Resacralizing the Secular: The Spatial Production and Everyday Appropriation of a Popular Religion Space in Urban China

Abstract

This study investigates the mechanism of “reverse spatial production” in contemporary urban China by examining the transformation of the Hangou Dawang Temple in Yangzhou. Utilizing a multidimensional framework that integrates Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad with Michel de Certeau’s theory of everyday practice, the research explores how a state-constructed, secular “cultural landscape” was reclaimed as a living field of popular belief. Data were collected through intensive fieldwork (2025–2026), including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and digital ethnography. The findings reveal that following the temple’s entrustment to the Taoist Association in 2017, grassroots actors—centered around a Taoist cleric and the local congregation—successfully resacralized the site through the introduction of material media, ritual performances, and social networking. This process dissolved the official spatial discipline of the “landscape island,” transforming it into a substantive religious hub. The study identifies a “Non-Antagonistic Symbiotic Model” of spatial production, characterized by a cycle of top-down construction, bottom-up reconstruction, and mutual negotiation. It argues that the state’s heritagization strategy inadvertently provides a legitimate vessel for religious resilience, while grassroots tactical appropriations allow for the survival of popular religion within modern urban landscapes. This research offers a prototypical case for understanding the resilience of popular belief and the reconstruction of heritage authenticity in the post-secular urban context of China.

1. Introduction

Popular religion refers to the grassroots beliefs of local communities, characterized by the absence of formalized doctrines or institutionalized ecclesiastical structures (Paper, 2020, p. 40). Popular religious space serves as the physical and spatial carrier for these localized beliefs and practices. Amidst the revival of popular religion, modern state governance, and urban renewal since the Reform and Opening-up era of China, these spaces are frequently subjected to an ongoing process of spatial construction and negotiation (X. Wang, 2023). Examining these dynamics is instrumental in revealing the general mechanisms underlying the spatial production of popular religion.

Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the “production of space” has prompted a paradigm shift, leading scholars to move beyond viewing space as a mere “container” or backdrop for social activity and instead perceiving it as a dynamic process that is socially produced and imbued with power and meaning (Brenner & Elden, 2009). This theoretical lens has been extensively applied to the study of diverse belief spaces, where the discourses of Danièle Hervieu-Léger, Kim Knott, and Jeanne Halgren Kilde have collectively established a robust theoretical and methodological foundation. Hervieu-Léger constructed a seminal framework for religious spatiality, elucidating how, under the pressures of modernity and secularization, religious spaces transcend fixed sacred territories to exhibit a logic of fragmentation and mobility (Hervieu-Léger, 2002). Building upon this, Knott integrated the production of space into religious studies, emphasizing the “location” of religion within everyday secular domains and examining how power, the body, and architecture collectively “engrave” religiosity—an approach that solidified the critical “spatial turn” in the field (Knott, 2008, 2010, 2015). Kilde further advanced this by developing a four-fold analytical framework—encompassing historical-architectural, social-ritual, experiential-perceptual, and political-power dimensions—systematically evaluating the trajectories and limitations of each to guide ethnographic practice. Together, these perspectives form a comprehensive theoretical loop for understanding how contemporary belief spaces are produced, why they transform, and how they may be measured (Kilde, 2013).

The resurgence and reconstruction of religious spaces in post-reform China has provided a robust empirical locus for interrogating and extending Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the “production of space” through the lens of the “spatial turn.” Contemporary academic discourse primarily centers on the dialectic interplay between macro-level state/capital interventions and the micro-level operations of everyday practices. By foregrounding the agency and localized knowledge of religious subjects, scholars have increasingly challenged the linear narrative of space as a “unidirectional endowment of power.” For instance, in his study on the reconstruction of Hui mosques, Ai Shaowei contends that spatial production is fundamentally a process of spatial empowerment co-constructed by multi-actors through collective negotiation, translocal flows of capital, and creative practices (Ai et al., 2018; N. Zhang et al., 2019). He Zhaoquan, conversely, adopts a longue durée geographical and ritual perspective to systematically elucidate the formation and evolution of the Wang Lingguan cult within specific spatial contexts (Z. He & Meng, 2024). However, these bottom-up spatial practices do not occur in a vacuum; rather, they are subjected to continuous pressures from intersecting power structures. Han Lu’s analysis of the Jingpo case poignantly captures this dilemma: under the intertwined influences of modernity-driven transformations, transnational religious incursions, and heritagization and touristification, the production of traditional ritual space exhibits a discernible trend of deprivation and fragmentation (Han & Ming, 2020).

On the other hand, an increasing body of scholarship has scrutinized the alienation of religious spaces precipitated by the intervention of state power and commercial capital. Within the context of tourism development, authorities often dominate the logic of spatial production through top-down planning and design, effectively degrading what were originally everyday religious spaces into representational spaces tailored for consumption (Mu, 2022). Li Feng’s longitudinal study of the renovation of the Dawang Temple in Nianbadu provides a vivid illustration of the costs associated with such ‘spatial discipline’: the state-led reconstruction resulted in the direct displacement of worshippers and the cessation of religious activities, highlighting a profound absence of religious substance within these newly produced spaces (Feng, 2011). Addressing this alienation, Guo Wen scrutinizes the divergence of resident identity and tactics of everyday resistance under the pressures of tourism development (W. Guo, 2019); meanwhile, Zhu Yujie utilizes the Famen Temple as a case study to reveal the dynamic contestation within the ‘field of spatial political negotiation’ as religious sites are transformed into heritage tourism destinations (Zhu, 2024). Furthermore, Zhang Xiaoyi and Li Xiangping offer a deep analysis of the spatial political logic underlying the revival of popular religion. Their research on the Longmu cult demonstrates that even within state-business cooperation models, ‘ancestral temples’ that secure the favor of public power are able to maintain an orthodox core status, whereas purely commercial operations often become marginalized spaces due to a lack of historical depth and perceived efficacy (ling). This underscores that in the Chinese context, nominal legitimacy bestowed by the state does not equate to substantive recognition by the populace; a genuine reconstruction of religious space must achieve a dynamic equilibrium between power relations, human-divine ethics, historical tradition, and pragmatic interests (X. Zhang & Li, 2016).

