The protection, renewal and revitalization of traditional villages are major practical issues for achieving rural revitalization and Chinese-style modernization in China. As a popular field of interdisciplinary research, it systematically explores theoretical logic and practical paths. Twelve experts from fields of geography, architecture, planning, finance, culture and tourism, and management were invited for in-depth interviews and dialogues, spreading to top-level institutional design, protection, control and constraints, departmental management and enterprise operation and maintenance, talent and multi-subject intervention, and the empowerment of new technology iterations. Based on expert insights, the protection and revitalization of traditional villages in China in the New Era need to focus on the following key points: (1) Taking top-level institutional design as the foundation. It is urgently necessary to safeguard the main rights and interests of villagers through a mechanism that links property rights confirmation with income. Resource endowments are relied upon to implement precise classification of industrial strategies to build a multi-party collaborative governance framework and balance the integration model of culture and tourism. (2) Taking protection, control and restraint as the bottom line. Based on the dialectical relationship between protection and development, flexible guidance and control mechanisms and negative list management have been practiced to balance the demands of heritage protection and improvement of people's livelihood. (3) Governance coordination and financing innovation serve as the driving forces. It is necessary to clarify the boundaries of responsibilities and collaborative processes among multiple departments to distinguish the intervention logic of various types of enterprises. Through innovative approaches such as special bonds, green credit, protection funds and "whole village asset package" financing, the bottleneck of scattered property rights and long-term returns has been broken. (4) It is guaranteed by the rooting of talents and multi-party governance. The core lies in the comprehensive introduction mechanism, industrial platform, governance model and long-term incentive mechanism to reconstruct a virtuous cycle of symbiotic development between talents and villages. Technical experts should be incorporated into the decision-making system to achieve collaborative governance. (5) Supported by technological empowerment, digital records, open cloud platforms and artificial intelligence technologies are adopted to achieve efficient spatial information acquisition, dynamic monitoring and early warning, as well as remote expert guidance. The predicament of insufficient technical support in remote villages is expected to be resolved. Overall, it is necessary to achieve a balance between the protection of traditional village heritage and sustainable renewal and revitalization through a systematic linkage of institutional innovation, flexible control, multi-party collaboration, talent cultivation, and technological empowerment.
The revitalization of traditional villages is of great significance to promoting the high-quality development of urban and rural areas and building a cultural power. Taking Chaohua village, Xinmi city, Henan province as an example, this paper uses the theoretical core of cultural ecology for reference, highlights the core role of actors, constructs the evaluation index system of living development level from the three elements of "material, culture and core", and uses AHP and weighted summation method for quantitative evaluation. The research shows that: (1) The score of Chaohua village's living development level is 63.7709, which belongs to the general type of "inactivation", with the highest score of core elements, followed by material elements, and the lowest score of cultural elements. (2) Facing the realistic dilemma of mutual correlation and negative circulation, such as the double contradiction of material elements, the double restriction of cultural elements, and the double imbalance of core elements. (3) The influencing factors are as follows: the contradiction between the advantages and disadvantages of the basic support of material elements, the restriction of the lack of carrier and activation of the intermediary transmission of cultural elements, the imbalance between high recognition and low governance driven by core elements, and the superposition of weak positive linkage and strong negative circulation of the interaction and coordination of elements. (4) The activation path adheres to the activation principle of preserving the originality of local characteristics, restoring the integrity of traditional features, and promoting the vitality of sustainable development, and proposes the activation path of ecological industry, digital inheritance, and governance and operation based on the synergy of "material, culture and core" elements.
