‘(In)significances’ in the contemporary transcultural heritagisation of a historical locale

This article advances the concept of ‘(in)significance’ in heritage studies from a transcultural perspective. It examines the discursive heritagisation of Hualin Temple in Guangzhou up to the present day, focusing on the acquisition, maintenance, and loss of its historical values through Chinese-foreign (primarily Chinese-English) transculturation. Three coexisting, yet distinct, discourses on the temple’s historical significance are identified in both Chinese and foreign texts: first, a long-standing, pervasive discourse framing the locale as possessing inherited historical value; second, a concurrent, yet occasional, discourse on the breakage and deterioration of that inheritance; and third, a discourse generating ahistorical values within a contemporary synchronic sociocultural network. By analysing the Chinese-foreign intertextual formation of these discourses, this study adds a transcultural dimension to the discussion of ‘(in)significance’: the more convenient and intense the transculturation becomes, the more the established historical narratives and claims about the locale are increasingly seized upon, thereby veiling more dynamic, contingent, quotidian, and local meanings.