Taken together, existing scholarship has primarily scrutinized the production of religious spaces through the dual logic of “micro-level everyday agency” and “macro-level interventions of power and capital.” Scholars have not only explored how worshippers shape religious spaces from the bottom up through localized practices—such as collective negotiation—and the modernity-driven dilemmas they encounter, but have also offered profound critiques of “spatial discipline” and “alienation” under the dominance of state power and commercial capital. Building on these foundations, research further reveals that religious space serves as a contested political field; its reconstruction is essentially a complex process of continuous negotiation and dynamic equilibrium between the “nominal legitimacy” bestowed by the state and the “substantive recognition” rooted in historical tradition among the populace.

However, while academia has successfully analyzed the “alienation” of sacred sites and the resistance strategies of grassroots actors, the prevailing focus remains on the “de-sacralization” of traditional religious spaces and their subsequent reduction into secular cultural landscapes. There is a notable lack of inquiry into the inverse possibility: Can these top-down, reshaped “cultural landscapes”—which were originally constructed by authorities under the guise of religious space but remained devoid of inherent sacredness—be reverse-appropriated and reconstructed into authentic religious spaces by grassroots communities? Grounded in this interrogation of spatial reverse-transformation, the Hangou Dawang Temple (邗沟大王庙) in Yangzhou provides a highly representative empirical locus that captures the distinct characteristics of contemporary urban China.

2. Methodology

2.1. Research Design and Case Background

This study adopts a qualitative research paradigm, utilizing a single case study approach to investigate the spatial production of the Hangou Dawang Temple (邗沟大王庙) in Yangzhou. As Yin points out, the single case study method is particularly suitable for addressing “how” and “why” questions in complex social phenomena, providing rich contextual details for in-depth theory generation (Yin, 2018). Historically, the Hangou Dawang Temple served as a pivotal site of popular belief in the Yangzhou region during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Today, it is situated on the northern bank of the confluence of the Huangjinba Ancient Canal and the Hangou Canal in Chengbei Township (Compiling Committee of Chengbei Township Gazetteer, 2025, p. 556). According to records in local gazetteers, the temple’s origins date back to the late Ming Dynasty, followed by several subsequent reconstructions. Although the temple was demolished in April 1953, it was eventually rebuilt in 2006. In 2008, the “Legends of the Hangou Dawang Temple” were officially designated as part of the first batch of Yangzhou’s municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) list under the category of folk literature (Yangzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association, n.d.). From 2006 to 2017, the temple operated without a resident priest. However, in 2017, the temple was placed under the trusteeship of the Taoist Association, which appointed a priest to manage the site. Since then, religious activities—symbolized by the “restoration of incense”—have gradually revived, establishing the temple as a vital popular religious site within the Zhuxi Subdistrict.

2.2. Rationale for Case Selection

The Hangou Dawang Temple is selected as a strategic and typical case for three theoretically grounded reasons. First, it embodies a representative trajectory of urban popular religious spaces in contemporary China: a state-reconstructed cultural heritage site that has undergone a distinctive, reverse transformation from a secularized cultural landscape to a re-sacralized folk religious space. This trajectory is widely observable in many urban temple restorations across the Yangtze River Delta and northern Jiangsu region. Second, the temple is analytically revelatory: it captures the dynamic tension and reconciliation between state planning and grassroots religious practice, which lies at the core of this study. Third, the case carries clear analytical generalizability and transferability: its mechanism of spatial production can illuminate similar processes of state–society interaction in the reproduction of urban folk religious spaces, intangible cultural heritage sites, and temporally revived sacred sites in urban China.

2.3. Theoretical Framework and Operationalization

The research establishes a multi-dimensional analytical framework by integrating Henri Lefebvre’s “Trialectics of Space” (Lefebvre, 1991) with Michel de Certeau’s theory of “Everyday Life Practice” (de Certeau, 1984). This framework is designed to scrutinize the dialectic interplay between the logic of power (strategies) and grassroots practices (tactics) within a specific spatial context. The selection of the Hangou Dawang Temple as the empirical locus is predicated on its representative trajectory of dynamic transformation: the site has undergone a distinctive reverse transformation from a state-led, secular “cultural landscape” to a spontaneously “re-sacralized” folk religious space. Through the analysis of this prototypical case, the study seeks to elucidate the underlying mechanisms through which “state conception” and “social appropriation” achieve a dynamic equilibrium in the production of urban folk religious spaces.

Furthermore, while this study remains anchored in the spatial theory paradigm of anthropology, it also incorporates insights from Nancy Ammerman’s “Lived Religion” perspective and “New Institutionalism” to deepen the understanding of institutional constraints and micro-level processes. The “Lived Religion” framework treats faith as a dynamic assemblage of practices by grassroots actors rather than a static institutional endowment, providing a micro-basis for how sacredness is regenerated through bodily practices and material media (Ammerman, 2015). Concurrently, “New Institutionalism” offers a lens to analyze how external institutional environments—specifically through regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive pillars—shape and constrain the survival and legitimacy of the temple (Chaves, 1993). Integrating these perspectives allows the research to address the intersection of institutional logic and micro-spatial practice, offering a more nuanced interpretation of the resacralization process.

2.4. Data Collection Methods

To operationalize Lefebvre’s spatial trialectics, this study explicitly maps the three dimensions onto empirical realities of the Hangou Dawang Temple as follows: (1) Conceived Space refers to the state-led spatial design, including official reconstruction plans, urban planning regulations, intangible cultural heritage certification, and the trusteeship arrangement by the Taoist Association, which represent dominant power’s rational framing of the temple space; (2) Perceived Space denotes the material and physical form of the temple, such as its architectural layout, ritual facilities, geographical location at the canal confluence, and visible religious symbols like incense burners and statues; (3) Lived Space signifies the grassroots religious practices and daily appropriations, including spontaneous worship activities, the Taoist priest’s ritual performances, worshippers’ informal spatial uses, and bottom-up resacralization practices. This clear operationalization bridges abstract spatial theory with concrete empirical observations.