Heritage vitality is a critical indicator of the effectiveness of traditional village conservation. Faced with multidimensional processes of devitalization, conservation practice requires a rigorous vitality assessment that can identify typological differentiation and illuminate the mechanisms linking conservation with adaptive use, thereby enabling more targeted and context-sensitive protection. Building on living heritage approaches and China's conservation experience, this study develops an evaluation framework structured around two core dimensions: community agency and heritage continuity. Community agency reflects the combined influence of residents, markets, and government actors, while heritage continuity captures the persistence of village functions together with the intergenerational transmission of heritage elements. Applying this framework to 26 nationally designated traditional villages in Beijing, we classify villages into vitality types, diagnose their type-specific patterns of devitalization, and analyze the mechanisms by which diverse actors engage in conservation and use. Between October 2020 and May 2024, multiple rounds of in-situ fieldwork were conducted, each lasting four to seven days, combining spatial analysis, questionnaire surveys, and semi-structured interviews to generate systematically comparable data across cases. The findings are threefold. (1) Villages sort into four vitality types at the intersection of agency and continuity: high community agency - high heritage continuity (HH), high community agency-low heritage continuity (HL), low community agency - high heritage continuity (LH), low community agency - low heritage continuity (LL). (2) Each type exhibits distinctive pressures of devitalization: HH villages are most affected by market commodification that displaces everyday functions; HL villages are constrained by ruptures in functional continuity despite strong mobilization; LH villages are jointly shaped by resident action and market dynamics, resulting in uneven revitalization; and LL villages are most impacted by the erosion of intergenerational transmission of heritage elements. (3) Conservation-use mechanisms likewise vary: HH villages benefit from the alignment of political and economic objectives across governance levels, enabling networked, multi-village revitalization supported by government regulatory tools for equitable benefit-sharing. HL villages rely on consensus built around endogenous strengths, where village committees seek government support for cluster-oriented revitalization and establish equity-based revenue-sharing schemes. LH villages originate in the dual demands of livelihood improvement and enterprise profit, where firms and residents jointly pursue village-wide adaptive reuse under reciprocal benefit arrangements. LL villages, in contrast, depend primarily on directive, single-site safeguarding under government-led policies, which to date have produced limited value-added outcomes. Conceptually, the study advances the understanding of heritage vitality as an interplay between agency and continuity. Methodologically, it operationalizes vitality through transparent indicators that support typological comparison and policy monitoring. Practically, it establishes a diagnostics-to-mechanisms pathway for precision protection: diagnose the vitality type, identify the dominant pressures, and match them with feasible governance arrangements and conservation-compatible use models.
Traditional villages serve as crucial places for the living transmission and conservation of Chinese cultural heritage. Yet many existing conservation practices, by emphasizing the technical repair of heritage elements rather than their symbiotic and systemic vitality, have failed to sustain those villages' cultural presence and reproduction. This imbalance has produced the dilemma often described as "cultural presence without effective articulation", triggering debates over both "de-activated protection", and "destructive preservation". Grounded in the theory of living heritage, this study adopts the biological metaphor of a "phenotypic expression system" to conceptualize the chain of cultural expression. It advances the "Relationship-Object-Practice" (ROP) framework, which integrates three interdependent dimensions: explicit heritage elements (object dimension), implicit heritage elements (relationship dimension), and cultural practices (practice dimension). Based on an empirical case study of Lijiatuan village in Shandong province, the investigation reveals that although the village retains a relatively complete set of heritage resources, the relationship dimension has not exerted sufficient efficacy in sustaining the living practice of heritage. Community networks have become weakened in their ability to regulate and activate collective participation, while the practice dimension has been narrowly conceived, diverting attention away from mechanisms that support cultural expression and reproduction. Consequently, the object dimension has suffered from inadequate reintegration of everyday functions, leaving the village exposed to the risk of cultural deactivation, in which heritage persists in appearance but loses its living significance. In response, this paper proposes a conservation turn oriented toward the living expression of heritage. From the relational dimension, it advocates collaborative governance that privileges community leadership while incorporating external assistance; from the object dimension, it permits the adaptive transformation of heritage elements to meet changing social needs; and from the practice dimension, it calls for systematic monitoring and carefully calibrated intervention to prevent cultural stagnation without suppressing organic evolution. Through this orientation, the paradigm of traditional village conservation can shift from "elemental maintenance" to "cultural sustainability", ensuring not only the preservation of heritage resources but also the regeneration of cultural vitality as a dynamic and evolving system of life.
