Paper short abstract:

Studying the conflicting grounds between infrastructural development and cultural heritage protection of an the ethnic minority village in southwest China, I look at how plans are put on hold and cut corners to display contrary outcomes, and what this reveals about perceptions of government rule.

Paper long abstract:

My eleven months of ethnographic research is located in a Dong ethnic minority village in a mountainous valley in southeast Guizhou province, China's most impoverished regions. Owning to its well-preserved architectural exterior, the village is recognised for its cultural and historical setting under multiple national and transnational cultural heritage protection listings. Awarded the first listing of a nationally recognised traditional village, the locality is painted as peaceful and tranquil- a timeless setting, remaining the same as before. Yet to become that which it has always been requires infrastructural renovation and renewal. Discourse on the renovation of the village is found on conflicting grounds. Key actors address renovation as a means of restoring cultural heritage whilst others refer to it as fostering local development. Studying the variations that arise through discourse, I look at how infrastructural plans, and the financial resources to support them, are described, understood and imagined across key actors and local residents. In illustrating these themes, my paper shifts to discuss what happens when plans are put on hold, fail or cut corners to reveal contradictory outcomes. In unraveling these procedures, I portray how local residents make sense of contradictory outcomes as extensions of failed political and governmental rule. The subject of this paper is particularly relevant in exploring the impact national efforts to curb official graft measures under President Xi Jinping's rule have on infrastructural development and how people make sense of government plans that are so often placed on hold.