To ensure the robustness and validity of the findings, this study employed data triangulation by gathering information from multiple sources (Denzin, 1978; Patton, 1999). The data collection process comprised three primary components:

Participant Observation: The researcher conducted prolonged and intensive fieldwork at the Hangou Dawang Temple from August 2025 to March 2026. The observation focused on the evolution of physical spatial layouts, the deployment of official symbols, and the tactical spatial appropriations by grassroots actors (e.g., the Daoist cleric and worshippers), such as the spontaneous installation of ritual facilities and informal ceremonial activities.

In-depth Interviews: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 key stakeholders selected through maximum variation purposive sampling (Patton, 2015) to capture a diverse range of perspectives. Participants included the temple management group, represented by Taoist cleric (to explore the logic of resacralization); local cultural experts, such as Mr. Li (to unearth the historical trajectory and cultural context); and a variety of frequent worshippers, local residents, and transient visitors (to reveal divergent identities and spatial perceptions). With the informed consent of all participants, interviews were recorded and transcribed, totaling approximately 125,000 Chinese characters.

Documentary and Multimedia Data: To supplement the temporal limitations of fieldwork, the study systematically analyzed government bulletins, urban planning blueprints, and local gazetteers regarding the temple’s reconstruction since 2006. Furthermore, digital ethnographic data—including user-generated content and visual imagery from social media platforms (e.g., Xiaohongshu and Dianping)—were collected to construct a comprehensive “digital narrative” of the site (Hine, 2015; Pink et al., 2016).

2.5. Timeline of Data Collection and Analysis

Preparatory collection of ethnographic materials related to the Hangou Dawang Temple was initiated in August 2025, including archival documents, historical records, and preliminary digital ethnographic data. Formal ethnographic fieldwork (participant observation) and in-depth semi-structured interviews were launched at the end of September 2025, and continued continuously until March 2026.

Specifically, continuous on-site participant observation was conducted at the temple from the end of September 2025 to March 2026, with targeted intensive observation during key festival periods. Semi-structured in-depth interviews with 17 participants were conducted synchronously with the fieldwork from the end of September 2025 to January 2026, with full transcription of all interviews completed by the end of January 2026. Supplementary ethnographic data collection was completed by the end of February 2026.

Data analysis was conducted recursively in parallel with the fieldwork from October 2025 to April 2026, including three core stages: open coding and codebook development, axial coding and thematic synthesis, and final theoretical integration and data triangulation (Figure 1).

2.6. Data Analysis Procedures

The research data were managed and coded using NVivo 12 software. Data analysis followed the principles of Thematic Analysis, employing a systematic qualitative procedure to transform raw empirical data into theoretical insights (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The analytical process was conducted through three recursive stages:

Transcription and Open Coding: All interview recordings and field notes were transcribed into digital text. Using NVivo 12, an initial phase of open coding was performed to identify indigenous concepts, such as “official planning,” “iconographic reconstruction,” and “worshipper spontaneity,” which formed the preliminary codebook (Corbin & Strauss, 2015).

Axial and Thematic Coding: In the second stage, axial coding was utilized to establish logical connections between categories, with a particular focus on the interplay between the logic of power (strategies) and the logic of everyday life (tactics). Based on this, core themes—including “spatial discipline,” “reverse appropriation,” and “resacralization”—were synthesized. This process involved a deep dialogue between the empirical material and de Certeau’s theoretical framework.

Theoretical Integration and Triangulation: Finally, the identified themes were mapped onto Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad. This allowed for an analysis of the contestation between “conceived space” (official design) and “lived space” (popular practice). To ensure the rigor and credibility of the analysis, the researcher employed data triangulation by cross-verifying official documents, field observations, and accounts from multiple interviewees, thereby mitigating subjective bias.

2.7. Research Ethics and Researcher Positionality

This study strictly adhered to institutional ethical standards in social science research (AAA, 2012). Throughout the fieldwork, the principle of informed consent was rigorously followed; all interviews were conducted only after participants were fully briefed on the research objectives and data usage, and their explicit verbal or written permission was secured. To safeguard participant confidentiality, pseudonyms were assigned to all interviewees, with the exception of public figures or experts who provided specific consent to be identified (Van Maanen, 2011). Any sensitive details potentially revealing individual identities were carefully de-identified.

Regarding positionality, the researcher entered the Hangou Dawang Temple as an academic outsider (Hellawell, 2006). Acknowledging that one’s scholarly background and the act of interviewing might unintentionally reinforce or interfere with the respondents’ spatial narratives, a process of continuous reflexivity was maintained (Rose, 1997). Through the use of reflexive field journals and rigorous data cross-verification, the researcher sought to maintain an objective and critical balance between the macro-narratives of state power and the micro-practices of folk belief, ensuring the integrity and depth of the ethnographic interpretation.

3. The Hegemonic Construction of Space: The Cultural Landscape from the Official Perspective

The reconstruction of the Hangou Dawang Temple in 2006 signified the construction of “Representations of Space”. This space was orchestrated top-down by a coalition of actors—including state authorities wielding knowledge and power, commercial capital, and cultural elites. It functioned as a cultural landscape and commercial landmark designed to serve canal-based tourism and real estate development.

3.1. Representations of Power in Space: The Logic of State-Led Cultural and Tourism Development

The state acted as both the primary planner and the dominant leader of the spatial discourse surrounding the temple. Its reconstruction was an integral part of Yangzhou’s broader urban cultural and tourism spatial strategy since the Reform and Opening-up period (Lu, 2012). During this era, developing canal tourism emerged as a strategic move to bolster the tourism economy (K. Wang, 2007) and enhance urban competitiveness (Yangzhou Municipal People’s Government, 2006). Since 2002, the Yangzhou municipal government initiated the comprehensive remediation of the Ancient Canal corridor (Huang, 2005) planning specialized tour routes (Fang, 2002) and scenic belts (X. He et al., 2002; Chen et al., 2003). Within this context, reconstructing historical monuments provided a convenient and effective pathway for the creation of tourist landscapes. Beyond economic motives, the pursuits of UNESCO World Heritage status (T. Guo et al., 2008) and the UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award (Hu, 2006) served as significant external catalysts for this landscape engineering.

