Chapter 13 - Abstract and author bios


13. Making and Unmaking Heritage Value in China

Shu Li Wang and Michael Rowlands

Michael Rowlands is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Material Culture Studies at UCL. Recent field research has been on the histories and development of postcolonial museums and heritage conflicts in West Africa (Cameroon, Liberia, Mali). He is currently a co-investigator of a Leverhulme-funded research project on ‘Conflicts in Cultural Value: Localities and Heritage in South West China.’ He is also a co-director of UCL/CREDOC (Centre for Research in the Dynamics of Civilisation) seeking to reintroduce the concept of ‘civilization’ in the study of ancient and modern worlds.

Shu-Li Wang is assistant research fellow of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Wang obtained her PhD in anthropology from University College London. Her research interests lie in critical heritage studies, comparative museology, cultural memory and anthropology of nationalism, and her goal is to present an ethnography on archaeological and heritage works as the place to explore knowledge production and nation building in contemporary China. Currently, she is working towards the transformation of her PhD thesis into book form as The Heritage Complex in China – Yinxu Archaeological Park in the Making (to be published in the Routledge Critical Heritage series); she is also co-editing a volume entitled Heritage as Aid and Diplomacy in Asia.