Mistreated Heroes, Immortal Sacrifice
Interstitial Commemorative Zones and Epistemic Pilgrimage to Southwest China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24228754 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jacqueline Zhenru Lin |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 146 |
| Pages | 59-68 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Perspectives chinoises (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1021-9013 • E-ISSN: 2070-3449 |
| Publisher | OpenEdition (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.4000/16w6e |
| OpenAlex | W7219621922 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 26 |
This anthropological study examines the grassroots commemoration of World War II involving online activists, regional cultural elites, and NGOs in contemporary China. Tengchong, a former border battlefield in southwest China, has become a pilgrimage destination for these non-state actors who search for authentic histories and seek to redress historical wrongs inflicted upon the forgotten heroes buried there. Utilising participant observation, content analysis, in-depth interviews, digital ethnography, and oral history, this research delves into the motivations behind these journeys, emergent subjectivities, and spatial contestations in war remembrance. It theorises memorial spaces like Tengchong as interstitial commemorative zones where official state histories and localised lived experiences overlap, harbouring unresolved moral and political tensions.
Historical memory · historical wrongs · memorial space · Non-governmental organizations · Southwest China · Tengchong · war commemoration · World War II commemoration · Cultural Identity and Heritage · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact
Age of Wild Ghosts
The Power of the Internet in China
The Location of Culture
Ambivalent Nostalgia
History and Nationalist Legitimacy in Contemporary China
Souls of contention and incommensurate mourning
Grieving at Chongqing’s Red Guard Graveyard
Anthropology as Vocation
New geographies of commemoration
From Landlord Manor to Red Memorabilia
Pilgrimage centers
Ghosts of War in Vietnam
Contact zones
The Interstitial Subjectivities of the Yunnanese Chinese in Thailand1
Performative filiality and Chinese voluntary associations in transnational commemoration of the Second World War
| Highly cited | No |
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