The Hangou Dawang Temple was thus subsumed into this state-led initiative of landscape construction along the Ancient Canal. Historically, the temple was a vital religious structure enshrining King Fuchai of Wu and King Liu Bi of Wu—figures venerated as the founders of Yangzhou and heroes of local economic development. The site, therefore, possessed profound monumentality and was deeply embedded in the collective memory of the local populace. Consequently, the authorities appropriated these cultural symbols, incorporating the temple as a node within a linear landscape at the “Dashuiwan”section of the canal. In addition to the Dawang Temple, the state orchestrated a series of other landmark sites along the canal, including the Chanzhi Wharf, Zhuxi Park, Xiangfu Temple, Wutai Shengjing, and the Marco Polo Memorial Hall.

3.2. Deconstruction and Recomposition of Symbols: From Religious Deities to Urban Cultural Icons

To determine whether the tourism-oriented reconstruction of a religious building constitutes a recombination of symbols, it is first necessary to clarify the conceptual criteria for judgement. Based on existing studies (Chau, 2008), This paper defines recombination of symbols as the process whereby cultural symbols originally belonging to distinct meaning systems and carrying independent connotations are extracted from their native sacred contexts and inherited lineages. Stripped of all but their visual and formal shells, these elements are reassembled and collaged according to new external logics. Not all tourism-driven architectural renovations amount to symbolic recombination. If a renovation only upgrades the physical fabric of a building while fully preserving its original symbolic system and ritual functions, it does not qualify as recombination. By contrast, if a reconstruction is led by state or commercial forces, centred on the logic of landscape display and consumption, and fragments and instrumentally accumulates religious symbols from diverse sources, it constitutes a typical case of symbolic recombination. Applying the above conceptual criteria, this paper argues that the state-led reconstruction of the Hangou Dawang Temple in 2006 constitutes a typical case of state-engineered symbolic recombination.

To identify the recombination of symbols at the Hangou Dawang Temple, one must first trace the original connotations and historical evolution of its religious signs. Over the long term, the symbolic meaning of the Hangou Dawang cult has undergone three pivotal transformations:

The first stage corresponds to the primordial tutelary deity phase, associated with the earliest “Hangou Deity” belief. The deity had no fixed historical identity and functioned as a local water god bound to the Hangou canal system. Its core function was to safeguard the waterway and bless the livelihoods of riparian communities, representing the most archaic form of the cult.

The second stage, from the late Ming to the early Qing dynasty, marks official orthodox codification. The principal deity was formally identified as King Fuchai of Wu, and its symbolic connotations aligned with the Confucian sacrificial principle of “honouring virtue and rewarding merit”. Fuchai was incorporated into the orthodox local cult for his historical achievement of digging the Hangou Canal, connecting the Yangtze and Huai rivers, and laying the foundation for Yangzhou’s urban and economic development. During this phase, the religious symbol functioned primarily as a medium for historical commemoration and ethical edification, with a single, formal divine persona unassociated with popular petitions for wealth.

The third stage, from the Qianlong reign to the late Qing dynasty, witnessed secular popular evolution. The symbolic system gradually accumulated wealth-related attributes through grassroots practice: local people spontaneously enshrined King Liu Bi of Wu alongside Fuchai, forming a dual-deity configuration. Liu Bi’s historical feats—digging salt canals, boiling seawater for salt, and minting copper coins—were directly tied to wealth generation for Yangzhou’s merchants and citizens, perfectly matching the pragmatic wealth-seeking demands of all social strata amid the boom of the local salt trade. His inclusion shattered the singular commemorative nature of the cult and injected a secular, utilitarian core. Folk rituals such as “borrowing silver ingots” and the God of Wealth temple fair subsequently took shape as fixed annual blessing events during the first lunar month, and the temple became popularly known as the “God of Wealth Temple” among locals.

Throughout this evolution, officials and cultural elites did not forcibly suppress grassroots adaptations, but developed an accommodative interactive logic. Local gazetteers maintained strategic silence regarding Liu Bi, preserving the orthodox narrative of Fuchai as a water conservancy hero. Cultural elites guided values through media such as traditional opera, seeking to elevate Confucian loyalty and filial piety above wealth-seeking desires to reconstruct the value hierarchy of the belief. The result was a dual parallel symbolic structure: the official tier retained orthodox connotations of historical commemoration and moral edification, while the grassroots tier developed secular understandings centred on wealth-seeking and pragmatic blessings (Xu & Zhou, 2026).

From the late Qing onward, the Hangou Dawang cult gradually declined amid the collapse of Yangzhou’s salt industry and successive wars, and large-scale rituals such as the God of Wealth temple fair ceased(Li, 2020, pp. 71–74). During the Republican era, impacted by the Anti-Superstition Campaign, living everyday practice receded to annual temporary rituals, and the temple space fell into semi-idleness. In 1953, the temple was demolished for political reasons associated with the early PRC’s societal overhaul (Compiling Committee of Chengbei Township Gazetteer, 2025, p. 556). Traditional cultural properties during this period were frequently repurposed or cleared, as they were perceived as a barrier to social progress. Consequently, the Dawang Temple was dismantled, and its materials were requisitioned for the construction of the Meiling Primary School—a pragmatic demand for building materials that served as the immediate material cause for the temple’s dismantlement. This political act of “desacralizing” the space through physical erasure resulted in the definitive loss of the material carrier for the Hangou Dawang belief. Spatial practices ceased entirely, and the cult retreated from living ritual into folkloric legend. Yet physical erasure did not erase grassroots memory: the toponym “God of Wealth Temple” persisted in the area, and local villagers could still vividly recount the temple’s former prosperity.The state-led reconstruction of 2006 constituted a process of symbolic recombination built upon this historical foundation.

The primary implementing entity for the construction of the Hangou Dawang Temple was the Ancient Architecture Company under the Yangzhou Urban Control Group, representing state-controlled commercial capital. This entity functioned as the materializer of the state’s spatial conceptions, translating abstract official designs into physical spatial entities. The logic of action—characterized by the appropriation of the Baolun Temple’s main hall, the development of adjacent commercial structures, and the erection of a screen wall facing the canal—reflects the drive of commercial capital to engineer a cultural landscape and accumulate cultural capital.

