Temple under the national flag: History, legitimacy, and everyday politics in a religious landscape of rural northwest China

Abstract
While rural agrarian village temples are central to studies on the revival of Chinese folk religion, they are often treated as stagnant backdrops or material evidence, rather than vibrant practices that contribute to the meaning‐making of Chinese folk religion, overlooking their dynamic nature as landscapes. Drawing on human geography and anthropology of landscapes in conceptualising landscapes as ongoing historical and cultural processes, this paper explores the reconstruction of a village temple in rural northwestern China. It reveals how such temples become critical spaces where local actors engage in historical narration, legitimacy construction, and everyday political negotiation. The study demonstrates that village temples function not merely as spaces of faith or cultural heritage, but also constitute a dynamic material‐symbolic complex. They embody historical memory of communities and localised religious practices while simultaneously manifesting the intricate interplay among local elites, state regulation, and community traditions. Rooted in rural communities, these temple landscapes form generative networks of meaning, serving as vital media through which different actors forge cultural identities and negotiate power relations within the framework of the Chinese state's rural governance practices.