Digitalisation of Memory Practices in China

Maximilian Mayer is Junior-Professor of International Relations and Global Politics of Technology at University of Bonn. Frederik Schmitz is Research Fellow and PhD student at the University of Bonn.

‘Memory practices have been instrumental to the building of all modern nation-states, but they remain particularly sensitive for the state of a nation such as the People’s Republic of China. Taking the encompassing curating power of the authoritarian party-state seriously while exploring the extant wriggle room of marginal non-state actors for leveraging information technologies to shape collective memories and heritage is a most daunting, but highly important task. Readers will find the scholarship assembled in this volume methodologically rich, conceptually innovative and in its scope truly Chinese global.’ Ralph Weber, University of Basel‘In an era where digital technologies transform how societies remember and forget, this groundbreaking volume offers an incredibly valuable interdisciplinary analysis of how digitisation is reshaping memory and heritage practices in China, revealing a dynamic battleground where official narratives collide with grassroots remembrance, market forces and digital media infrastructures.Conceptualizing the Chinese state as a ‘curating state’, the book explores how digitalisation both strengthens and disrupts its control over collective memory. On the one hand, the state has emerged as a powerful curator of the past—shaping narratives, controlling archives, and erasing inconvenient histories. On the other hand, as digital platforms multiply, so do the voices challenging and contesting the state’s effort to curate memory. Activists, netizens and private archivists leverage digital tools to contest state-sanctioned histories, creating alternative archives and subversive memory practices.Interdisciplinary in scope, The Digitalisation of Memory Practices in China bridges political science, media studies, memory research and cultural analysis. Engaging and timely, its chapters invite readers to rethink how power operates in the digital age—not just in China, but in many other societies where the struggle over memory is increasingly waged online. This is a must read for anyone interested in China studies, digital authoritarianism and memory politics.’ Rongbin Han, University of Georgia

• Introduction: The Digitalisation of Curating Collective Memories and Heritage in China - Maximilian Mayer and Frederik Schmitz1. From the Archive to the Public Sphere: The Digital Rebirth of an Underground Journal - Ian Johnson2. How Do Netizens Remember? Digital Memory Work in the History of the Chinese Internet - Guobin Yang3. Digital Memory and Islam in China: Archiving ‘Arab style’ Mosques on Social Media - Vivien Markert4. Mediating Queer Memory in Chinese Digital Video Documentaries - Hongwei Bao5. Resistance of the Stone and Fragmented Digital Collective Memory in Gulou, China - Florence Graezer Bideau6. Minitrue in Action: Contesting ‘Correct Collective Memory’ on Chinese Social Media - Hongtao Li7. Curating the ‘Real Xinjiang’: Hyperreal Spectacles and the Making of Collective Memory - David O’Brien and Melissa Shani Brown8. Assembling Digital Memories: The Curation of Baiku Yao Costumes - Linjie Wang9. Curating the Rural: Douyin’s Rural Guardians and Platformised Memory-making - Antonie Angerer and Elena Meyer-Clement10. Potato Patriotism: Consuming War Memory in China - Frederik Schmitz11. Smart Museums, Heritage and Curation: An Empirical Study in Hangzhou, China - Xihuan Hu12. Digital Documentaries, Making Memory, Solitary Spectatorship - Margaret HillenbrandConclusion: China’s Evolving Curatorial Practices - Maximilian Mayer and Frederik Schmitz