Rural tourism is a significant approach for revitalizing the heritage and cultural landscapes of traditional villages, and cultural governance is essential for their comprehensive renewal as tourism-based communities. This paper combines cultural governance theory and actor-network theory to establish a three-tier analytical framework consisting of "cultural resourceization—cultural industrialization—cultural instrumentalization" for cultural governance in tourism-oriented traditional villages. This paper employs qualitative methods, with Wangwuzhai village in Gongxian county, Southern Sichuan as a case study, to explore the processes and mechanisms of cultural governance in tourism-oriented traditional villages. It seeks to provide theoretical support and decision-making insights for their cultural preservation and utilization. The study reveals the following findings: (1) Cultural governance in Wangwuzhai village is a process involving the participation and interaction of multiple agents, passing through three stages: cultural resourceization led by the township government, cultural industrialization promoted by the village committee, and cultural instrumentalization with multi-party involvement. (2) The advancement of cultural resourceization, cultural industrialization, and cultural instrumentalization in the village is not a strictly linear process. At different stages, there are entries and exits of agents in the cultural resourceization phase, which drives the development of cultural industrialization and optimizes the identification and development of cultural resources. During the cultural instrumentalization phase, shifts in objectives may lead to the reorganization of cultural objects and initiate a new round of industrialization. (3) The essence of cultural governance is the interactive and evolutionary process of "cultural resourceization—cultural industrialization—cultural instrumentalization". Cultural resourceization provides the foundational support for cultural governance, enabling effective identification and management of cultural resources. Cultural industrialization is the main path to driving cultural governance, as its economic value and social effects effectively advance the governance process. Cultural instrumentalization is an important means of achieving the goals of cultural governance, transforming cultural resources into tools and methods, ensuring the healthy development of cultural industrialization, and reshaping the direction of rural development.
As the "living gene bank" of Chinese agricultural civilization, the cultural living inheritance of traditional villages has strategic significance for rural revitalization and sustainable development. This study introduces the concept of authenticity value innovation from the perspective of value innovation, and takes the 40-year cultural living inheritance practice of the traditional village Laodabao as a case study object to explore the path mechanism of the living inheritance of traditional village culture. The study found that: (1) Based on the practical innovation of Laodabao, the core concept of authenticity value innovation is proposed, and the value innovation logic based on authenticity provides theoretical support for this study to break through the structural dilemma between authenticity and innovation. (2) The path of the living inheritance of traditional village culture under the perspective of authenticity value innovation is manifested as "cultural activation-cultural diffusion-cultural reproduction", and the key to its living inheritance lies in the dynamic interaction between the inheritance subject, inheritance value and inheritance ecology. (3) The mechanism of the living inheritance of traditional village culture under the perspective of authenticity value innovation is presented as "driving logic-authenticity value innovation-living inheritance", among which authenticity value innovation is categorized into three distinct types: authenticity exploration value innovation, authenticity development value innovation and authenticity dual helix value innovation. This study analyzes the mechanism of the living inheritance of traditional village culture from the perspective of authenticity value innovation, contributes to relevant research on authenticity, value innovation, and the living inheritance of traditional village culture, and provides a theoretical and practical foundation for the living inheritance and innovative development of traditional culture.
Traditional village cultural spaces serve as vital carriers for the preservation of China's outstanding traditional culture. Digital empowerment, acting as the core driving force for their modern transformation and innovative revitalization, has opened new pathways for reshaping cultural spaces through the interplay of technological evolution and cultural change. This study, grounded in mediatization, spatial production, and place theory, examines the mechanisms of digital empowerment in transforming and revitalizing traditional village cultural spaces using the ancient village of Diaoyuan in Ji'an as a case study. Findings reveal that: (1) The transformation and revitalization of cultural spaces evolved from "digital embedding" to "mediatized integration," ultimately constructing a mediatized place characterized by virtual-physical convergence, decentralized production, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. (2) The evolution of Diaoyuan village's cultural space transformation and revitalization followed an intrinsic logic of incremental evolution, systemic reconstruction, and collaborative governance. (3) The regeneration of the "mediatized place" is achieved through a quadruple-driven synergistic mechanism involving policy, technology, market, and culture. This study provides a new theoretical framework for understanding the transformation and revitalization of cultural spaces in traditional villages in the digital age, offering significant guidance for cultural heritage preservation and sustainable village development.
