Research Lab for Cultural Sustainability publishes results of a crucial study about Industrial Heritage in Macao
Research Lab for Cultural Sustainability publishes results of a crucial study about Industrial Heritage in Macao
23
May
23/05/2025
This article is the first study specifically dedicated to Macao SAR’s ongoing urban revitalisation process and unique urban entrepreneurialism model in region.
Coordinator of the research laboratory for cultural sustainability, Dr. Denis Zuev, published the results of the study that was conducted over 2023 – 2024 in Macao. The study is part of the ongoing project dedicated to understanding the dynamics of urban revitalisation politics in Macao SAR and the role of cultural tourism in diversification of tourism offer in region.
Some preliminary results of the study were presented at Rui Cunha Foundation in a History and Heritage Seminar held in December, 2024. While the final results will be presented at the session “Difficult Heritage and Urban Memory” at the 5th ISA World Forum of Sociology in Rabat, Morocco in July 2025.
The article was co-authored with Prof. Kevin Hannam and Jethro Zhao from City University of Macau. The article was published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal Tourism Geographies as a part of a special issue Historical Geographies of Tourism: “Moments, Monuments and Methods”. The primary objective of the special issue was to attract attention to the need of using historical data and its integration into methodological considerations in tourism research. Key research questions of the special issue were: How do historical geographies methodologies and perspectives complement tourism geographies? And What is the conceptual relationship between history, geography, and tourism research?
The article is based on extensive two year long research involved survey conducted on site among visitors, visual data analysis, expert interviews, auto-ethnography as well as historical data analysis, including analysis of the actual site’s evolution. It used a conceptual idea of assemblage to understand how a relatively invisible set of urban ruins, overgrown with vegetation constituting the former firecracker factory is transformed into a new tourist attraction and what meanings are given to this industrial heritage site by diverse users.
This article is the first study specifically dedicated to Macao SAR’s ongoing urban revitalisation process and unique urban entrepreneurialism model in region. It also for the fist time highlighted the use of industrial heritage as a resource in cultural tourism in Macao. It will be crucial to observe and monitor further developments in all of the six areas of intervention, elaborating plausible scenarios for the urban revitalisation in Macao.
[A crumbling wall made of Chunambo in Iec Long Firecracker Factory]
[A coffee shop inside Iec Long Firecracker Factory – a private room with a table]
[The use of space inside Iec Long Firecracker Factory by qigong practitioners]
[Uncanny Nature taking over inside Iec Long Firecracker Factory]
