Brief Introduction: 

This lecture introduces a relational and dynamic theoretical framework and a relevant methodology to reconceptualise heritage and sustainability. It discusses how these two concepts are debated in academic and public discourse, and how they are practiced in complex contexts, using the management of heritage with early timber buildings in China as an example. This theoretical framework is established in response to the disconnections between the recent critical turn of Heritage Studies and heritage practices. One of these disconnections lies in the challenges of translating these academic critiques and critical approaches into applicable methods to inform heritage practices, policies, strategies, and decision-making. We will also question whether the assumptions that heritage must contribute to sustainable development and that heritage conservation inherently makes the world more sustainable can be validated and in what conditions they can be true. We will do so by interrogating Guangrenwang Temple’s post-restoration make-over, identifying the composition of its heritage assemblage, and considering the make-over project’s impact on its heritage assemblage’s sustainability.