As living heritage sites embodying agrarian civilization, traditional villages are increasingly challenged by spatial fragmentation and atomization due to urban-rural restructuring, rapid modernization, and intensified tourism development. There is an urgent need to explore how to implement structural reconstruction and systematic revitalization from a holistic perspective. Taking Goulan Yao village in Jiangyong county, Yongzhou city, Hunan province as a case study, this paper integrates landscape gene theory and pattern language method to construct a "dual-chain three-dimensional" identification framework. This framework supports a holistic spatial restoration logic of "core element identification-spatial alienation analysis-restoration pathway exploration". The research findings are as follows: (1) Based on the dual-chain three-dimensional identification framework, a spatial recognition system for Goulan Yao village is developed, encompassing architectural genes, totemic symbols, and layout genes. This system reveals the structural foundation necessary for holistic spatial restoration. (2) The current spatial alienation of the village manifests at three levels: the spatial vocabulary layer shows landscape commodification of material bases and symbolic abstraction of cultural imagery; the spatial syntax layer suffers from structural dislocation and disrupted compositional logic; and the spatial governance layer faces imbalanced power structures and fading subject consciousness. Collectively, these phenomena contribute to the gradual disintegration of spatial wholeness. (3) Drawing on the concept of gene inheritance, the paper proposes a three-phase pathway for holistic restoration: the gene replication phase focuses on reinstating spatial vocabulary and reconstructing semantic meanings; the gene translation phase restructures spatial syntax and integrates logical systems; and the gene regulation phase promotes endogenous remodeling of spatial governance and the return of local subjectivity, ultimately achieving systematic spatial reconstruction and cultural continuity. This study aims to provide theoretical insight and practical reference for the holistic restoration and living inheritance of traditional village spaces. It also offers new perspectives and strategies for the creative transformation and innovative development of outstanding Chinese cultural heritage.
In recent years, the sharing economy, represented by homestays, has become a key component of rural tourism development. Taking the Pig's Inn in Huangshan city as a case study, this paper employs the tripartite framework of spatial production theory to analyze how traditional village cultural heritage resources are transformed into high-end tourism consumption places, based on participatory observation and semi-structured interviews. The results show that: (1) Cultural resources serve as the foundational elements in the spatial production of traditional village homestays. The Huizhou ancient dwellings, on which these homestays rely, preserve the most precious historical heritage through their architectural and cultural landscapes. The region's profound cultural heritage and idyllic rural environment attract both cultural elites and urban tourists. The conversion process comprises three sequential phases: capitalization of cultural resources, spatial transformation of cultural capital, and revitalization of cultural spaces. (2) The development of homestay spaces in traditional villages is propelled by multiple driving forces. Cultural elites play a pivotal role in shaping the development of homestay spaces within traditional villages. The artistic restoration and commercialization of traditional architectural-cultural landscapes by cultural elites endow these spaces with unique cultural significance, transform the utilization patterns of heritage resources, and establish symbolic spaces for rural tourism consumption. Government and media guide the development of traditional village homestays by exercising power and discursive practices to convert heritage resources into tourism facilities and promote sustainable use. Tourists, as key consumers, drive the development of homestay spaces in traditional villages through their consumption practices. The diversification of homestay consumer groups and the rising sophistication of consumer demands continuously drive spatial renewal and prompt new tourism facilities. (3) In the context of rapid urbanization, heritage resources undergo value activation through adaptive reuse practices that align with contemporary needs. Spaces exemplified by Pig's Inn have emerged as destinations for urban elites to experience rural lifestyles, a policy-aligned model for rural cultural revitalization, and a symbol of socially legitimized consumption practices. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the tourism-oriented transformation processes of traditional cultural heritage resources, offering theoretical and practical insights for the revitalization and sustainable development of traditional villages.
In the digital era, the proliferation of social media has strengthened the connection and integration of digital and physical spaces, and reshaped human-place interactions. Flow has become a key element driving local social and economic development. This paper takes Zhanqi village in Shexian county, Huangshan city, Anhui province as an example, and uses qualitative research methods such as non-participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and user-generated content (UGC) text analysis to examine the evolution process of flow production of fish lantern folklore in Zhanqi village, reveal its spatial restructuring characteristics, and elucidate the underlying mechanisms of flow production. The findings indicate that: (1) The flow production of Zhanqi village follows the development logic of "self-organization, bidirectionality, and dispersion", progressing through three stages of entry, breakout, and survival. This process has transformed local folk customs into a global spectacle, significantly expanding its scale and influence. (2) Through the spectacle-oriented communication and symbol coding mechanisms of digital media such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu, Zhanqi village has been endowed with spatial images like "New Year atmosphere", "prosperity" and "good fortune", accelerating the spectacularization and symbolization of the fish lantern folklore. To cater to the "gazing" and consumption demands of online users, local governments and villagers have carried out aestheticized and multi-functional renovations of the physical spaces in the village. In addition, with the local transformation of online traffic, the virtual and real spaces in Zhanqi village are also intertwined with complex conflicts arising from the imbalance between space supply and demand and differences in inheritance concepts. (3) The flow production in Zhanqi village benefits from the internal empowerment of the village's resource background and the external drive of multiple subjects. The sustainable production of the village's flow economy is driven by the local government's allocation of resources, publicity and guidance from mainstream media and opinion leaders, villagers' empowerment through popularity and deep engagement, and tourists' meaning production and emotional connection to the place. In an era where the flow economy has supplanted traditional tourism development as a key driver of local development, this research has significant theoretical and practical significance for promoting the historical and cultural inheritance and multi-dimensional spatial activation of traditional villages in China, as well as achieving the high-quality and sustainable development of internet-famous villages.
