Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the recent hyper-evaluation of Macanese ethnic and cultural identity under way in Macao, a Special Administrative Region of China. The goal is to obtain Intangible Cultural World Heritage status, and to achieve coherence for reconstructing this identity today.

Paper long abstract:

The small bilingual (Portuguese and Cantonese) Macanese community preserves profound links with the former Portuguese colony of Macao in China. Historically, the Macanese community emerged out of complex historical phenomena of the blending of European (mostly Portuguese) and Southeast Asian elements, from the sixteenth century onwards. This blending gave rise to a Eurasian appearance, and developed "hybrid" cultural traditions.

Drawing on fieldwork in Lisbon and Macao, I'll analyse the efforts and initiatives of several Macanese associations and fraternities to recover, preserve, and rebuild the elements that characterize the "uniqueness" of Macanese identity. These efforts consubstantiate a clear strategy that has evolved since the Macao handover from Portugal, and is now "instituted" in the "new" context of the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (RAEM). The "retrieval" and "protection" of a cultural and ethnic Macanese identity - such as the group's singular gastronomy and patuá dialect - is intimately associated with the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) application project of cultural legitimisation.

This paper shall explore the complexity of the cultural politics and identity issues that can surround intangible heritage and ask is the 2003 ICH Convention capable of addressing the cultural complexity of Macanese heritage? I argue that contemporary practices of intangible heritage make the imminence of the consequences of heritage practices for local communities' political and cultural aspirations more obvious and apparent. If nothing more, the idea of Macanese intangible heritage forces a recognition of cultural heritage because of the immediacy of its production and consumption.