Transnational politics and poetics in the revival of Chinese death rituals

Abstract

Religions and religious rituals are being increasingly proclaimed as Intangible Cultural Heritages by UNESCO. Chinese death rituals can thus been conceptualised as significant intangible cultural heritages within the Chinese societies, both within Mainland China and the Chinese Diaspora. Since the Open Door Policy in 1978, there has been a revival of death rituals within the villages of South China. This revival has led to the emergence of the death rituals that have not seen practiced in Mainland China since pre-Cultural Revolution days. This paper argues that the preservation and the practice of death rituals in modern China and the Chinese Diaspora are significant intangible cultural heritages because of their role in informing a group of its identity and in helping with identity construction within these societies. Here, these rituals have re-cemented lost kinship ties among the Chinese villagers within the village setting, between the Chinese villagers and their urban kin in China, and between these two groups and their kin residing in the Diaspora. By coming together and recreating an environment where different groups of individuals participate in the death rituals and pay respects to common ancestors, we are witnessing a rediscovery and reconfiguration of kinship ties and social relationships on the one hand, and, at the same time, a surfacing of tensions and conflicts on the other. In this sense, death rituals, as a complex system of intangible cultural heritages, enables us to understand the dynamics of modern kinship ties and social relationships in contemporary Chinese societies.