“Xiguan Yongqingfang” at Guangzhou: Collective memory and business of nostalgia in the context of China's modern city

Yuyu Li and Supachai Singyabuth

African Educational Research Journal
Published: March 26 2026
Volume 14, Issue 1
Pages 305-320
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19235388

Abstract

This study takes the regeneration project of Yongqingfang in Guangzhou as its empirical focus, examining how collective memory is systematically extracted, reconstructed, and transformed into a resource for the business of nostalgia within the context of contemporary urban renewal. The research argues that the redevelopment of Yongqingfang exemplifies a mode of “memory reproduction.” Through the restoration and representation of traditional Xiguan architectural forms, the selective display of symbols drawn from local everyday life, and the construction of affective consumption settings, individual memories once embedded in routine community practices are reassembled into an integrated collective memory landscape with coherent narrative structure and market appeal. This landscape constitutes the core foundation of Yongqingfang’s nostalgia economy and stimulates the growth of economic activities characterized by cultural experience and the consumption of place-based identity. The study further demonstrates that Yongqingfang’s nostalgia economy does not operate as a passive recovery of history, but as an actively constructed emotional narrative oriented toward contemporary markets. While this process enables the commercial valorization of local memory, it simultaneously reshapes how the community perceives and articulates its own past. Drawing on field observation, interviews, and spatial textual analysis, this article reveals the generative and mutually constitutive relationship between collective memory and the business of nostalgia, highlighting the internal logic through which they coproduce and continuously reinforce one another.

Keywords: Yongqingfang, collective memory, business of nostalgia, urban regeneration, historic districts.

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