Examining the Links Between Heritage Use and Identity Building Through a Narrative Approach: A Case Study of Dadaocheng, Taipei City, in Taiwan

This article is intended to explore where narrative stands in the interconnection between heritage use and identity building. To achieve this goal, both heritage use and identity building are understood as the process of connection with a physical place for meaning-making of self-identification. This also means that while heritage use is related to discursive practices with historical legacies, narrative is the discursive structure for heritage users to receive its temporal meanings between time, person and place. Accordingly, with a case study of the historic district of Dadaocheng, Taipei City, in Taiwan, this article would like to suggest that heritage really benefits the shaping of our imagination with a physical place, particularly for building urban imaginaries and place uniqueness. Moreover, historical legacies and urban imaginaries are defined and chosen to strengthen the quality of a person, and then each narrated story of heritage use seems like an illustration of the strategic ways of living and/or working with historical legacies in a specific place. Consequently, the linkage between heritage and narrative here denotes an ongoing doing–saying–being approach to make time and place more humanized; meanwhile, ongoing storytelling is a possible way to reflect people’s perspectives and envision a sustainable historic environment.