Against the twin backdrop of the digital economy and rural revitalization, the tourism spaces of traditional villages increasingly exhibit assemblage processes in which heterogeneous elements co-constitute and become deeply embedded in consumption practices. Examining the interaction mechanisms among these elements is crucial for reconciling heritage preservation with development and for advancing sustainable renewal and revitalization. Using Liugou village as a case, this study mobilizes assemblage theory and employs semi-structured interviews and participatory observation to interrogate the generative logic and evolutionary mechanisms of rural tourism consumption. The findings show that: (1) The assemblage of rural tourism consumption integrates human actors-tourists, governments, villagers-with non-human elements such as cultural resources, digital platforms and material infrastructures; their interactions not only transform consumption patterns but also activate cultural resources, becoming an endogenous driver of village renewal. (2) Consumption has evolved from linear to decentralized forms, as tourists' "evaluation-feedback-sharing" participation and platform guidance jointly reconfigure interactional dynamics and spatial configurations, enabling the living use of cultural symbols and expanding regional consumption networks. (3) Four mechanisms-desire generation, structural organization, relational negotiation and meaning reproduction-operate in a nested, mutually reinforcing way to produce a cyclical and generative system of consumption dynamics, thereby coordinating heterogeneous elements and reproducing culture within the constraints of historic spatial layouts and heritage assets, and ultimately facilitating renewal and the living transmission of traditional villages. The study extends assemblage theory in rural tourism research and offers a framework and practical insights into how consumption-driven dynamics can foster renewal and revitalization in traditional villages.
Inadequate resource transformation constitutes a critical bottleneck to the revitalizing characteristic protection villages. The scientific questions underlying these bottlenecks, "what to transform" (object), "who transforms" (subject), "what constitutes transformation" (essence), and "how to transform" (mechanism), urgently require theoretical responses. Based on theoretical review and progress analysis, this paper constructs a "planetary gear" theoretical model from the "idea-action-outcome" perspective to analyze resource transformation. It clarifies the object types, subject characteristics, essential forms, and mechanism composition of resource transformation in characteristic protection villages and proposes research prospects from three aspects: idea reconstruction, action strategies, and outcome measurement. The results show that: (1) Resource transformation refers to resource orchestration actions aimed at inheriting traditional culture, ultimately forming rural characteristic industries. This action essentially constitutes innovation and entrepreneurial behavior at both individual and collective levels, fundamentally representing the development of new quality productive forces in rural areas, which can be divided into three stages: capitalization, commodification, and industrialization. (2) The objects of resource transformation are agricultural heritage, vernacular built heritage, intangible cultural heritage, and related natural raw materials presented as "bundle of resources". The subjects of resource transformation are individuals possessing innovative and entrepreneurial spirit and capabilities, proper values of righteousness and profit, and charisma, such as social entrepreneurs. (3) The resource transformation mechanism manifests as a causal chain of "windows of opportunity-vital few-individual innovation and entrepreneurship/collective cognitive liberation-collective action", influenced by exogenous factors including major structural relationship changes and external organizational interventions in rural areas, endogenous factors such as village resource endowment, location conditions, economic foundation, organizational capacity, and institutional arrangements, as well as "black swan" events.
