Collaborative conservation and regeneration in the Jingdezhen imperial kiln historic district

The Jingdezhen imperial kiln historic district is a living heritage area where an archaeological site, traditional alleyways, vernacular dwellings, and an active residential community coexist. This study examines how an evolving collaborative arrangement has taken shape at the intersection of heritage conservation, urban regeneration, and everyday community life. Drawing on policy and documentary analysis, field observation, and semi-structured interviews with residents, grassroots officials, and heritage practitioners, the study reconstructs the district’s conservation and regeneration process across four stages: industrial decline and environmental deterioration, initial conservation and indirect community participation, urban transformation and selective renewal, and integrated conservation with expanded multi-actor collaboration. The findings show that conservation in the district did not follow a simple linear path from state-led intervention to community control. Instead, it developed through changing interactions among policy resources, spatial renewal, local memory, and community participation. The arrangement remains state-coordinated: residents contribute situated knowledge, cultural interpretation, implementation feedback, and everyday stewardship, while government agencies retain substantial authority over strategic planning, funding, approval, and regulation. The study identifies three interrelated mechanisms that support this process: external–internal cooperation, through which institutional resources, funding, and professional knowledge enter the community; internal–external sharing, through which residents communicate heritage meanings through everyday practices and ceramic-cultural memory; and incentive supervision, which highlights the continuing need for feedback, maintenance, and safeguards for residents’ daily life. By emphasizing the direction and reciprocity of these interactions, this study offers an interpretive framework for analyzing collaborative conservation in state-coordinated living heritage districts. The Jingdezhen case suggests that sustainable heritage-led regeneration depends not only on preserving physical remains, but also on sustaining the social practices and local meanings that keep historic urban landscapes alive.