Tourists of their own past: Aural palimpsests from the Mao era

Abstract

This article explores how individuals in contemporary China use songs to both express and protect their memories of the Cultural Revolution and Mao era. As individuals who experienced the Cultural Revolution find ways to voice their recollections of the past, they casually listen to and perform songs from the Mao era, pursue domestic tourism, and engage with other material culture from that time. Their actions index individuals’ complicated nostalgias and continual negotiations with their political presents. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in the Hunan province, this article analyzes song objects as ‘aural palimpsests’ that allow individuals to gesture towards their political presents without criticizing the government or articulating traumatic memories. Aural palimpsests are performed and heard in architectural spaces that shape how music from different eras and genres become layered atop one another to create new social meaning in a contemporary China that is still grappling with its recent history.