a classical master piece and a national cultural icon… [and]represents the Chinese philosophies of “oneness with nature” (Han 2008:1-2). It is a top five touristic destination in China and was already a nationally significant tourist destination before being inscribed on the world heritage list. Tourists are very familiar with the site because of history, stories, poetry and TV programs etc. Therefore, their touristic experiences are varied. However, the majority of the literature discusses how to use WHL to develop ‘international tourism’ (Fu 2004; Luo 2010; Li 2012; Wei 2012; and Zhang 2012) or analyses the appropriate tourism management policies and strategies to manage the expanding tourism market (see Chen 2004; Lv 2006; Wang 2008; Zheng 2008, Luo, Zhou & Qian 2011; Li 2012). Little literature yet documented the experience of tourists, and what they do and feel at heritage sites. Any consideration of local-tourist interactions is also absent in the existing literature.

In terms of Xidi and Hongcun, WHL dramatically boosted the number of tourists since 2000, when the site entered the WHL. Tourism has resulted in changes to local industry, which has moved from being dominated by traditional farming to a focus on the hospitality industry. The majority of local people are engaged in some way with tourism businesses, in particular the hostel which is run by local people. There is a common position in the literature that argues that tourism, when it causes industrial changes such as seen in Xidi and Hongcun, is negative thing, particularly because of commodification (Greenwood 1977; Handler and Saxton 1988; McCrone et al. 1995; Brett 1996; Handler and Gable 1997; Waitt 2000; Choay 2001; Greenspan 2002). As Dean MacCannel (1999) argues, the presence of tourists alters the authenticity of the heritage site, particularly for locals. However, as Sather Wagstaff (2011) and Smith (2012:210) maintain:

Indeed, little consideration is given to the interaction that occurs between host communities and tourists and what, ultimately, may be created by this interaction. My task is to identify the interrelations of local people and tourists in the two villages. Therefore, both West Lake and Xidi and Hongcun are excellent case studies to answer my second question.

In addition, although, the two case studies I selected are representative of two types of

6 _{In 2014, the annual average per capita income in Hangzhou was roughly $16000, while the annual average per}

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Chinese cultural heritage sites, they have very different historical, political, economic and cultural trajectories, and consequently different tourist markets, nature of the local communities and management systems. The WHL brought changes to both sites. My task in this thesis is to identify why and how these changes happened. Winter and Daly (2012) have addressed the richness and distinctiveness of Chinese heritage practices, and it is impossible to investigate all types of interrelations between tourism and heritage in one PhD thesis. My task is to explore the interaction among stakeholders' uses of heritage in the two selected cultural properties that are typical of a mature touristic site in a developed area (West Lake) and immature touristic sites (Xidi and Hongcun) in an undeveloped area.