[Yang Lihui] Community-driven intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization: A development path for an urbanized countryside in the suburbs of Beijing
Abstract: In modern political and cultural discourse,"countryside" is often regarded as the "other" of modernity, a passive place to be saved by top-down efforts.
Its own subjectivity and cultural traditions including intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter generally referred to as "intangible cultural heritage") are often ignored or underestimated.
The above concepts should be revised.
The case of Gaobeidian Village in the suburbs of Beijing shows the active practice of an urbanized village that has lost its land to actively use intangible cultural heritage to pursue its own development.
A study of the motivations, methods and action entities that drive its development of intangible cultural heritage to achieve revitalization shows that "community-driven intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization" is a more fundamental model.
This model emphasizes the community as the main body to drive intangible cultural heritage development and achieve rural revitalization, and focuses on the importance of the following principles:1) the intrinsic development motivation driven by the community;2) based on the community's own cultural traditions;3) Community participation in the development process;4) Community benefits.
This model has positive inspiration for the implementation of rural revitalization strategies today: only by fully respecting and giving full play to the subjectivity of rural areas can it be possible to truly realize rural revitalization and sustainable development.
Keywords: community-driven; subjectivity; intangible cultural heritage; rural revitalization; Gaobeidian
China is a large agricultural country, and the entire society has always paid great attention to the countryside.
However, in modern political and cultural discourse,"countryside" is often regarded as the "other" of modernity.
It is not only "underdeveloped" economically, but also relatively "backward" culturally and spiritually.
From a series of cultural policies and popular discourses such as "culture going to the countryside","sending joy to the grassroots" and "capable people returning to their hometowns", it is not difficult to see a dominant concept held by China society: a place passively waiting for the top-down efforts of elite culture to save it.
The subjectivity of the countryside itself and cultural traditions-including intangible cultural heritage-are often ignored or underestimated, which is something that urgently needs reflection and improvement in the current implementation of rural revitalization strategies.
At present, the subjectivity of rural areas in intangible cultural heritage protection and the importance of intangible cultural heritage to rural revitalization have attracted the attention of some scholars.
For example, Liu Xiaochun introduced the impact of "community creation" in Japan and Taiwan on new urbanization construction in the mainland of China.
When introducing the enlightenment of intangible cultural heritage protection in the process, he particularly emphasized the need to "fully stimulate the creativity of local people" and attach importance to "the endogenous vitality rooted in the local society itself." He believes that only in this way can "intangible cultural heritage have the inherent vitality of sustainable survival"; Zhang Shishan cited the customs of "Huimin clay sculptures" and "Changyi roasting big cattle" in rural areas of Luzhong as examples, emphasizing that "the practice of intangible cultural heritage can truly return to the people, Integrate into the development of rural communities is the key to the protection of intangible cultural heritage"; Chen Zhiqin also pointed out that the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage "it is necessary to realize the transformation from 'government intervention' to 'rural self-rescue', from' tourism management 'to' villagers participation', and from 'literary and artistic performances' to 'village identity', so as to reflect the importance of intangible cultural heritage protection to rural revitalization." However, overall, there is obviously insufficient research on the subjectivity of rural areas and the importance of intangible cultural heritage in rural revitalization.
Moreover, there are too many grand calls and suggestions, too few specific and in-depth field studies, and there is a lack of experience summary, model refinement and theoretical reflection based on ethnographic research in specific villages.
In view of this, this paper attempts to take the field study of Gaobeidian Village in the suburbs of Beijing as a case study to show the practical process of an urbanized village that has lost land actively and proactively used intangible cultural heritage to seek revitalization and development, in order to supplement and correct the above deficiencies.
The author's attention and investigation into Gaobeidian Village began before the start of the 2008 Olympic Games.
Research at that time aimed to explore the impact of the Olympic Games, a sports, cultural and political event, on China's folk traditions, and Gaobeidian therefore became a window to observe this impact.
I was deeply impressed by the village's strategy and practice of actively using folk culture to develop international folk tourism by taking advantage of the Olympic Games.