The production of the temple’s main hall was predicated upon the spatial appropriation of the Baolun Temple hall. Officially, the project was framed as “relocating and reconstructing the Baolun Temple hall from outside the South Gate to the current site,” a narrative designed to emphasize continuity with local Buddhist architectural traditions rather than the mere creation of a new tourist attraction (People’s Government of Yangzhou Suburbs, 1997, p. 577). In practice, however, only fragments of the original timber framework were retained. The internal and external spatial layouts, as well as the fundamental nature of the building, underwent radical transformations, resulting in what can be described as a cross-religious architectural collage.

While such practices are rare in the authentic construction of traditional folk religious spaces, they are entirely consistent with the logic of landscape manufacturing. In this process, the builders disregarded the original religious systems, sacred attributes, and ritualistic lineages associated with the architectural materials. Instead, they prioritized visual tension, formal antiquity, and the harmonious integration of the structure into the overarching spatial planning of the Grand Canal Scenic Belt:

Taoist cleric: “Back then, to compete for the ‘UN-Habitat Scroll of Honour Award,’ the government was just ‘striking a pose’ along the canal. They took the original site of the Dawang Temple and built a few rooms… Look at the neighboring Chanzhi Temple; they just built a gate tower, a pier, and a section of wall along the river, but there was absolutely nothing behind it. Not a single room, not even a toilet was built. It was a mere facade. When you travel by boat on the river and see ‘Chanzhi Temple,’ it reminds you of Tang poetry—’How fine the mountain scenery of Chanzhi…’ But there wasn’t a single room inside.”

Interviewer: “Isn’t that the poem about Yangzhou’s Chanzhi Temple? ‘Who knew the Zhuxi Road, with singing and playing, was Yangzhou?’”

Taoist cleric: “Exactly! It was just for show! It was so when tourists passed by on boats, the tour guides could start their stories. Behind the wall, there wasn’t even a room—just a few pillars. Wasn’t that all just for Yangzhou to strike a pose?”.

(Interview, September 2025)

The Priest conjoined the Dawang Temple with the newly constructed Chanzhi Wharf to the east as products of the government’s efforts in “striking a pose” (bai zaoxing) along the canal. This observation profoundly unveils the essence of the Hangou Dawang Temple at its inception: it was conceived as a Spectacle rather than a religious space. This logic, which prioritizes visual performance, is directly inscribed into the temple’s construction sequence, spatial layout, and its relationship with the canal landscape.

In terms of the construction sequence, the grand screen wall—situated on the southern side and designed for tourist display—was completed prior to the construction of the main hall itself. This temporal priority indicates that the authorities were more concerned with creating a canal-facing visual spectacle to serve the burgeoning tourism industry. From the perspective of embodied experience, the temple is tightly enveloped by pseudo-classic commercial blocks on its eastern, western, and northern sides, segregating it from the main roads and rendering it nearly camouflaged within the urban fabric. To a pedestrian walking along the surrounding streets, the temple is virtually indiscernible amidst the commercial structures.

However, this spatial “introversion” undergoes a dramatic reversal on the southern, water-facing side. Planners meticulously constructed a magnificent screen wall inlaid with white marble, featuring five gilded intaglio characters reading “Hangou Dawang Temple.” This wall exudes immense visual tension, intentionally anticipating and catering to the “Tourist Gaze” from cruise boats on the canal (Urry & Larsen, 2011). Much like the Chanzhi Temple—which consists of little more than a pier and a decorative wall—the southern facade of the Dawang Temple was essentially tailored into a stage set within the macroscopic scroll of the “Ancient Canal Scenic Belt.” Consequently, the temple’s religious utility was entirely suspended, reducing the site to a mere landscape for water-based sightseeing. This status was further codified in the Yangzhou Master Plan (2010–2020), where the temple was formally incorporated as a landmark component of the overarching canal landscape design (Lu, 2012, p. 438).

3.3. Engineering the Main Hall Space: Elitist Cultural Conceptions

Cultural elites presided over the orchestration of the intricate spatial details within the main hall. Every element—including the internal spatial configuration, the central statues of the deities, the poetic couplets, horizontal plaques, and the murals—was a direct product of the elites’ conceptualization and creative efforts. Through these spatial practices, the Hangou Dawang Temple was effectively reconstructed into a monument dedicated to the two Kings of Wu.

Interviewer: When the new Dawang Temple was being constructed, were there any references to photos of the original temple?

Mr. Li: No, none.

Interviewer: I noticed that the main hall of the Baolun Temple was dismantled, and its wooden framework was used for the reconstruction.

Mr. Li: At that time, it was conceptualized by experts in Yangzhou’s ancient architecture. Are you familiar with Gu?

Interviewer: Yes, we are all very familiar with him.

Mr. Li: Led by Gu, a group of ancient architecture experts sat down to deliberate on the architectural styles. This included deciding on the two main statues—who would craft them—as well as the poetic couplets and horizontal plaques. For instance, the inscription “En bei Gan Wu” inside the hall was written by Gu Feng himself in the Great Seal Script.

During this period, the interior of the Hangou Dawang Temple exclusively featured statues of the two Kings of Wu, positioned at the center of the hall. The eastern and western walls were adorned with expansive murals: the former depicted Fuchai’s historical feats, such as excavating the Hangou Canal, contending for hegemony in the north, and constructing the Han City; the latter illustrated Liu Bi’s contributions to the regional economy, including boiling seawater for salt and mining mountains for coinage. A single offering table with spirit tablets was placed before the statues.

Evidently, the interior space did not possess the attributes of a “Sacred Space” but rather functioned as a commemorative field. Firstly, while the hall displayed statues of Fuchai and Liu Bi, it lacked the spontaneous interactive media common to folk belief—such as incense or offerings—nor did it house ritual vessels to support religious practices. From the perspective of Material Culture Studies, the space exhibited a systematic “vacuum of belief media.” This absence directly reflected the “non-presence” of worshippers’ bodies and rituals in the early stage of the temple’s reconstruction (Meyer, 2006).

In traditional consecration rituals, the creation of statues must strictly follow religious protocols. However, the statues in the Hangou Dawang Temple were shaped by “cultural relic experts” and “sculptors” representing secular rationality and aesthetic standards. Here, Fuchai and Liu Bi were no longer the “Dawang” endowed with supernatural powers; instead, they were downgraded into historical figures and artistic sculptures. The decorative motifs on the canopies—Kui dragon patterns and stylized Qiequ patterns—were derived from Han Dynasty lacquerware, likely chosen by artists based on a historical imagination of the Spring and Autumn and Han periods. These designs differed significantly from the ritualistic canopies found in contemporaneous temples and Taoist monasteries in the Yangzhou region.

