Call For Papers | Heritage in Motion: Traditions, Innovation, and the Contemporary World

Call For Papers

Heritage in Motion:

Traditions, Innovation, and the Contemporary World

August 28-29, 2026

Suzhou, China

Building on the success of last year’s conference, Preservation, Production and Reproduction: Urban Heritage Transformation Around the World, the Heritage and Communication Research Group, based in the Research Centre for Culture, Communication and Society at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, is pleased to announce the call for participation for the 2026 conference, organised in partnership with the Research Centre for China’s Heritage Studies (RCCHS), University of Lancashire, Preston, UK.

Hosted by the Heritage and Communication Cluster, Research Centre for Culture, Communication, and Society (CCCS Research Centre), Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), China, in partnership with the Research Centre for China’s Heritage Studies (RCCHS), University of Lancashire, Preston, UK.

Conference Organising Committee

• Prof Xiaoling Zhang, Head of Department, Department of Media and Communication, School of Humanities and Social Sciences; Co-leader, Heritage and Communication Cluster, CCCS Research Centre, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), China
• Dr Adam Brillhart, Department of Architecture, Design School; Co-leader, Heritage and Communication Cluster, CCCS Research Centre, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), China
• Dr Xin Liu, Director, Research Center for China’s Heritage Studies (RCCHS), University of Lancashire, Preston, UK

Conference Overview

Heritage is increasingly understood as a dynamic and fluid process shaped by movement, mediation, and negotiation, rather than as a fixed inheritance from the past (Smith, 2006; Harrison, 2013). In contemporary societies marked by rapid technological change, urban transformation, global circulation, and cultural plurality, traditions are continually reinterpreted, reassembled, and mobilised in new contexts, raising questions of identity, belonging, and cultural authority (Hall, 1999; Ashworth, Graham and Tunbridge, 2007). Heritage, in this sense, is always in motion—emerging through shifting relationships between institutions and communities, expert frameworks and everyday practices, material forms and mediated visibility (Waterton and Smith, 2010). Within the Chinese heritage governance framework, where monuments and architectural heritage are formally designated as “immovable cultural relics” (不可移动文物), the notion of “heritage in motion” does not imply physical displacement, but rather foregrounds the mobility of meanings, practices, representations, and social relations through which such sites are continually reinterpreted and activated in contemporary life.

Starting from this premise, the conference foregrounds heritage’s contemporary relevance as lying precisely in its fluidity. Rather than treating tradition as stable, bounded, or self-evident, it approaches heritage as a living process shaped by innovation, adaptation, and contestation, and oriented as much towards the future as the past (Harrison et al., 2016). Digital platforms, creative industries, urban regeneration initiatives, and transnational exchanges do not simply offer new channels for representing heritage; they actively reshape how heritage is produced, experienced, negotiated, and valued within mediated social worlds (Couldry and Hepp, 2017; Pink et al., 2016). Attention is therefore directed not only to authorised narratives and institutional frameworks, but also to vernacular practices, embodied labour, and the uneven power relations through which heritage becomes meaningful in everyday life (Smith, 2006; Smith and Waterton, 2009).

Bringing together scholars, policy makers and practitioners from heritage studies, media and communication, architecture and design, cultural studies, anthropology, urban studies, and related fields, the conference aims to advance interdisciplinary dialogue on heritage as a relational and processual practice. Contributions are invited that critically examine how heritage moves across spaces, scales, and media, and how traditions acquire contemporary relevance in response to social, cultural, political, and technological change within global and post-Eurocentric contexts.

Key themes and lines of inquiry may include (but are not limited to):

• Heritage in motion: mobility, circulation, and transformation across time and space
• Tradition as process: continuity, adaptation, and reinvention in contemporary contexts
• Innovation and heritage futures: creativity, experimentation, and emergent practices
• Digital and platformed heritage: mediation, visibility, and algorithmic circulation
• Urban heritage in transition: place-making, regeneration, and everyday urban life
• Intangible cultural heritage as lived practice: embodiment, transmission, and change
• Heritage and media: storytelling, representation, and cultural negotiation
• Community participation and grassroots heritage: vernacular creativity and local agency
• Heritage, power, and governance: negotiation, authority, and contested meanings
• Heritage across borders: transnational flows, diaspora, and global encounters
  museums, exhibitions, and curatorial practice in motion: rethinking display, engagement, and publics
• Ethics, sustainability, and responsibility in evolving heritage practices
• Participation mode

Onsite participation is encouraged but online presentations are also accepted.

Submission information

Participants are invited to submit an abstract in English, clearly outlining the paper’s focus, methodology, and contribution. Submissions may be made for individual papers, themed panels, or roundtable discussions.

Submission guidelines

Max 250 English words for individual paper abstracts

Max 300 English words for panel abstracts, in addition to 250 word abstracts for contributing papers

Please include the following information in your submitted abstract/panel proposal: name, title/position, email add., institutional affiliation, attendance mode (onsite encouraged)

For further details and submission of abstracts, please scan the code

PhD scholarships

To encourage research in this area among young scholars, the organizing committee is pleased to announce three PhD candidate scholarships. The award will cover three nights’ accommodation, meals and any local cultural activities organised by the conference committee.

For those who hope their papers to be assessed for PhD Scholarships, you should submit a full paper not less than 6,000 words in English (excluding abstract and bibliography) on any subjects addressing the conference theme.

Important Dates

1 May 2026

Submission deadline for abstract (individual and panel)/full paper for PhD scholarship

31 of May 2026

Notification of acceptance

Full programme and collection of abstracts

A full programme and abstracts will be available near the time of the conference.

Planned outputs

Selected papers will be published in:

A special issue with an international peer-reviewed leading academic journal

An edited volume with an international key humanities/social science publisher

Further information

• Thanks for the support of XJTLU and Uclan, the conference will not charge registration fee. Cost for meals and tea breaks as well as some cultural activities will be covered by the conference.
• Details regarding the venues on the south campus of XJTLU as well as travel tips will be announced in July 2026.
• A list of recommended hotels near the venue will be provided.

For more details regarding submission of abstracts, themes of the conference, etc., please contact Xiaoling Zhang at Xiaoling.Zhang@xjtlu.edu.cn, Adam Brillhart at Adam.Brillhart@xjtlu.edu.cn, or Dr Xin Liu at XLiu13@lancashire.ac.uk.