This paper regards Gaobeidian Village as a community with subjectivity, analyzes the motivations and methods that drive the village to develop intangible cultural heritage to achieve rural revitalization, shows the active individuals participating in it, and explores the effective models contained therein, with a view to providing some useful reference for the current rural revitalization strategy from the special perspective of intangible cultural heritage research.
Before starting the formal discussion, there are two concepts that need to be clarified in advance.
First, in the eyes of many people,"intangible cultural heritage" refers to cultural events that have passed various certifications and been included in various lists.
In fact, intangible cultural heritage should include two types: one is "cognitive heritage"(heritage in perception), which refers to those heritage that are "recognized" by various authoritative knowledge under the framework of contemporary heritage standards, such as "world heritage" and "national intangible cultural heritage"; etc.; the other is "essential heritage"(heritage in essence), that is, cultural property that has not been recognized and entered the list, but has inherent historical and artistic value in the universal sense.
The term "intangible cultural heritage" in this article is understood in accordance with the definition of the 2003 Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
It refers to various related cultural phenomena that are "regarded as part of their cultural heritage by various communities, groups, and sometimes individuals.", including both cognitive heritage and essential heritage.
Second, about the meaning of "community".
"Community") is a key word in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Work System.
It refers to a person who directly or indirectly participates in the implementation and inheritance of a certain intangible cultural heritage project or a series of intangible cultural heritage projects and identifies with the series.
The project is part of his or her cultural heritage.
Communities can be large or small in size, and are characterized by non-fixed and heterogeneous.
The community and the groups and individuals that make up the community are the main body of the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage projects.
In this article, Gaobeidian Village people "directly or indirectly participate in the implementation and inheritance of a certain or a series of intangible cultural heritage projects, and recognize that the series of intangible cultural heritage projects are part of their cultural heritage", constituting the inheritance and development of intangible cultural heritage communities.
The community is mobile and open: in addition to the villagers, outsiders who live in the village and participate in the village's intangible cultural heritage protection and development practices are also regarded as part of the community; there is a close interactive relationship between the village's intangible cultural heritage development and relevant practices of the country, Beijing City and Chaoyang District.
The main bodies promoting the intangible cultural heritage development and village revitalization of this community are diverse and characterized by heterogeneity.
1.
From the water transport terminal,"advanced unit in agricultural socialist construction" to "Sanwu Village": Changes in Gaobeidian Village
Gaobeidian Village belongs to Gaobeidian Township, Chaoyang District, Beijing City.
It is on the extension line of East Chang 'an Street and 8 kilometers away from Tiananmen Square.
The current village area is 2.7 square kilometers, with a permanent population of more than 6200 and a floating population of more than 8000.
In recent years, with the rapid development of urbanization, many villagers in Gaobeidian Village in the past have urban hukou, but there are still more than 600 people in the village who have rural hukou.
Every time we come to Gaobeidian for investigation, as soon as we exit the subway entrance, we will always see the sparkling Tonghui River and the eye-catching sign of "Gaobeidian Village" hanging high by the river.
At the head of the village stands a huge stone carving engraved with the words "Beijing's Most Beautiful Village".
Indeed, Gaobeidian Village is well-known in Beijing.
In addition to the "most beautiful village", it has also won a series of honors such as "National Green Well-off Village" and "Top Ten Villages for Well-off Construction in Eastern China." Its revitalization process and the key role played by intangible cultural heritage provide an excellent example for this article's discussion.
According to research, Gaobeidian was located in a village in the Liao Dynasty.
It was once named "Jiaoting","Gaomidian" and "Gaomidian", etc., but was changed to its current name in the Qing Dynasty.
It was once an important water transport terminal in history.
Since the Tonghui River is an important channel of the Grand Canal, Gaobeidian Village has become an important terminal and cargo distribution center for transporting grain from south to north.
Since the Tonghui River was dug in the Yuan Dynasty, merchants have gathered.
