Keywords

1 Introduction

At the beginning of the 1970s, a decade of professional debates, mobilisation and institutional rivalries crystallised in an unprecedented form of international cooperation to safeguard places and sites of outstanding significance across the globe – the World Heritage Convention (UNESCO, 1972). The successful adoption of shared conservation objectives and principles was not least a result of new anthropogenic threats to cultural and natural heritage, such as the often referenced construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt and potential flooding of the Philae and Abu Simbel temples. Fifty years later, environmental degradation is becoming an ever more pressing risk to heritage on a global scale, exacerbated by unsustainable ways of production and consumption.

Based on conceptualisations put forward in the 1987 Brundtland Report, sustainable development mainly rests on three pillars: economic viability, environmental protection and social equity. Despite initial success in introducing culture into the sustainable development discourse, Agenda 21 for culture (UCLG, 2004) and the Hangzhou Declaration (UNESCO, 2013) in particular, its integration into practical planning and decision making has remained limited (Throsby, 2017, 141). However, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) primarily acknowledge culture, cultural heritage and creativity as drivers and enablers for achieving these goals (Hosagrahar, 2017). This central role of culture as a fourth dimension becomes evident in agricultural landscapes where local ethnic communities live in an intimate relationship with their environment.

2 The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces

A remarkable and particularly noteworthy example of such a landscape is located between the Ailao Mountains 哀牢山 and the Hong River 红河 in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province. The Honghe Hani Rice Terraces 红河哈尼梯田 that were inscribed as World Heritage cultural landscape in 2013 organically integrate four components: mountaintop forests, rural villages of the Hani ethnic community, rice terraces and a water system. Based on historical accounts in Chinese sources, notably Fan Chuo’s 樊绰 Tang era (618–907) geographical report Man Shu 蛮书 (“Book of the Southern Tribes”, Fan & Oey, 1961, 67), rice terrace agriculture in this area is estimated to date back at least 1000 years. In adaptation to the natural conditions of mountainous terrain and sub-tropical climate, the Hani developed a complex system of irrigated rice terraces on the mountain slopes, making use of shallow groundwater and water storage capacity of mountaintop forests (Jiao & Li, 2011, 33, see Fig. 32.1).

Fig. 32.1
A photograph of a terrace cultivation area.

Red rice cultivation in the Hani Rice Terraces, Yuanyang County, China. (Note: Photograph by Joana Wardenga, 2018)

Full size image

The maintenance of this agricultural land-use system relies on the rich traditional knowledge, also designated as “indigenous knowledge” or “traditional ecological knowledge”, of its local communities. Such knowledge includes indigenous languages, water management systems, customary rules and technical skills. In the integrated farming system of the Hani Terraces, the breeding of ducks, fish and other livestock complements red rice cultivation. This mode of production is further supported by a distinctive social and spiritual system. Modifications of water sources, for example, have traditionally been regulated through customary rules based on consent. Moreover, cosmological conceptualisations of the environment where spirits reside in landscape components, such as streams, trees or caves, and circulate along topographically and hydrographically determined routes (Bouchery, 2011, 332) have contributed to a resource-friendly attitude towards nature.

With increasing globalisation, advantages of this close nature–culture relationship have come under serious threat. A major factor that negatively affects the Hani terrace system is climate change, which has caused severe landslides (Gao et al., 2020, 1916) and water shortages. Especially in Asian developing countries, cultural landscapes are increasingly disappearing as a result of industrialisation and rapid urbanisation (Takeuchi, 2010, 894; Lennon, 2012, 54). Due to demographic changes, not only external factors but also local livelihoods affect the integrity of the terraces: Traditionally, when a terrace system could no longer support a village’s population, the human–land ratio was balanced again by splitting the village and creating another terrace (Jiao & Li, 2011, 36–38). With the introduction of the household responsibility system and strict land delimitation policies in the 1980s, this practice was prohibited, and human settlements became more and more concentrated. With continued population growth on the one hand and land scarcity on the other, cropland per capita dramatically decreased in the Hani villages. As a consequence, rural labourers turn to non-agricultural activities that provide higher income (Zhang et al., 2017) and move to larger urban centres such as the provincial capital Kunming, abandoning their homes and fields.

A popular strategy for poverty reduction in the southwestern Chinese provinces, which has been embraced by the central and local governments alike, is tourism development. The UN has acknowledged tourism’s potential to create jobs and promote local culture and products in its eighth sustainable development goal (SDG 8.9). However, such strategies have proven to be limited in effectiveness if formulated as general political demands, ignoring relevant interests and power constellations (Albert & Ringbeck, 2015, 159).

