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Managing Cultural Heritage in China: A View from the Outside*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2012

Luca Zan*
Affiliation:
University of Bologna.
Sara Bonini Baraldi
Affiliation:
University of Bologna. Email: sara.boninibaraldi@unibo.it
*
Email: luca.zan@unibo.it (corresponding author)

Abstract

This article investigates change processes regarding the managerial aspects of organizing cultural heritage activities in China. The focus is not on the historical and artistic meanings of archaeological discoveries in themselves; nor on the technical, scientific and methodological repercussions of conservation and restoration; nor on the evolution of museology per se. Rather, the core of the analysis is on new managerial problems along the “archaeological chain” (archaeological discoveries, restoration, museum definition and public access to cultural heritage) posed by new professional discourse and the overall evolution of the economic and political context. The article is based on field research carried out in Luoyang, Henan province. The micro view adopted (managing practices more than policies), and the unusual access to data (including financial figures on individual entities) represent a unique opportunity for a sort of “journey” inside the Chinese public sector.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2012

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Footnotes

*

Though the paper was jointly developed, according to Italian law Luca Zan is responsible for sections 1 and 3, Sara Bonini Baraldi for section 2. It is based on a research project funded by the University of Bologna, Fondazione Carisbo, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DGPC).

References

1 We borrow the term “chain” from industrial organization, where it is used to indicate the succession of activities from raw materials to the end product. The idea is to look at the set of different activities from a holistic viewpoint, underlining connections and coordinating needs, rather than seeing them as separated elements.

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13 Zan, Luca, Managerial Rhetoric and Arts Organization (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Guo, Yinqiang, Zan, Luca and Liu, Shuguang, The Management of Cultural Heritage in China. General Trends and a Micro-Focus on the Luoyang Municipality (Milan: Egea, 2008)Google Scholar, available at http://www.egeaonline.it/ENG/Catalogue/Product_sheet.aspx?ISBN=9788823842038 .

15 Ibid.

16 OECD, Governance in China (Paris, OECD Publications, 2005), p. 257Google Scholar.

17 Interview with Luoyang CRB director, August 2006.

18 Ibid.

19 OECD, Governance in China, p. 260.

20 See Cultural Heritage Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, 1982, amended 1992 and 2002.

21 Interview with archaeological team 1 vice-director, August 2006.

22 Interview with museum vice-director and to archaeological team 1 vice-director, December 2005.

23 Interview with museum vice-director, December 2005.

24 Here is where the action research approach was leading us to suggest possible changes, as for instance unifying spaces (such as storage areas) and entities (e.g. the two archaeological teams); better defining roles and deadlines for specific procedures (e.g. for research reports); creating more transparent procedures regarding the destination of archaeological objects; developing incentive mechanisms to increase cooperation between various entities of the system; and in particular to develop desk and field research.

25 Interview with Ancient Tombs Museum director, August 2006.

26 Interview with Luoyang CRB director and Luoyang Museum director, August 2006.

27 Sofield and Fung, “Tourism development and cultural policies in China,” pp. 362–92; McKann, “The good, the bad and the ugly,” pp. 147–66; Chan and Ma, “Heritage preservation and sustainability of China's development,” pp.15–31; du Cros and Lee, Cultural Heritage Management in China; du Cros et al. “Cultural heritage assets in China as sustainable tourism products,” pp.171–94; Leask and Fyall, Managing World Heritage Sites; Nyíri, Scenic Spots.

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29 Bagley, “Shang archaeology,” pp. 124–231; Lee, “Building the chronology of early Chinese history,” pp. 15–42; Liu, Li and Xu, Hong, “Rethinking Erlitou: legend, history and Chinese archaeology,” Antiquity, No. 81 (2007), pp. 886901CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liu et al. “Settlement patterns and development of social complexity,” pp. 75–100.

30 Zan, Managerial Rhetoric and Arts Organization.

31 Data were not always “ready for use.” At one important museum figures were not available, and the director called a secretary who had ticket receipts and ordered her to count them for us.

32 The total lack of attention to communicational needs can be seen in the scholarly precise but hard to communicate name of what we shorten as the “Horse & Chariot Museum”: the museum of Luoyang Eastern Zhou Royal Horse and Chariot Pits.

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39 Chou, “Civil service reform in China,” pp. 210–34; Chan, “Downsizing the central government,” pp. 305–30; Straussman and Zhang, “Chinese administrative reforms in international perspective,” pp. 411–22; for an overview see Zan and Xue, “Budgeting China.”

40 Brødsgaard, “Institutional reform and the bianzhi,” p. 366; see also Burns, “‘Downsizing’ the Chinese state,” pp. 775–802.

41 Numbers in Table 2 can be seen thus as a sort of “status metrics.” The importance of the Longmen Grottoes in terms of employees compared to the rest of the system clearly appears (more than one-third of all employees in the area), explaining the tension about the autonomy of this entity inside the Luoyang administration. Also, the different sizes of the labour force between archaeological teams 1 and 2 are barely related to issues of workload. The relatively high number of people at Yanshi is worth noticing too.

42 Though this will sound unbelievable in the Anglo-Saxon context of the “arm's length principle,” it is not so unusual: both aspects – intrusion of politics and lack of new skills in a rigid post system – are found in the Italian case (see for instance the Pompeii case in Zan, Managerial Rhetoric and Arts Organization).

43 For a discussion on technical issues affecting accounting representation see Zan and Xue, “Budgeting China.” See also Jun Ma and John Norregaard, “China's fiscal decentralization, International Monetary Fund,” http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/seminar/2000/idn/china.pdf (1998); Lou Jiwei, “Government budgeting and accounting reform in China,” OECD Journal On Budgeting, No. 2/1 (2002), pp. 51–80; OECD, Governance in China; Caulfield, “Local government reform in China,” pp. 253–67.

44 On this curious semantic misunderstanding see Zan and Xue, “Budgeting China.”

45 Interview with Luoyang CRB director, January 2006.

46 Zan and Xue, “Budgeting China.”