Due to its location in the suburbs of Beijing and along the Grand Canal, the way of livelihood of Gaobeidian people is different from that of ordinary rural areas in North China.
Villagers do not just rely on farming for a living, but work as porters loading and unloading goods on the "big" docks along the canal.) Or going to Beijing to sell small goldfish is also an important means of livelihood to supplement agricultural income.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, agricultural production cooperatives were established in various places.
Primary agricultural cooperatives and senior agricultural cooperatives were also established in Gaobeidian.
Farmland is divided into large fields and garden fields.
Wheat, corn, and rice are planted in the fields; vegetables are planted in the garden fields.
In the later period, garden fields were gradually dominated, and vegetables were not only grown, but also grapes were planted.
In the 1950s, Gaobeidian Commune achieved a double bumper harvest of grain and vegetables, and in 1958, it won the award of "Advanced Unit in Agricultural Construction" awarded by Premier Zhou Enlai.
After 1983, Gaobeidian began to face a huge crisis: the original 2300 acres of cultivated land in the village was gradually requisitioned by national and municipal projects such as the Beijing-Shenyang Railway, the Beijing-Tianjin Expressway, the sewage treatment plant, and the Fifth Ring Road, and the village no longer has cultivated land.
This turned Gaobeidian into a "three-no village" and fell into the embarrassing situation of "saying that there is no agriculture in rural areas, saying that farmers have no arable land, and farmers have no jobs when they have transferred to their homes."
2.
Community-driven development motivation: the revitalization and development of intangible cultural heritage
The actual dilemma has inspired Gaobeidian people to seek survival and change, and has given rise to the village's internal drive to actively explore the road to revitalization.
In this process, the village committee and ordinary villagers played an important role.
In 2002, Zhi Fen, the new secretary of the Party branch of Gaobeidian Village, discovered that there were several scattered ancient furniture companies in the village.
He thought,"Our village has no agriculture or industry, but it has a profound cultural tradition.
Why not try to find a path to rejuvenate the village through culture?" Under the guidance of this strategy, the village has successively built a classical furniture street, built a "Cultural Street", and introduced a number of cultural enterprises such as the Imperial Examination Plaque Museum, Huasheng Bridge and China Oil Painting Academy.
In 2005, taking advantage of the upcoming hosting of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Gaobeidian launched the "International Folk Tourism" project, mainly aimed at foreign tourists and showcasing "Old Beijing's Folk Culture" as the main form of tourism.
It strives to "enable foreign tourists to enjoy China's scenic spots and historic sites while having the opportunity to learn more about the daily life of ordinary Chinese people and enhance mutual understanding and friendship between people of various countries." At the same time, it also makes a useful attempt for the development of the Olympic economy." Various forms of intangible cultural heritage have thus become an important resource for "cultural revitalization of villages" and the development of international folk tourism.
Among them, there are three main types of the most commonly used forms of intangible cultural heritage.
1.
Among the folk performing arts, stilts are the most prominent.
Stilts are the iconic cultural heritage of Gaobeidian Village and "the spiritual pillar and pride of the whole village.""In the past, when Gaobeidian was mentioned, everyone's first reaction was definitely yes, stilts!" The history of the village's stilts old club can be traced back to the Guangxu period of the Qing Dynasty.
It participated in many large-scale folk flower fairs.
It participated in national celebrations in 1949 and 1954, and won the first prize in the Beijing City "Longtan Cup" Folk Flower Fair Competition three consecutive times from 1987 to 1989.
In October 2009, Gaobeidian Stilts Old Club was included in the Beijing-level intangible cultural heritage project, and has performed abroad on behalf of Beijing City and Chaoyang District many times.
Gaobeidian Stilts Association has experienced four ups and downs in history.
The first time was in the 1960s and 1970s.
Like many other traditional cultural events at that time, stilts performances had to be stopped.
The second time was after 1979, when the stilt festival resumed its activities and won many awards in flower festival competitions.
The third time was in the ten years from 1992 to 2002.
