Openness and Fluidity of Place: A Practical Dilemma for Ecomuseums in China

Abstract Compared to traditional museums, ecomuseums encompass community, heritage and a cultural landscape, transforming a place into an in situ museum. When employed as a cultural tool or heritage project, ecomuseums are dedicated to representing local distinctiveness and strengthening a sense of place. What happens when the intentions are such, but the development practice for ecomuseums is inherently fraught with challenges? This article reveals that in China, ecomuseum projects intending to develop a sense of place and local participation encounter practical dilemmas from their particular methodology and practical processes. Through the perspectives of both an insider developer participant and an outsider anthropologist, we describe and analyse two cases from China: Bai Yang Po, located in Shanxi province, and You Tian, in Zhejiang province. These two case studies reveal that ecomuseum principles, site selection and project implementation in China do not correspond with local populations’ sense of place. Using participant observation, questionnaires and semi-structured interview data, we argue that extra-local scholar and government-led directives establish distinct physical boundaries for ecomuseum projects that do not follow the logic of local people’s lives, nor their relationships with each other and with their environment. In this paper we present two key concepts—openness of place and fluidity of place—and in connecting them with our case studies, illustrate how a sense of place that transcends physical boundaries can be viable for ecomuseum projects in China.