3 Politics of Scale and Heritage Administration in China

A promising theoretical and methodological approach, which takes the political nature and complex power structures related to heritage into account, is the critical lens of “politics of scale” (Swyngedouw, 1997; Brenner, 2001). The concept of scale in its significance for the production of space was first brought into focus by French philosopher and social theorist Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991). One of its founders, Scottish geographer Neil Smith (1954–2012), conceptualised scales as platforms for social activity and spatial manifestations of power relations which form nested hierarchies (e.g. global, regional, national and local) in capitalist societies (Smith, 2000, 725). As a geographical concept, it triggered a productive debate in the Anglo-American Radical Geography at the beginning of the 1990s, a period of extensive worldwide spatial reconfigurations. Peter Taylor’s (1982) seminal essay and Smith’s (1984) Uneven Development still proceed from a three-tiered scale model (global, national and urban). In the following scale debate, the concept was more precisely defined as being socially constructed rather than natural or given (Herod, 1991; Marston, 2000).

In more recent discussions, the concept has been introduced to additional research fields, such as political ecology (McCarthy, 2005; Köhler, 2008) and heritage studies (Butland, 2012; Lähdesmäki et al., 2019). In the latter, an important strength of scale lies in its consideration of the tangled hierarchies and changing positionalities of cultural heritage production with other forms of sociospatial structuration. While every action is embedded in local contexts, a purely local–local interpretation would risk obscuring differences in access possibilities and interaction spaces of the agents involved (Schmitt, 2011, 88). In the context of Chinese cultural landscapes, relevant sociospatial processes include not only commodification but also the formation of national identity. The following are key questions for a better understanding of such processes: Does a commodification of heritage uphold or reshuffle existing hierarchies in heritage governance? How are social groups empowered/disempowered through an appropriation of traditional knowledge for income generation? How do reconfigurations of heritage management create forms of inclusion/exclusion?

In a globally highly interconnected world, supranational (and subnational) institutions gain importance as regulatory mechanisms in political, environmental, cultural and economic terms because “new forms of institutional organisation, political authority, and economic coordination” are generated “above and below the national scale of state power” (Brenner, 2004, 7). This trend can be well observed in the establishment of the Chinese heritage conservation and administration system. Since its ratification of the World Heritage Convention in 1985, China has become an active applicant for World Heritage inscription of its cultural and natural properties. Apart from a sense of national pride and local patriotism, this great enthusiasm or “world heritage craze” (Gu et al., 2012, 55; Yan, 2018) is nurtured by hopes for economic growth and development. The process of rendering heritage conservation economically feasible comes with significant risks for authenticity and integrity loss. Through the adoption of its own conservation principles in 2000, the China Principles (Zhongguo wenwu guji baohu zhunze 中国文物古迹保护准则), China primarily strives to “downscale” globally established concepts and practices to lower administrative levels (Zhu, 2019, 25), while, at the same time, actively “upscaling” its own key concerns and integrating them into the international heritage discourse.

Within the country, the state has undertaken a number of scale-making processes in the domain of heritage governance, ranging from jurisdictional frameworks to heritage inventories and new administrative mechanisms. In a strictly hierarchical structure of state regulation, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage 国家文物局 heads subordinate heritage departments on lower scales (provincial, prefectural, municipal, county). Equivalent to the World Heritage nomination process, Chinese cultural relic entities (wenwu baohu danwei 文物保护单位) must follow a hierarchical nomination process from one administrative scale to another. Based on this rigid administrative structure, sites can be upscaled or downscaled or their title revoked in designation rounds (Wallenwein, 2020, 259). It is precisely in this process of surveying, recording and conserving that heritage acquires symbolic value and becomes “amenable to commodification” (Kowalski, 2011, 87). The following section explores how scalar strategies can be and are already utilised by different agents to consolidate, shift or challenge existing power relations in the transformation and regulation of heritage.

4 National and Regional Scalar Strategies

The commodification of heritage and, notably, tourism development in the Hani Terraces is deeply entangled with policy objectives and personal aspirations on different scalar levels. In its long-term struggle to reduce poverty, the Chinese central government launched a number of campaigns such as “Open up the West” (Xibu da kaifa 西部大开发) at the turn of the millennium to narrow the gap between developed coastal regions and rural areas of the western interior. Besides fostering endogenous economic development and social stability, related policy objectives are to strengthen state capacity and nation-building (Goodman, 2004, 317). Ethnic tourism development enables the state to economically integrate minority groups while simultaneously implementing its cultural policies (Zhu, 2018, 20–21). The strictly hierarchical administrative system of heritage in China further allows central government agencies to “downscale” their value systems to heritage institutions on regional and local scales, enabling the cultivation of selected aspects of ethnic identity.