Due to the loss of many people going to do business, the performance and inheritance of stilts were interrupted again.
The fourth time was in 2002, when Gaobeidian Village began to implement the strategy of "revitalizing the village through culture".
Stilts were rediscovered and valued, and key elements returned to the village to participate in performances.
Regarding this rejuvenation process, Wang Juan, president of the village economic cooperative, and Zhang Aige, current president of the Stilts Association, recalled: Wang: In 2002, we began to dig and sort out the village history, raised the Gaobeidian Stilts Association, and then began to revitalize the Stilts Association.
Zhang: We gathered these people together again.
Author: But haven't many people gone into business? Went out of town?
Zhang: After I learned this thing when I was a child, it was a hobby and couldn't be lost.
What was it during that time? Everyone was married and worked outside, but no one paid attention to it.
No one takes it seriously, so you won't bring it up.
Later, when the leaders paid attention to it and mentioned restoring it, the group of people was very enthusiastic and came back, without a lack of anyone.
After that, I followed closely and practiced and left the meeting.
In addition to stilts, some other "essential legacies" have also been restored or rebuilt.
After 2003, Gaobeidian Village has established more than 20 cultural and artistic performance teams, including small car fairs, yangko teams, dance teams, waist drum teams, tai chi boxing teams, and prestige gong and drum teams.
Their performances have all become important cultural expressions in the village and become a reliable resource for "rejuvenating the village through culture".
2.
Traditional festivals.
In the process of developing folk tourism, festivals are often particularly favored for their collective, performance and entertainment nature.
They can easily be highlighted from daily life and enter the broader field of public culture.
Gaobeidian Village is no exception.
The Dragon Boat Festival is the most important traditional festival for Gaobeidian people.
It is also called the "May Festival" locally.
It is even more lively than the New Year-because in the past, the New Year season was the busiest time for local people to sell small goldfish or sell fish in Beijing.
Many Gaobeidian people were doing business outside instead of going home to celebrate the New Year, so the Spring Festival in the village seemed relatively deserted, and the Dragon Boat Festival became a big festival for Gaobeidian people.
On the Dragon Boat Festival, people working outside have to rush home.
Every family has to "wear new clothes and new hats", insert mugwort, paste paper-cuts with gourd flower patterns, and wrap rice dumplings with reed leaves collected by the Tonghui River.
In 2005, with the help of the Beijing Folk Museum, Gaobeidian began to hold large-scale folk festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival and the Central Yuan Festival to showcase local festival customs to villagers and tourists.
I once led an investigation team to inspect the Dragon Boat Festival activities here in 2009.
At that time, a concentrated festival performance was held in the "Huasheng Tianqiao Folk Culture Park", the main contents included folk flower show performances, acrobatic performances, wrestling competitions, rice dumplings making competitions, etc.
In June 2019, the author went to Gaobeidian again and inspected the "Dragon Boat Festival" held at the local Water Transport Cultural Square.
He obviously felt that the relevant traditional activities were more abundant.
The opening ceremony organized a competition to make rice dumplings, tie longevity, paint the king tiger, fight hundreds of grass, Dragon Boat Festival knowledge competition, etc.
The villagers also performed stilts, waist drums, Tai Chi fans, etc.
Zhongyuan Festival is also known as the "River Lantern Festival".
Due to its location along the Tonghui River, the Middle Yuan Festival has long occupied an important position in Gaobeidian people's lives.
During the festival, men, women and old must participate and put lanterns in the river to save the drowned souls.
Later, due to the decline of traditional festivals and the silting of rivers, the custom of setting up river lanterns gradually disappeared.
After implementing the strategy of revitalizing the village through culture, the village committee mobilized villagers to renovate irrigation canals, dredged the river, and restored the custom of setting off river lanterns on July 15.
In 2005, Gaobeidian held the first "Zhongyuan River Lantern Festival" on the Tonghui Irrigation Canal, which has been held for many consecutive times.
