Jiang BAO (visual anthropologist): a comparative study of the transformation of Dongba (Naxi) heritage in Lijiang (Yunnan) and Wahuagong, a Han belief space in Shexian (Hebei).

John BOLD (architectural historian): local sustainability and the built heritage in the Balkans; the intersections and contrasts in national and local legislative strategies for protection of the built heritage in Europe and China; the transmission of cultural heritage.

Harriet EVANS (oral/cultural historian): oral narratives and personal histories of ‘old Beijing’ as records of a ‘subaltern’ heritage; poster art, visual culture and local museum collections of the Mao era.

Katie HILL (art historian): the practice and dissemination of local folk traditions in Hebei and Shaanxi and their intersection with national narratives and displays of cultural heritage.

Yang LIAO (art historian): the wall paintings of the religious site Dabaoji Gong, Lijiang and the Kizil Caves of the Silk Road, and their importance in local community culture, and the effects of the interaction between local government, literati, religious groups and common people on their protection.

Honguang LUO (social/cultural anthropologist): the Mazu rite (festival), Fujian, as a cultural instance facilitating social and political cohesion between people across the Taiwan Straits; ritual and cultural life in rural northern Shaanxi.

Michael ROWLANDS (anthropologist of material culture, heritage and museums): museums and collections in West Africa; the use of new technology to create virtual websites as repositories of local cultural memories; theoretical and methodological debates about cultural heritage and collections of indigenous cultural knowledge.

Udo SCHLOTZHAUER (archaeologist): early Greek settlements on the Black Sea; the distant transfer of objects and knowledge between the Mediterranean and Central and Eastern Asia, and the social value currently given to “foreign” Mediterranean cultural heritage in Chinese collections (particularly in Xinjiang).

Mayke WAGNER (archaeologist): public presentations of archaeological heritage (e.g. site museums) within the so-called Chinese core area and the “periphery” settled by non-Chinese peoples, and the effect of archaeological heritage sites on local communities, especially concerning school education and creation of cultural memory/ historical identity.

Cangbai WANG (anthropologist, historian): the ‘cultural heritage’ of ‘overseas Chinese’ and Hong Kong Chinese in local and national museums, particularly the new Huqiao Museum under construction in Beijing; transnational migration and heritage ‘routes’.

Naiqun WENG (social/cultural anthropologist): the Dapa and Anji beliefs practiced among the Naze and Permu in the border area between Sichuan and Yunnan, as instances of the local effort to revitalize “ethnic (intangible) culture/ cultural tradition” during the reform era; theoretical conceptualisations of heritage.