One aspect that may lead to conflicts with the local population is the question of how to deal with traditional residential buildings, some of which are dilapidated and in bad condition. In their attempt to develop cultural tourism, authorities aim to produce a homogenous landscape of traditional “mushroom houses” (local dwelling resembling a mushroom in shape) that reflect local cultural characteristics as they are widely known through touristic marketing. Homeowners, on the other hand, are striving to improve their living conditions, transform or even abandon their houses, as in the case of Azheke 阿者科 village, after having generated sufficient income (Zhang & Stewart, 2017, 43). Other such aspects of Hani culture include traditional folk songs and dances, as well as rituals and customs related to terrace cultivation. This intangible cultural heritage, as well as its transmitters, has been meticulously listed on different administrative levels.

At a regional scale, Honghe Prefectural Government strives to exert influence and accumulate resources via integrating the terrace landscape into institutional structures across different policy fields. Primarily, the decision to adopt a tourism-based development strategy was coupled with the promotion of the Hani Rice Terraces as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For better protection of the terraces, which is also a requirement for World Heritage listing, the prefectural government has adopted provisional management measures and a master plan since 2001, set up the Hani Terrace Authority in 2007 and established regulatory agencies at the county level one year later (FAO, 2010). With successful World Heritage designation, such newly established heritage departments move up the institutional scale, acquiring further administrative functions and funding (Zhu, 2019, 31). Moreover, the Prefecture Government made efforts to “upscale” the Hani Rice Terraces in the closely related fields of forestry and agriculture. In 2007, the State Forestry Administration approved parts of the terraces as a National Wetland Park, and they were inscribed as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS) pilot site in 2010 (Gu et al., 2012, 55). This integration of the landscape into further national and global-scale environmental programmes and the marketing of corresponding titles foster the establishment of a strong tourism brand and a competitive advantage, considering the number of outstanding scenic areas in Yunnan Province.

5 Local Scalar Strategies

With China’s introduction of market-oriented reforms and fiscal decentralisation at the beginning of the 1980s, state officials on local scales received new incentives to engage in profit-seeking economic activities and act as “state entrepreneurs” (Duckett, 2001). Following established practices to draw on heritage as a tool for “improvement” (Oakes, 2013), Yuanyang 元阳 County adopted a government-led approach for cultural tourism development. This decision and its accompanying process of cultural commodification created and still creates tensions between desired economic benefits and transformations of local culture and heritage.

Controversial measures as they appeared in the early stages of tourism development in the terraces included the erection of totem poles, which are not part of Hani culture, and regular ethnic cultural performances (Gu et al., 2012, 56). In his study on social spaces in tourist settings, MacCannell (1973) has explained similar phenomena with touristic attitudes and their “quest for authentic experiences”, which makes them susceptible to settings of “staged authenticity”. More recent studies of ethnic tourism have questioned ideas of touristic performances as mere reductions of culture to its exchange value and see marketed cultural enactments as social practices, bearing great potential for refiguring and reclaiming ethnic identity (Cohen, 1988, 380; Bruner, 2004, 7; Comaroff & Comaroff, 2009, 27).

Natural resources embodying cultural meaning can also become objects of dispute. In the Hani Terraces, the commodification of a forest with high spiritual significance triggered a conflict between the local government, Yuanyang County’s tourism bureau and residents. Led by objectives to satisfy the tourist gaze (Urry, 1990), the tourism bureau built a footpath across this forest in the northwest of Qingkou 箐口 hamlet, one of the earliest and central touristic areas. To express their opposition, residents blocked the footpath that disturbed ancestors’ resting places and violated local spiritual traditions (Gu et al., 2012, 57–58). The importance of social struggles for the production of scale has already been demonstrated for different contexts (e.g. US labour relations, see Herod, 1991) in the 1990s scale debate. By blocking the footpath, local inhabitants mobilised themselves and reached out to higher scales where conservation of intangible heritage is a priority policy goal. By expanding their “space of engagement”, they strengthened their position as custodians of heritage in their “space of dependence” (Cox, 1998).

Most conflicts in the terraces, however, are related to water as a highly limited resource. As public tap water supply is insufficient to meet the demands of both local communities and rapidly expanding tourism facilities, natural water sources are fiercely contested. In 2016, local farmers of the Yi ethnic group’s Shengcun 胜村 hamlet cut down water pipes to hotels, which drew water from the main water source for irrigating their terraces. Although the reasons for water scarcity are natural as well as anthropogenic, local communities hold tourism development responsible for the decline in water resources (Hua et al., 2018, 10).

