Haoran Shi

HAORAN SHI, then a graduate student at Stanford University, Stanford, California, was awarded a grant in October 2022 to aid research on “Heritage Infrastructure: Maintenance, Preservation, and Long-Term Sustainability of the Qanat Systems in Turpan, Xinjiang,” supervised by Dr. Andrew Bauer. This project addresses the temporal contradiction between heritage preservation and infrastructure upkeep — both as modes of “keeping as is.” While heritage preservation often prioritizes a “mono-temporal” snapshot of infrastructure, local maintenance is usually more diverse, fluid, and thus “multi-temporal.” To investigate how these modes of “keeping as is” contradict and co-exist, this project selects a “living heritage” site in Turpan, Xinjiang, where centuries-old underground aqueducts (qanat or karez) continue to irrigate orchards. The excavation of 20 upcast mounds, alongside phytolith analysis, revealed at least three distinct structural adaptations to deteriorating environmental conditions, which corroborated with ethnographic observations of diverse local maintenance strategies. These findings contrast with perspectives of state-affiliated archaeologists and preservationists who favor a prototype of the aqueducts that rarely exist in the field. This project found that these actors selected visual and historical elements of the infrastructure aligning with neoliberal and nationalistic objectives, thus limiting the rich repertoire of infrastructural possibilities otherwise evident. Nonetheless, local actors have creatively leveraged social media and political networks to attract tourism, secure funding, and promote pride and nostalgia to preserve underrepresented aqueducts. This project documented these alternative strategies, demonstrating the ways in which heritage preservation can co-exist with the multi-temporal maintenance of infrastructure.