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As “reform and opening up (gaige kaifang 改革开放)” resumed its vitality in 1990s China, urban land and housing markets have gradually maturated with desirable conditions for redevelopment projects in the cities (Wu et al., 2007: 304). Redevelopments such as CBD renewals skyrocketed after 2004 amidst the so-called “economy of demolition and relocation (chaiqian jingji 拆迁经济)” (Wu et al., 2007: 236-242; He and Wu, 2009: 292-3; Hsing, 2010: 108-9, 113). In the tides of demolition and redevelopment, as cultural heritage sites under legal protection, traditional Buddhist temples were preserved, renovated, and incorporated into CBD renewals in the collective effort of local governments and land developers (Tam, 2018: 247-9, 253-7; Laliberté, 2019: 24-7; Huang, 2019: 255-7). Among these scattered projects of temple-centered redevelopment across China (Qian and Kong, 2018: 160-1; Qian, 2019: 196-9), this article identifies two during which the Hong Kong-based developer, Swire Properties, consecutively built open, low-density shopping centres in Chengdu and Xi’an around the Daci temple (daci si 大慈寺) and Jianfu temple (jianfu si 荐福寺) respectively since 2010.[1] Under the name of “Taikoo Li (taigu li 太古里)”, these two projects attest to unique logics of planning and operation, while nurturing discursive, cultural, and material practices, religious as well as non-religious, in people’s everyday life.
In our effort to bridge the case study of Taikoo Li with existing postsecularist studies, we theorize postsecularity as being paradoxical both in nature and by practice. This article draws upon our extensive ethnographic work in Chengdu, supplemented with preliminary observations in Xi’an, and thus proposes a methodological experiment as we delve into the paradoxes of postsecularity. By studying the agency of the stakeholders (business management and temple leadership), we first present the incoherence of logic in Taikoo Li’s planning and operation, which on the one hand embraces a postsecular metanarrative for redevelopment and marketing purposes, while stakeholders reiterating the religious-secular divide on the other. In a similar fashion, this article then turns to analyse a popular practice among everyday participants at Taikoo Li, shunbian pilgrimage (shunbian baibai 顺便拜拜), in which the flâneur(-euse) visits and performs rituals at the Daci temple in passing while strolling around the shopping centres (White, 2001: 16, 39, 145; Elkin, 2016: 30). Strolling, as a leisurely postsecular experience advertised by the project, is again problematized in the three ethnographic accounts that we put forward to substantiate the debate over secularity vis-à-vis religiosity.
Ultimately, the analytical paradox implies a methodological challenge as we encounter Taikoo Li’s stakeholders and shunbian pilgrims in the role of researchers. The methodological paradox is conditioned upon the preconceived assumption of “a postsecular reality a eu lieu” that uncritical postsecularists often bear. We are too well educated on the secular-postsecular transition to see the otherwise realities beyond such a framework. Indeed, “postsecular realities (in the plural)” as we correctively understand them are always in the making, non-static, and yet to be defined, concomitantly subjected to participants’ meaning-construction and observers’ reflexive gaze, which researchers ourselves are inevitably part of. As such, this article challenges the methodologically atheist and agnostic positions inherited in many postsecularist studies, and finally proposes a position of “methodological ludism” (Droogers, 2014: 70-2) in critically understanding postsecularity as subjective and contextual, through which we wish to shed new light on the heuristic value of postsecularist inquiries.
[1] Taikoo Li Chengdu was completed in 2014, see project details at https://www.sinooceangroup.com/zh-cn/business/detail.html?commonCode=5df76d34-6f57-40d9-8391-0b38e244a7cf&productCategory=2, accessed on December 14, 2023. The construction of Taikoo Li Xi’an started in November 2023, and it is expected to complete in 2025, see at https://www.swireproperties.com/zh-cn/media/press-releases/2022/20220304_taikoo-li-xian/, accessed on December 14, 2023.
List of References:
Droogers A (2014) Playing with perspectives. In: Droogers A and Van Harskamp A (eds) Methods for the Study of Religious Change: From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, pp. 61-82.
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He SJ and Wu FL (2009) China’s emerging neoliberal urbanism: Perspectives from urban redevelopment. Antipode 14(2): 282-304.
Hsing YT (2010) The Great Urban Transformation: Politics of Land and Property in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huang WS (2019) Urban restructuring and temple agency – a case study of the Jing’an Temple. In: Ji Z, Fisher G, and Laliberté A (eds) Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 251-270.
Laliberté A (2019) Buddhism under Jiang, Hu, and Xi: The politics of incorporation. In: Ji Z, Fisher G, and Laliberté A (eds) Buddhism after Mao: Negotiations, Continuities, and Reinventions. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 21-44.
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Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)
The incorporation of Buddhist temples into urban redevelopment within China’s market transition became phenomenal after the 2000s. Domestic and international real estate developers collaborated with local governments and state-owned-enterprises in the construction of commercial complexes by converting under-used spaces around renowned Buddhist temples. Among these scattered projects of temple-centered redevelopment across China, this article identifies two during which the Hong Kong-based developer, Swire Properties, consecutively built open, low-density shopping centres in Chengdu and Xi’an around the Daci temple and Jianfu temple respectively since 2010. Named as the “Taikoo Li”, these two projects attest to unique logics of planning and operation, while nurturing discursive, cultural, and material practices, religious as well as non-religious, in people’s everyday life. Drawing upon an extensive ethnographic study in urban contemporary China, this article bridges a dialogue with postsecularist debates in Euro-American contexts, and proposes a methodological experiment that reinvents "postsecularity" as plural, contextual, and subjective.