Finally, on a horizontal scale, new agents such as migrant businesspeople participate in tourism-related activities. With strong profit-oriented objectives, this social group migrates to locations highly frequented by tourists for selling related products or services. As shown in previous studies, this phenomenon is not exclusive to the Hani Terraces but also evokes sharp local–migrant tensions at the World Heritage Town of Lijiang in the north-western part of Yunnan Province, where businesspeople skimmed off tourism-generated revenues to a significant extent (Su, 2013).

6 Upscaling

In this complex situation of competing agents and interests, one opportunity to avoid or at least curb exploitative forms of commodification is to initiate upscaling processes of traditional knowledge and local interests. In earlier preservation projects of inhabited Chinese landscapes, human agricultural activity was considered harmful to nature, and, not infrequently, inhabitants were resettled (Han, 2018, 71). At least partly, this one-sided protection of natural values was related to efforts for World Natural Heritage inscription and ecotourism development. In the case of the Hani Rice Terraces cultural landscape, social and cultural values have been more strongly considered, and customary law has been included in the conservation scheme as one form of local traditional knowledge to be protected.

According to traditional management, the terraces are irrigated with spring water diverted from mountain streams and channelled to the pond fields. Water allocation is managed collectively, monitored by a village-elected specialist (laoga-laepha), and manipulations are punished with fines (Bouchery, 2011, 328ff). While some particular spiritual and cultural practices of the Hani ethnic minority have fallen victim to the Cultural Revolution, customary rules for resource management seem to have been more resilient (Xu et al., 1999, 130). By preventing overexploitation of forests and through forms of social collaboration such as labour exchange, the recognition of customary institutions for managing land and water resources contributes to sustainable use of ecosystem resources (SDGs 6, 15), protection of the world’s cultural and natural heritage (SDG 11), and mitigation of climate change (SDG 13).

In order to improve local livelihoods and to tackle out-migration, landscape maintenance and red rice cultivation need to be economically feasible. Well-regulated and community-based tourism activities can create new income opportunities for younger generations but can only be part of an integrated set of measures. In Yuanyang County, traditional knowledge is further promoted to “upscale” food production and management capacity of farmers through a cooperative business model. This model is based on the cooperation of four partners: the state-owned Yuanyang County Grain Purchase and Marketing Co., Ltd. 元阳县粮食购销有限公司, the Hani Terraces Organic Red Rice Professional Cooperative of Yuanyang County 元阳县哈尼梯田有机红米专业合作社, red rice farmers and a number of e-commerce companies. To encourage red rice cultivation, seeds are subsidised by the local government, the agricultural cooperative handles supply, packaging and processing, and farmers receive an above-market price (Li et al., 2020). While tourists are just one target group, organic agricultural products are offered to a much wider range of customers through e-commerce sales platforms. Yuanyang County has already set up four e-commerce platforms, such as “Yuanyang Mall” 元阳商城, with more than 3600 red rice shops registered (Office of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission, 2020). While this model enables a significant value enhancement of local products (SDGs 1, 8) through public–private cooperation (SDG 17), conditions remain largely set by the authorities, and farmers’ involvement seems to be limited to economic participation.

7 Conclusion

Taking a scalar approach to the processual commodification of natural resources and traditional knowledge in agricultural landscapes sheds light on associated sociospatial processes and their impact on sustainable cultural development. In China, the vulnerability of living heritage to economic exploitation and its detrimental effects on heritage value are related to strong development agendas on different administrative scales in a dynamic and globalising environment. Similarly, the recognition and transmission of traditional knowledge offer great potential to trigger community-based development and empower its custodians, albeit within the boundaries of state regulation.

In the Hani Rice Terraces, ethnic tourism development produced “politics of scale” where national heritage authorities are concerned with issues of poverty alleviation and national unity, regional governments aim at harnessing heritage for allocating resources, local governments pursue economic growth, businesspeople strive to make profits and local people try to improve their living conditions. While governments on higher scales pursue strategies of inventorying and conserving heritage to uphold existing power relations, the rescaling of traditional knowledge provides opportunities to expand local spaces of engagement. However, as domestic tourism in China is expected to strongly increase in the future, strict regulation and management will be essential to avoid adverse commodification effects, such as those that occurred at the initial stages of tourism development in the Hani Rice Terraces. Therefore, a scalar approach should not be merely considered as a descriptive and analytical tool but rather a tool to actively initiate upscaling processes of local knowledge and interests to foster positive effects of commodification and achieve a balance between stakeholder interests.