From ‘Ruins’ to Heritage: Contested Designation of the Lai Chi Vun Shipyards in Macao

ABSTRACT The Lai Chi Vun Shipyard in Coloane, Macao, is the city's last relatively well‐preserved shipbuilding industrial site. It was once South China's biggest wooden shipbuilding base; it fell into decline and abandonment before emerging as a contested heritage site. In 2016, structural deterioration prompted government demolition plans, which in turn triggered strong civic resistance from local communities. This study uses fieldwork, NVivo‐based coding and analysis of planning texts and stakeholder perspectives to examine competing interpretations of the shipyard's heritage significance. Official stories focused on redevelopment and tourism, but communities put forward what this paper calls a Situated Heritage Claim, a context‐specific assertion of heritage value grounded in local attachments and shared memory in response to demolition threats and fragmented governance. The eventual designation of the site as Classified Immovable Property in 2018 marked a turning point in Macao's heritage discourse. After that, the site was partly turned into cultural and creative spaces while parts of its industrial past were kept. This case shows how bottom‐up engagement, articulated through Situated Heritage Claims, insert community‐based values into formal recognition processes and expand understandings of heritage as rooted in everyday cultural practice.