Meshing Modernity and Tradition: Ensuring the Sustainability of Material Culture

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This paper will challenge the belief that tradition will succumb to modernity in the development process. Based on extensive research in the Southwest region of China, this paper will show how minority groups are using economic development to revive their cultural practices and traditions. Ethnic products such as textiles and silver work are being promoted by the government of China to support its manifestation as a multicultural nation, thus creating an impetus for cultural sustainability at the same time that culture is being challenged by modernization and change. How are the ethnic minorities negotiating between these complex realities to maintain traditions while attempting to gain recognition and status as equal contributors to Chinese culture? The very policies that seek to promote minority culture in order to create a modern nation-state, are enabling groups within the modern state to revive, promote, and sustain traditions. Likewise the very modern notion of globalisation is bringing the outside in; scholars, academics and collectors have been drawn to the material culture of Chinese minorities, both satisfying the government's need to develop the tourism industry and driving minority groups to adapt and elaborate on their cultural traditions. What is key is that modernity and tradition work in tangent to create cultural sustainability. While there are certainly challenges, such as groups being forced from their homelands to accommodate transportation infrastructure, and an encroachment of outside influences, these challenges are being reframed as opportunities for cultural revival, cultural maintenance, and in some cases even cultural resurrection. As China modernizes, attention to the cultural sustainability of ethnic minorities is vital. Participants in this research include scholars in Chinese ethnicity, contemporary artists from minority communities and those practising traditional arts in local villages.

Stream: Cultural Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

I currently hold a BA in Art History from the University of Calgary. I have lived, worked and traveled extensively throughout Asia, studying Chinese, and spending time in villages with local artisans. My goal is to become a curator and I currently volunteer at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and have also completed a Smithsonian internship. This fall I will intern at the University of Hawaii Art Gallery. I want to draw attention to ethnic minority culture, blur the line between art and craft and challenge the assumptions behind the commodification of authenticity so prevalent in tourism. I am particularly fascinated by how cultures adapt to change and reinvent traditions; I don’t believe that groups should have to shun modern conveniences to remain authentic. I am particularly interested in examining how tradition and modernity work together in a global environment to create sustainable cultures.