Once derelict sites, now tourist sights: Genealogies of power/knowledge heterotopias in Chinese metropolises

Genealogical analysis of discourses of ‘creative industry’, ‘urban regeneration’, and ‘heritage preservation’ in two Chinese metropolises reveal that their ‘histories of the present’ entail subtle elision of forbidden memories associated with some derelict sites that transform into tourist spectacle. This article speculates that the organizing pattern which turns deserted and decommissioned factories in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong into Soho loft art galleries, fusion restaurants and chic bars are imbued with power/knowledge policy decisions and ‘creative industry’ discourse that paper over unpalatable descents and origins. Given what Foucault calls principles of heterotopology, several layers of time/space (l’espace) could be represented in one place and not subject to will-to-control. Managing heterotopias, I argue is ‘make or break’ factor. Attempts to copy ‘success DNAs’ in creative industry in the Chinese capital and then transplant them to another Chinese city in an unquestioning way cannot guarantee similar success. Genealogical analysis reinserts forbidden memory that was unplugged by surrogate and prosthetic memory.