Furthermore, the murals served as more than mere decoration; they were the core symbolic carriers of a Spatial Narrative led by cultural elites. Their primary motifs centered on the historical narration of state-building, water conservancy, and hegemony, rather than the narratives of popular appeals for wealth, health, or peace typically found in folk religion.

3.4. Summary: The De-Sacralized Monument Under Official Construction

In 2006, the spatial production of the Hangou Dawang Temple was orchestrated under the state’s “strategy” of urban cultural and tourism development and the accumulation of cultural capital. In alliance with commercial capital and cultural elites, the state attempted a top-down “pragmatic resacralization” of the site, driven primarily by financial imperatives and the pursuit of world culture recognition. By reassembling historical symbols into a “cultural monument” to showcase regional civilization, the state engineered a landscape meticulously designed to serve canal-based tourism. However, this institutional initiative was not immediately recognized by the local community as a sacred field. Because the site remained devoid of a substantive sacred core and ritual media, local residents appropriated the main hall and corridors through the “tactics” of their everyday practices. Instead of a shrine for worship, they utilized the space for mundane activities such as playing cards and social gathering, effectively “desecrating” the state’s hypothetical sacred space through secular usage:

Aunt Wang: “When Dawang Temple was first completed, there was nothing inside except the two statues of the Kings of Wu. It didn’t really count as a proper temple, so none of us went there to worship. We’d just wander in for a casual look when we had nothing else to do.”

(Interview, January 2025)

Nevertheless, immediately upon its completion, the temple as a “conceived space” was appropriated by local residents through the “tactics” of their everyday practices. Instead of perceiving it as a sacred shrine, residents utilized the corridors and the main hall for mundane activities, such as playing cards and storing card tables. By imbuing the site with attributes of a secularized public space for leisure and a node for neighborhood social connectivity, the grassroots society facilitated a “disenchantment” of the state’s conceived space, achieving the first superposition of meanings upon the site.

Taoist cleric: “They used to play cards right at the entrance of the main hall. At night, they would store the card tables inside. Why the entrance? Because the sunlight was good there… These elderly people, once they started playing, they couldn’t even hold their bladders. Before I arrived, people were urinating everywhere around the site. It only started to get better after I began to manage the place.”.

(Interview, September 2025)

4. From “Landscape Island” to “Field of Belief”: The Reverse Spatial Production Since 2017

Following the physical construction of the Hangou Dawang Temple, the state, commercial capital, and cultural elites gradually withdrew from subsequent spatial production. Between 2006 and 2016, the temple carried a dual significance: an officially constructed cultural landscape and a leisure venue for local residents’ card games. In 2017, the authorities placed the temple under the trusteeship of the Taoist Association, transferring management from a property subsidiary of the Urban Investment Group to a religious institution (Yangzhou Taoist Association, 2017). This trusteeship fundamentally redefined the official positioning of the temple’s spatial attributes. Official narratives re-categorized the temple as a “folk cultural belief site,” bestowing it with a new identity that facilitated spatial reconstruction. Consequently, new actors—including the priest, believers, and the local community—emerged as active participants in spatial production. Their spatial practices further shaped the temple’s “Representational Spaces”, continuously superimposing new layers of meaning upon the site. Through these practices, the Hangou Dawang Temple has expanded beyond its status as an officially dominated cultural landscape, gaining an additional substantive layer of meaning and function as a venue for popular religion.

4.1. Agent Intervention and the Return of Material Media: Physical Anchors of Sacredness

The Taoist cleric was the central figure in the construction of the “Representational Space” of the Hangou Dawang Temple in 2017. Originally from Northeast China, he was appointed by the Yangzhou Taoist Association to serve as the priest-in-charge after receiving his registers at Mount Mao. Shortly after his arrival, he organized the “Taoist Culture and Art Exhibition & Unveiling Ceremony of the Municipal Taoist Association” in the name of the association, effectively declaring that “the temple is inhabited again”. Early the following year, on the fifth day of the first lunar month, he conducted a Dharma Assembly for the God of Wealth. Both events can be regarded as ritualized starting points for the superposition of new layers of meaning upon the temple’s space. Subsequently, due to regulatory constraints regarding the management of popular religion, the temple refrained from holding similar large-scale public ceremonies; however, smaller-scale rites continued to be performed within its walls. The execution of these modest rituals—including prayers for blessings and ceremonies for averting calamities—endowed the Hangou Dawang Temple with the essential attributes of a “Ritual Space.”

Under the leadership of the Taoist cleric and in collaboration with the believers, the “Representational Space” of the Hangou Dawang Temple was jointly constructed. Overall, this spatial remaking encompassed three main areas: the addition of an incense burner and steles in the front plaza, the enshrinement of supplementary deities within the main hall, and the creation of a newly partitioned space on the western side of the hall.

In the front plaza, a bronze-style incense tripod engraved with “Dawang Temple” was custom-made and donated by believers. Within the front portico, two stone steles and a money-stone tortoise were installed, funded by local entrepreneurs. While the steles recount the historical deeds of the two Kings of Wu, the stone tortoise symbolizes an abundance of wealth.

The interior of the main hall was bifurcated by a wooden partition wall, dividing it into a deity worship area and a western multipurpose space. Although serving different functions, both spaces shared a similar logic of spatial production. The crossbeams of the main hall were adorned with long streamers, holy name banners, prayer flags, and a Taoist bell, all procured by the Priest. The worship area housed a multitude of deities, including Wang Lingguan, Zhao Gongming, Doumu Yuanjun, the Sixty-Jiazi Gods, Zhang Daoqing, the Great Deity of Mount Tai, the Thunder Ancestor, Wenchang Dijun, the Civil God of Wealth, Cihang Zhenren, and crucially, even a statue of Mao Zedong. This eclectic collection encompassed not only primary Taoist deities but also elements of Buddhism and popular religion. Consequently, the main hall exhibited the characteristics of a “Syncretic Pantheon”, where a complex, functionally oriented system of deities accommodated the vast majority of believers’ practical petitions, such as praying for offspring, peace, and wealth.

