Heritage-Making in Hong Kong through Culture and Religion

This book centres on religious heritage-making where religion as a rich and diverse manifestation of culture and community empowerment lead to the transformation of place. Fusing heritage and religion in the novel multidisciplinary concept ‘heri-ligion’, the authors illuminate the dynamics of change inherent in religious-oriented heritage-making. Grounded in empirical evidence, this rich concept integrates religious tourism, heritage tourism, and community-based empowerment for sustainable development. Applying this unique concept to the once abandoned Hakka village of Yim Tin Tsai, the authors analyse the evolving paths of the island from its Hakka origins to a Christian pilgrimage site, and more recently, to a UNESCO cultural heritage site and thriving tourist destination. The authors foreground the important role of the scattered community as a key agent of change in facilitating a sustainable environment of Hong Kong’s only salt-producing place today. A dynamic example of community development and empowerment founded upon religious, cultural, industrial and natural heritage, this book uniquely contributes to tourism and heritage studies, human geography, cultural sociology, Hakka studies, Asian studies, and anthropology of religion. Trevor Sofield is Visiting Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In over 400 publications on numerous research projects and consultancies in Europe, Asia, Oceania and Latin America, he has researched on tourism policy, community-based development for poverty alleviation and empowerment, UNESCO World Heritage issues as well as Indigenous and cultural tourism, among others. Lawal Mohammed Marafa is a Professor at the Department of Geography and Resource Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include ecotourism, community-based sustainable development, and leisure and recreation. Fung Mei Sarah Li is a researcher with degrees from Hong Kong, England and Australia. Her research interests cover tourism policy and planning for development, heritage and cultural tourism, as well as geological and cave tourism, among others. Kwo Fung Shek is a talented emerging scholar who, for a decade, has been instrumental in the development of pilgrimage tourism by the Hakka community of Yim Tin Tsai in Hong Kong.