Exploring Youth Digital Participation in Cultural Heritage Management: Identifying Challenges and Prospects through A Case Study in China

There has been growing potential in the digital environment for generating new ways of engaging various social groups with cultural heritage, especially the young generations. Youth, aged between 15-24, are regarded as ‘digital natives’, for their intensive exposure to the digital environment and their intrinsic creativity with digital technologies. However, the challenges and prospects of digital technologies in fostering youth participation have been rarely focused. Especially in the Chinese context of state centralization, the effective ways of engaging youth in decision-making for participatory heritage practices have yet to be explored adequately. This paper aims to explore youth digital participation within the Chinese context, taking a World Heritage Site as a case study. During fieldwork, in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with local administrators, heritage experts, and site managers. Based on our developed assessment framework, the interview guide was developed and then built on four aspects: rights and motivations of youth; capacities of youth for active participation; empowerment of youth for decision-making; and impacts and outcomes of youth participation. This paper reveals the current state of the connection between local youth and cultural heritage, and the effectiveness of digital technologies for awareness-raising and capacity-building. Moreover, it discusses the integration of youth participation into education systems and the cultivation of youth digital literacy for inclusive heritage management approaches. The results further show that digital participation tools have increased the motivations of young people to be engaged in heritage management, while their agency and authorship during digital participation have often been underrepresented, which might limit their levels of participation in decision-making. Further research should cast light on youth empowerment through digital participation to ensure youth rights to participate and stimulate youth initiatives in heritage management practices.