Every River Lantern Festival, the village organizes villagers to make river lanterns together, and also has a free river lantern distribution area, flower fair display area, river lantern evaluation area, etc.
to attract more tourists to participate.
3.
Eating customs.
One of the most important contents of Gaobeidian's international folk tourism is the production and performance of traditional cuisine.
The recipes focus on highlighting the dietary characteristics of old Beijing.
For example,"Kung Pao Chicken" and "Jing Sauce Sliced Pork" are often made for foreign tourists to highlight the cultural taste of Beijing's "Ancient Oriental Capital".In terms of staple foods, we also pay attention to making three staple foods with obvious China characteristics for foreign tourists: rice, noodles and dumplings.
During the reception process, folk households often personally show foreigners the process of making dumplings and stretching noodles, and invite foreign tourists to participate in the production process.
Some folk households will combine tourists 'tastes and strive to develop new dishes, such as traditional foods such as fried spring rolls, fried lotus root boxes, and fried creeks from old Beijing, which are also very popular among tourists.
3.
The main methods of intangible cultural heritage development
Looking closely at Gaobeidian Village's development of intangible cultural heritage, it is not difficult to find that there are three main methods: reviving old traditions; embezzling other traditions; and inventing new traditions.
Revitalization of old traditions refers to exploring the original customs in the village and making them appear in the daily life of villagers, folk tourism and the wider field of public culture with a new look.
This is one of the most commonly used methods.
The above-mentioned stilt performances, Dragon Boat Festival and Central Yuan Festival were originally or were once important folk customs in Gaobeidian people's lives.
They were rediscovered in the process of rural revitalization and reproduced in the current diversified context.
The misappropriation of other traditions is mainly manifested in the transplantation and transfer of other related cultural traditions outside the village.
Take stilts as an example.
During our interviews, President Zhang Aige said many times that there were not many Peking Opera elements in the original stilts performances, but in recent years, in order to make the performances more ornamental, he borrowed a large number of Peking Opera elements, including costumes, characters and makeup methods, to enrich them into the stilts performances.
For example, Xiaotou Xing is dressed like a Peking Opera doll, and a child's hair, clothes, and hair are dressed like Nezha.
The big head line is based on Wu Song's appearance in the Peking Opera "Pteri Ridge").
His head is covered with unkempt hair and monk hoop, and his body is covered with clothes, monk vest, and silk ribbons.
Wu Shan is dressed up like Wu Xiaosheng in Peking Opera, with a martial arts prince's scarf on his head and a martial arts robe on his body.
Wen fans are dressed like the big blue clothes in Peking Opera, with a phoenix crown on their head, a female cape and a waist on their body...
In addition, like majestic gongs and drums, they are also learned from other places and have now become an important form in Gaobeidian folk customs performances.
one.
Inventing new "traditions" mainly means creating new forms or content, such as adding female performers to stilts performances.
Traditional stilt performances have no female participation, and all the roles are played by men.
Even if there are female characters, men are still dressed as women to perform.
However, in the process of the revival of stilt art, stilt will begin to absorb women.
Zhang: There were no female roles at the beginning.
Introducing our generation, we started to have sex with lesbians.
Author: Let's start with aunt, right?
Zhang's wife: There were no women at that time.
Mother Zhang: There were none at that time.
They were all female characters transformed into male characters, wearing women's clothes.
Zhang: Since our generation, there have been female comrades.
Look at you tonight, there are so many little girls.
Among the above three methods, reviving old traditions is obviously at the core, forming the foundation for Gaobeidian Village to develop intangible cultural heritage and shape the village's cultural symbols.
The latter two methods are measures to supplement and expand village traditions based on the first method.
No matter what cultural events outside the village are embezzled, or what new forms and new content are created, they are always centered around the center of revitalizing the "Gaobeidian Cultural Tradition".
The original folk traditions of Gaobeidian Village have always been the foundation of the local intangible cultural heritage development, and which forms and content are selected to appropriate and create, and how to appropriate and create, all depend on whether they can be ultimately accepted and integrated into "Gaobeidian Cultural Tradition".