Most of these statues were initiated by the vows of believers; the Priest would then commission them on their behalf, consecrate them, and enshrine them on-site. Believers often inscribed their names on the statues they sponsored and visited regularly with offerings. In addition to the larger statues, smaller idols and ritual paraphernalia—such as incense burners, candlesticks, offering tables, and fruit trays—were also donated by the congregation. The construction of this material field provided subsequent worshippers with tangible objects of veneration. Thus, the Hangou Dawang Temple gradually transformed from a singular memorial site into a multifunctional religious field reflecting the diverse aspirations of the populace (Figure 2).

Furthermore, the partitioned space on the western side of the hall functioned similarly to a tea room and served as a critical social nexus for the Priest in Yangzhou. The ceiling was painted with the Twenty-Eight Mansions. Bookshelves displayed Taoist classics such as the Zhonghua Daozang, alongside medals designating the Priest as a “Master of I Ching” and “Cultural Celebrity.” The furniture, tea-making equipment, and bookshelves were all crowdfunded by believers. Within this space, the Priest taught numerology to local disciples and engaged in social exchanges with believers, as well as with certain “institutional insiders” (individuals within the state apparatus).Through the social construction of space, actors such as the priest and the congregation have spontaneously and continuously superimposed layers of meaning onto the Hangou Dawang Temple, transforming it into a field that anchors belief and collective significance. Consequently, the temple space has become profoundly embedded within the local social and religious networks:

Youth: So I think the Master’s charisma is really, really strong. You know, if someone else took over—if someone else were the abbot of Dawang Temple—though actually, there’s technically no official abbot role at the temple at all, right? Because Master Ma is the only cleric there. If it were run by anyone else, any other person, I really don’t believe this belief tradition could be properly sustained.

If that were to happen, sooner or later this place would lose its original character. It’d end up just like Daming Temple, right? Or become something no different from a museum.

4.2. Non-Antagonistic Symbiosis: The Confluence of Official Heritage and Popular Belief

Admittedly, there exist certain tensions between the state and grassroots actors regarding their respective demands for religious practice at the Hangou Dawang Temple. For instance, the authorities explicitly classify the site as a folk belief venue rather than a formally registered Taoist monastery. From the perspective of W. Richard Scott’s New Institutionalism (Scott, 2017), this administrative classification functions as a “Regulative Pillar”—a set of coercive institutional rules and policies that deny the temple the legal status and resources of a formal religious establishment. Under these regulative constraints, the site may not be presided over by certified religious clergy. Although the resident Taoist priest has received full Taoist ordination, he lacks an officially recognized Clerical Personnel Certificate and must perform his duties in a non-clerical capacity to maintain the appearance of institutional compliance.

To navigate these constraints, grassroots actors leverage the “Cultural-Cognitive Pillar” of the institution. The official heritagization process serves as a crucial protective umbrella; the inclusion of the “Legends of Hangou Dawang Temple” in the municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) list in 2008 facilitated a crucial discursive translation (Weiyang District Bureau of Culture and Education, 2009, pp. 11–14). This utilizes the default cognitive framework of the public, which equates “ICH” with “excellent traditional culture,” thereby providing a legitimate cognitive shield. It reframed potential “feudal superstitions” into “traditional culture” protected by the state. This strategic ambiguity allowed the Priest and believers to conduct rituals under the guise of “cultural exhibitions,” thereby securing a legitimate space within the gaps of official governance.

First, the official heritagization process serves as a protective umbrella for religious practice. The inclusion of the “Legends of Hangou Dawang Temple” in the municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2008 facilitated a crucial discursive translation: it reframed potential “feudal superstitions” into “traditional culture” protected by the state. This strategic ambiguity allowed the Priest and believers to conduct rituals under the guise of “cultural exhibitions,” thereby securing a legitimate space within the gaps of official governance.

Second, a pragmatic convergence of interests exists among the various actors. For the state and commercial capital, the Priest’s management resolved the previous issues of spatial disorder and transformed a static “cultural monument” into a vibrant, living heritage site that enhances the attractiveness of the Grand Canal Scenic Belt. Conversely, for the grassroots community, the state-constructed infrastructure provided a grand physical vessel to anchor their beliefs.

Ultimately, the temple carries multiple layers of spatial meaning formed in different historical phases, which coexist within the same physical site. Three distinct, overlapping interpretive frameworks occupy this single space: the state-led historical memorial centered on the two Kings of Wu, the scenic landscape built for canal tourism development, and a grassroots folk venue for devotional supplication and ritual exchange. This coexistence demonstrates that the shaping of religious space is not always a confrontational zero-sum contest, but a reciprocal process of mutual adaptation and dynamic balance between different actors.

5. Conclusions

In summary, through an analysis of the spatial transformation process of the Hangou Dawang Temple in Yangzhou from 2006 to 2026, this study fully addresses the core research question raised at the outset: a secularized cultural landscape, constructed top-down by the state and inherently lacking a sacred core, can be reverse-appropriated by grassroots communities through tactical everyday practices and reconstructed into a living popular religious space with substantive sacredness. The core findings of this study can be summarized into three points: first, it clarifies the mechanism of the inherent de-sacralization of constructed landscapes under the dominance of state-led cultural and tourism development; second, it reconstructs the core practical pathways through which grassroots religious actors drive the reverse spatial production of the site and achieve its resacralization; third, it conceptualizes a Non-Antagonistic Symbiotic Model for the production of urban popular religious spaces in contemporary China.

This study finds that the official reconstruction of the Hangou Dawang Temple in 2006 constituted the construction of Representations of Space completed through the collusion of the state, commercial capital, and cultural elites. Through spatial discipline, spectacle manufacturing, and symbolic reconstruction, the site was shaped into a de-sacralized cultural monument serving canal-based cultural tourism, ultimately forming a landscape island detached from local communities. This finding is empirically corroborated by Li Feng’s classic study of the Dawang Temple in Nianbadu. Together, the two cases reveal that state-led instrumental spatial production, due to its neglect of the subjectivity and locality of popular religion, will result in a vacuum of the space’s sacred core and the suspension of religious practices (Feng, 2011). Unlike existing studies that focus on the passive alienation of original religious spaces, this case clarifies the novel pathway of the inherent de-sacralization of constructed landscapes, directly addresses the research gap identified in the introduction, and completes the typological spectrum of research on the de-sacralization of popular religious spaces.

