Keynote “Restaurants as Heritage? The (Un)Expected Heritagization of (Chinese) Migration”

Dr. Martina Bofulin delivered her keynote lecture, “Restaurants as Heritage? The (Un)Expected Heritagization of (Chinese) Migration,” on 6 November 2025 during the opening keynote session of the International Conference on Cultural Heritage (3rd edition), held at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania. Speaking in the Avram Iancu Auditorium, she introduced the audience to emerging perspectives on migration as a site of heritage-making.

Drawing on her research expertise on Chinese migration between Europe and the PRC, Bofulin emphasized that border-crossing, mobility, and hybridity are central to the lived experiences of migrants. These dimensions increasingly feature in contemporary heritagization processes that seek to move beyond nationally bounded heritage regimes.

Using examples from centuries-long Chinese migration, Bofulin showed how both well-established diasporic communities and everyday spaces—particularly restaurants—become points of interaction between migrant and majority populations. Such contact zones reveal the distinction between migrant heritage, maintained within communities, and migration heritage, shaped by broader societal interpretations.

She also discussed the difficulties of transcending nation-based models of heritage-making and highlighted the relational and dynamic character of transnational heritage. Her lecture demonstrated how Chinese migration continues to reshape European heritage landscapes and broadens current understandings of what can be considered heritage in an interconnected world.