**5. Conclusions**

The transformations in the worship of Mazu offer a strategic window into the changing roles of religious materiality in the contemporary Chinese religious landscape. Materiality has always been essential to the devotion to the goddess. Historically, material media were created and used to express the devotee's beliefs and values as an integral part of their religious lives. While it is true that religious devotion has always been connected to politics and economics, as wealthy merchants, influential government officials, and powerful military leaders transformed a local shrine into a large temple complex through their bequests, materiality was primarily a means to express personal gratitude to the goddess and glorify her miraculous interventions. In other words, the temple complex, the use of incense, hagiographic texts, and the Mazu statues, along with other material objects, served principally to forge strong, intimate, and affective personal and group connections between the goddess and her believers' everyday lives, addressing issues like fertility and protection against disease and misfortunes, and guaranteeing the wellbeing of families. This link contributed to consolidating the ancestral temple as the origin sacred site of Mazu worship.

In modern times, the material expression of Mazu worship has experienced a tremendous transformation due to changes in the way the central government sees religion(s). Following the issuance of Document 19 in 1982 and the government's endorsement of the UNESCO's "Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage" as a way to strengthen national identity, the previous suspicion and hostility toward religion(s) gave way to seeing their potential for the recovery and preservation of national cultural heritage. This change in the approach from the Chinese central government has legitimized the development of religious tourism, which has also been facilitated by a rapid expansion of the Chinese economy that has given citizens increasing disposable income, allowing them to travel. In turn, religious tourism has transformed the devotion to Mazu and the local economy of Meizhou Island. The materiality of Mazu culture is now deployed in the overlapping worlds of spirituality, religious tourism, and the local socio-economic environment, transcending its traditional roots and character.

We saw how, in the case of the worship of Mazu, these societal changes have transformed religious experiences and practices. The conversion of a local/regional religious devotion into a national/transnational cultural performance through a transformation of materiality and, more generally, the integration of religion and the modern economic system through tourism, has been accompanied by a process of cultural commodification, which tends to "disenchant," to use Max Weber's (2002, p. 60) term, traditional meanings associated with Mazu. As we have seen, the modified cultural products of Mazu worship emphasize touristry and entertainment aspects, while diminishing the strictly religious aims. In accordance with the changes in Mazu worship, the temple association has transformed into a socio-economic enterprise. The overriding function of the temple association has increasingly become to develop new cultural products which will attract more visitors and bring more commercial profits. From the perspective of local government, the purpose of its support for religious tourism and Mazu worship is now to develop the local economy and increase local revenues.

Borrowing from Shinde, I have suggested a model that accounts for the multiple agents involved in this process, as well as for the multi-directional relationships they sustain. The model highlights the centrality of materiality, both human-made and in the natural environment, and the agency of religious and secular organizations in animating the networks of interaction. I suggest that this model might be useful to understand the interplay of other religious phenomena with materiality and tourism in China and beyond.

While the transformation of the materiality of the worship of Mazu is a complex multi-agent and multi-variable dynamic, it has resulted in a process of commodification. We have seen how the material infrastructure of the ancestral site, from the expansion of the temple to the use of electronic media, and changes in the performance of ritual ceremonies to the growth of a hospitality industry and the proliferation of Mazu souvenirs, has been transformed to amplify its entertainment and tourist values. This modern version of Mazu worship has gained great support from local government since it has become an important source of revenue.

It is too early to assess the full impact of this commodification on the worship of Mazu. In the interviews I conducted, visitors to the Mazu ancestral temple felt that the lavish changes in the performances and material culture intensified their religious experiences and brought them closer to the goddess. In that sense, the traditional function of materiality in the devotion persists. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the changes ushered in by the new prominence of religious tourism at Meizhou Island represent a process of "de-sacralization" that has overflowed the referents of traditional practices and beliefs, re-signifying and linking them tightly to expansive "profane" political and economic aims. On the other hand, this commodification has allowed the spread and "massification" of Mazu, and her devotion nationally and transnationally.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, Y.Z. and C.W.; methodology, Y.Z. and X.L.; formal analysis, Y.Z.; investigation, Y.Z. and C.W.; resources, Y.Z.; writing—original draft preparation, Y.Z.; writing—review and editing, Y.Z.; visualization, Y.Z. and X.L.; supervision, Y.Z.; project administration, Y.Z.; funding acquisition, Y.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received funding from Fujian Provincial Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation (Fujian sheng sheke) No. FJ2020B136; the Fundamental Research Funds for central Universities (Zhongyang gaoxiao jiben keyan yewu zhuanxiang zijin zizhu) No. 2072021109; and 2022 College Students' Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training [Program (2022 nian daxue sheng chuangxin chuangye jihua xiangmu)] "The Combination of Mazu worship and Contemporary Cultural Tourism" [(National, No. 202210384158)].

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Institutional Review Board of Xiamen University (protocol code XDYX2021024 and date of approval 29 September 2021).

**Informed Consent Statement:** Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

**Data Availability Statement:** The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