This study further finds that following the temple’s entrustment in 2017, grassroots actors centered on the resident Taoist cleric—drawing on the core logic of the subversion and rewriting of strategy by tactics from Michel de Certeau’s theory of everyday practice—completed the reverse spatial production and resacralization of the Hangou Dawang Temple’s sacred space through a series of everyday practices, including spatial appropriation, ritual revival, and the reconstruction of community bonds. This process effectively dismantled the spatial discipline framework preset by official cultural and tourism planning since the 2006 reconstruction. This bottom-up spatial production process is fundamentally corroborated by the research of Ai Shaowei on the production of religious spaces in Hui communities. Together, the two studies confirm that the subjective practices of grassroots religious actors are the core triggering mechanism driving the bottom-up reproduction of folk sacred spaces (Ai et al., 2018). Unlike the collective negotiation-based spatial construction documented in existing studies, the practices of the Taoist cleric and his community in this case highlight the tactical character in de Certeau’s sense: rather than engaging in direct confrontation with the institutional framework of official cultural and tourism governance, they completed the implicit rewriting of meaning and functional reshaping of the official Representations of Space through religious practices embedded in daily life. Meanwhile, this study extends the research boundaries of Guo Wen’s work on the everyday resistance of sacred spaces in ethnic tourism villages. Existing studies have mostly defined the everyday practices of grassroots people as passive defense by the disadvantaged, whereas the practices of grassroots actors in the Dawang Temple case constitute a set of proactive, highly subjective spatial reproduction actions. This logic also resonates across cases with the name-borrowing system survival strategy of popular religion proposed by Wang Zhiqing, jointly revealing the local practical logic through which grassroots actors reconstruct the sacredness of space via everyday practices under institutional constraints in the field of popular religion in contemporary China (W. Guo, 2019).

Based on the long-term practices of the Hangou Dawang Temple, this study conceptualizes a Non-Antagonistic Symbiotic Model between the state and grassroots actors, breaking through the dualistic analytical framework of state domination-societal resistance prevalent in existing popular religion research. The classic study of Longmu belief by Zhang Xiaoyi and Li Xiangping reveals the zero-sum game pattern of orthodox core-marginal space shaped by the institutional arrangements of public power (X. Zhang & Li, 2016). Zhu Yujie defines sacred spaces in heritage tourism as a continuously contested field of multi-party negotiation, and neither of these studies departs from the confrontational analytical foundation of state-society relations (Zhu, 2024). The core operating mechanism of this model lies in the decoupling of objectives and the mutual embedding of boundaries between the state and grassroots actors: the state completes the legitimacy empowerment and heritage symbol production of the temple through cultural and tourism development, while grassroots actors complete the resacralization of the space without challenging the official framework. There is no essential conflict between the core demands of the two parties, forming a two-way complementarity of the state empowers legitimacy, and the grassroots fills the sacredness. This model reveals that the resilient survival of urban popular religion in contemporary China is not merely passive survival through strategic camouflage but a symbiotic construction based on the dual attributes of heritage and belief, providing a new empirical interpretation for understanding the living continuity of popular religion.

The theoretical contributions of this study are mainly reflected in three aspects: First, it expands the cognitive boundaries of research on the de-sacralization of popular religious spaces, and clarifies the novel pathway of the inherent de-sacralization of constructed landscapes beyond the passive alienation of original spaces. Second, it deepens the application of de Certeau’s theory of everyday practice in the study of non-Western religious spaces, revealing that tactical everyday practices can not only realize passive resistance to power strategies, but also complete proactive reverse spatial production. Third, the proposed Non-Antagonistic Symbiotic Model breaks through the dualistic confrontation presupposition of existing research, providing a new analytical framework for understanding the resilient survival mechanism of urban popular religion in contemporary China.

Furthermore, this research demonstrates that while the transformation of the Hangou Dawang Temple is largely an institutional process, spatial theory remains a powerful integrative tool to synthesize macro-level institutional logic with micro-level interaction rituals. By operationalizing Lefebvre’s spatial triad, this study effectively bridges the potential disciplinary boundary between institutional analysis and anthropological spatial theory. It illustrates that the production of sacred space is a comprehensive synthesis where “conceived” institutional regulations (the regulative and cultural-cognitive pillars) and “lived” religious practices (interaction rituals and lived religion) converge to produce a substantive sacred field. Meanwhile, this study responds to Kim Knott’s core proposition of the location of religion, verifies her core assertion that religiosity can be inscribed and reconstructed within everyday secular domains, and extends this theoretical framework to the reverse production scenario of heritage-oriented cultural and tourism landscapes in Chinese cities (Knott, 2015).

This study has two clear boundaries of applicability. First, this study is an in-depth single case study, focusing on officially reconstructed popular religious spaces in canal cities in the Yangtze River Delta, which is significantly different from the production scenarios of rural temple fairs in northern China and original belief spaces of ethnic minorities in southwest China. The generalizability of the findings is limited to the scenario boundary of urban officially reconstructed religious spaces. Second, the fieldwork observation period of this study is from 2025 to 2026. For the spatial practices of the temple before its entrustment (2006–2017), the study mainly relies on retrospective interviews and second-hand literature, lacking contemporaneous participant observation data, which leads to certain limitations in the depiction of the micro-details of early everyday appropriation by local communities. Future research can be deepened in two directions: first, carrying out multi-case comparative research to extend the Non-Antagonistic Symbiotic Model to popular religious spaces in different regions and of different types, to verify the boundaries of its explanatory power and applicable conditions; second, through long-term follow-up ethnography, further exploring the dynamic evolution process of reverse spatial production, and deepening the understanding of the resilient survival mechanism of popular religion in contemporary China (Figure 3).

In conclusion, taking the reverse spatial production of the Hangou Dawang Temple as a typical case, this study reveals the logic of the resilient survival of Chinese popular religion within the framework of heritagization governance in the post-secular urban context, and provides new empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives for understanding the interactive relationship between state and society in the production of sacred spaces and reconstructing the connotation of heritage authenticity.