Judging from the results, many of the embezzled or created forms and contents were indeed eventually integrated into the culture of the village, and played a role in enriching and expanding its cultural traditions, enhancing its vitality and vitality, and promoting local economic development.
The achievement of this effect is inseparable from the open and inclusive cultural concepts held by the local people.
When answering his views on the misappropriation and change of tradition, President Zhang showed a very open-minded attitude: "It must change.
It is impossible to carry this thing over without moving at all, and pass it on to you like this! Can't live! Each era has a different level of thinking and appreciation.
So you have to change with it."
In the Convention and its related derivative documents, UNESCO emphasizes the need to protect not only the inheritance and survival of intangible cultural heritage projects, but also their vitality and creativity, clearly affirming the changes and updates of intangible cultural heritage in the process of inheritance.
Gaobeidian people's practice and concepts of intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization are consistent with this proposition of UNESCO and reflect the cultural consciousness of the community.
4.
The main body of intangible cultural heritage development
What kind of force is promoting rural revitalization and intangible cultural heritage development? How does the community participate in this process? From the Gaobeidian case, we found that intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization were carried out under the promotion of diverse subjects.
Among them, the one who plays a leading and decision-making role is naturally the village committee.
Zhi Fen, who has served as secretary of the village party branch for a long time since 2002, has played a key role in the revitalization process of the village.
It was she who established the direction and strategy of revitalizing the village through culture and actively promoted the implementation of this direction and strategy.
On the other hand, the villagers of Gaobeidian Village are equally important.
They are inheritors and practitioners of intangible cultural heritage and the basic force in promoting intangible cultural heritage development and village revitalization.
For example, President Zhang and his family from the Stilts Club are very enthusiastic about village affairs.
As President Zhang's old mother said in an interview: "Our family is very supportive of the village.
Whenever there is a group activity in the village, there is no one in our family, so everyone goes to participate in the group activities." This is even more true for President Zhang himself: I began to learn stilts under the leadership of my father when I was a child.
In the first performance of the reorganization stilt party in 1979, I was 12 years old and played Xiao Tou Xing, the youngest actor at the time.
Since then, he has become the main actor in the stilts club through hard work.
When the Junior Stilts were formed in 1981, my father Zhang Wenyu was the head and head coach of the club.
I was the core of the team.
Through hard training, our Gaobeidian Stilts Club won the first total score in the first National Longtan Cup Flower Fair Competition.
Good results and won the first prize in more than 100 clubs).
I myself won the first place in the Individual Outstanding Performance Award.
In various competitions in the future, the Gaobeidian Stilts Festival ranked first, and I won the Individual Outstanding Performance Award.
I know everything from the small head to the old lady's fourteen roles...
Since 2005, reforms and innovations have been carried out in makeup, clothing, and movement choreography.
This year, children's stilts were re-organized.
Obviously, President Zhang is the core figure in the protection and development of intangible cultural heritage in the village.
He has a very clear and firm understanding of his responsibilities and how to inherit stilts without adhering to stereotypes.
Tian Yuchen, another member of the dance team, also left a deep impression on us.
Listening to her tell the story of learning and performing dance and enthusiastically doing her best for the village collective, the students and I were deeply moved: we made these costumes ourselves., that Xinjiang dance costume), we made them all through a stitch.
There was not so much money at that time, so we just used the yellow ears.
After opening it up, we used the bamboo stick to tie it layer by layer to create such a ears, which was especially beautiful when jumping.
At that time, I danced every morning and made clothes in the afternoon, without any rest at all.
In 2008, 09, 2008, 2009) At that time, foreigners often came to the folk village, and the folk village had just begun.
We make our own clothes and spend our own money to buy our own materials), we don't use the public paying a cent.
For example, if we want to paste lanterns, we have to paste lanterns for at least two to three days at a time, and at most we spent five days doing so.
Where did these river lanterns come from? More than 85% of these lanterns are surrounded with iron wire, and paper is pasted after they are surrounded.
