Abstract
Using Tony Bennett’s analytical concept of “cultural governance”, this article discusses the historical development of museums in contemporary China in the context of the changing relations of culture and government. It argues that, different from its counterparts in Western Europe emerging in the political reasons of liberal democracy regimes, the birth and development of museums in contemporary China was intertwined with the process of socialist state formation. In Mao’s China, Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Zedong-Thought and nationalism dominated museum practices, which were officially considered as government technology of patriotic pedagogy to shape the mind and emotion of “the mass” and “the people.” In the Reforms era, professionalism emerges in the museum practices so that the modes of exhibition, display, and narrations of the docents significantly differ from what they were in the museums under the reign of Mao. In addition, museums have become tourist attractions in the development of tourism in China so that museums now are open to “general visitors.” Yet, the state and the Party in China still tend to use museums as a technique to legitimize its rule in specific cases or occasions. This paper considers the dynamics between the professionalism and state ideologies in museum practices in contemporary China as the dissonance between different modes of cultural governance.