Look at my hands, my skin is broken!...
All the work that needs people to do in our village, as long as you say it, these people will go up like those who ate bee poop.
Make rice dumplings, make rice dumplings for three, four, five or six days, just sit here.
We packed 1600 kilograms of rice in the first year.
What kind of energy is this?! The family didn't care about it, I didn't care about cooking, and I didn't care about anything, so I just went to do this.
They put a lot of effort into making various props for the event.
In Tian Yuchen's words: "We people can put no less effort and effort into Gaobeidian Village.
This is all selfless." When I asked her "Why do I do this?" her answer was very simple: "I am from Gaobeidian Village."
In Gaobeidian, villagers have a strong sense of identity with the village and have a high degree of initiative to participate in village collective activities.
The popular local saying "Gaobeidian people unite together" and "Gaobeidian people protect Gaobeidian people" also explains the character of this village.
In the process of intangible cultural heritage development and village revitalization, this feature has also been clearly manifested.
Although the subjects involved in development are diverse, and the villagers 'attitude towards development and degree of participation are not completely consistent, under the leadership of the village committee, various forces worked together and finally promoted the revitalization of the village.
5.
Conclusion and discussion
The above article examines and analyzes the motives, methods and subjects of Gaobeidian Village's intangible cultural heritage development in the process of rural revitalization.
Based on this, this paper proposes a "community-driven intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization" model and believes that this model is fundamental.
As pointed out above, research on the subjectivity of rural areas and the importance of intangible cultural heritage in rural revitalization urgently needs to be strengthened.
UNESCO's basic principles on intangible cultural heritage protection also emphasize the importance of community participation in protection practice, and even stipulate that protection work should be community-centered and communities should play a major role in it.
Paying attention to the status and role of communities has increasingly become the consensus among all states parties to carry out intangible cultural heritage protection practices.
However, how to attach importance to the subjectivity of the community and make it play a major role still needs to be summarized from experience and discussed theoretically.
In view of this, the "community-driven" perspective provides a new model of thinking and practice.
This article's reference to "community driven" community driven was directly inspired by Jessica Anderson Turner, executive director of the American Folklore Society.
In September 2018, she gave a paper titled "Community-Driven Research in American Folklore" at Beijing Normal University, which proposed that "community-driven" is a model for American public folklore scholars to conduct surveys on community heritage projects.
In this model, the community and its members are the leaders, actively selecting research topics and display objects, while public folklore scholars only play a guiding role and become collaborators of research projects.
However, unlike Dr.
Turner, the "community-driven" model proposed in this paper is not limited to just a survey method, but refers to a model in which communities are the main body to drive the protection and development of intangible cultural heritage, and then achieve rural revitalization.
This model focuses on the importance of the following principles:1) intrinsic development motivations driven by the community;2) being based on the community's own cultural traditions;3) community participation in the protection and development process; and 4) community benefits.
The revitalization process of Gaobeidian Village provides an excellent example for the proposal of this model, and its success proves the effectiveness of this model: the driving force for Gaobeidian to implement intangible cultural heritage development and village revitalization stems from the real needs of solving the survival dilemma within the community; the intangible cultural heritage resources it relies on mainly come from the original customs of the community, and based on this, it continues to expand and innovate.
Through various means such as rejuvenation, misappropriation and new construction, it finally revitalizes the local intangible cultural heritage tradition; The intangible cultural heritage community composed of village committee members and ordinary villagers participated in and worked together to complete the process of development and revitalization; in the end, the village was revitalized, transforming from a "three-no village" to a well-known well-off village, and the villagers benefited from the results of intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization.
This "community-driven intangible cultural heritage development and rural revitalization" model is a revision to the popular concept of treating the countryside as a passive place waiting for rescue, and has positive inspiration for the implementation of rural development strategies today: only by fully respecting and giving full play to the countryside can it be possible to truly realize rural revitalization and sustainable development.
(The original text is published in "Folklore Research", issue 01, 2020, the annotations are omitted, and refer to the original issue for details)