In the context of China's rural revitalization strategy, return entrepreneurship has emerged as a novel force for the creative transformation and innovative development of rural resources, providing significant opportunities for achieving rural sustainable development. Constructing an analytical framework of "Local Resources-Return Entrepreneurship-Adaptive Advantages", this research takes traditional villages in Huangshan city as the research object and employs a mixed-methods approach, combining participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and social network analysis to explore the driving mechanism of return entrepreneurship in promoting resource conversion in traditional villages. The findings reveal a tripartite mechanism. First, local resources exert a staged influence on return entrepreneurship: environmental resources constitute the initial attraction, technical resources provide essential livelihood support, and cultural resources serve as the key driver for innovation. Second, return entrepreneurship catalyzes a significant reconstruction of rural social networks, where village committees and key enterprises act as critical "bridging nodes", and return entrepreneurs stratify into core and peripheral layers. Third, the position of entrepreneurs within this social network directly shapes the outcomes of resource conversion: entrepreneurs in the peripheral layer, who often operate independently, mainly influence the dimension of industrial revitalization; those in the core layer engage in in-depth collaboration with villagers, local governments, and external actors, thereby activating tacit local resources and generating profound adaptive advantages in the dimension of cultural revitalization.
Driven by rapid urbanization, many traditional villages are undergoing a dynamic process of spatial alienation and functional transformation. Research on the typological differentiation of traditional villages and the formulation of guidelines for their regeneration and revitalization is of significant academic and practical importance. Taking 81 traditional Chinese villages in the Pearl River Delta as the research object, this study uses a combination of quantitative index evaluation and qualitative case analysis to reveal the differentiation types, spatial evolution characteristics, and strategies for regeneration and revitalization. The findings reveal that: (1) In terms of type differentiation, traditional villages in the study area have been divided into two types—heterogenization and vacancy—under the dual influences of urban expansion and the siphoning effect of resources. These villages are gradually undergoing a shift towards vitality in the process of urban-rural integration. (2) In terms of spatial characteristics, heterogeneous traditional villages are characterized by varying degrees of fragmentation and separation between the natural ecological base and the built environment. Vacated villages experience varying levels of decay and damage to their historic spaces due to population decline. In contrast, revitalized villages have formed differentiated spatial organizational patterns through spatial remediation, the introduction of new industries, and functional replacement. (3) In terms of regeneration and revitalization strategies, heterogeneous villages should integrate ecological corridors with localized cultural heritage restoration to achieve spatial reconstruction. Vacated villages should adopt a progressive revitalization model, involving "intelligent monitoring—tiered intervention—regeneration". Revitalized villages need to strengthen institutional innovation, encourage villager participation, and implement industry regulation to promote high-quality renewal and revitalization. This study constructs a classification and identification system for traditional villages driven by rapid urbanization, expanding the theory of vernacular heritage preservation under the dynamic interaction between urban and rural areas. It aims to provide valuable insights for the protection, renewal, and revitalization of traditional villages in the New Era.
In the context of the vigorous promotion of deep integration of cultural heritage protection with rural revitalization, the holistic conservation and utilization of regional traditional villages has emerged as both a strategic imperative and a central scholarly challenge for the field's development in the New Era. Traditional villages are multifunctional complexes that integrate diverse values, serving as vital carriers of historical and cultural heritage, distinctive models of human settlement, and important foundations for local economic production. Taking Jixi county, Anhui province as a case study, this paper systematically analyzes the multiple value characteristics of regional traditional villages by comprehensively applying the indicator method, mechanical equilibrium model, and social network analysis. Subsequently, from the perspective of value conservation and utilization, it proposes holistic conservation and development pathways for traditional villages. The research indicates that: (1) The multiple values of traditional villages in the study area exhibit three significant characteristics: Firstly, the level of multiple values shows hierarchical differentiation, with particularly notable inter-village disparities in historical/cultural value and economic production value. Secondly, there are significant structural differences in multiple values, demonstrating diversified value features. Thirdly, the strength of spatial correlations among village values varies significantly, showing characteristics of local cluster agglomeration. (2) Based on the multiple value characteristics of traditional villages in Jixi, conservation and development pathways are proposed: Firstly, based on the level of multiple values, traditional villages are classified into three protection levels—core protected villages, key protected villages, and general protected villages—implementing a hierarchical protection strategy. Secondly, according to their distinct value features, traditional villages are categorized into four types: comprehensive development, cultural experience, ecological livability, and characteristic industry, adopting targeted measures to foster differentiated and distinctive development pathways. Finally, based on the characteristics of value spatial correlations, traditional village clusters are identified to construct a networked spatial pattern, promoting the holistic conservation and coordinated development of traditional villages across the county. This study aims to provide practical guidance for the construction of Jixi as a "National Demonstration County for the Concentrated and Contiguous Conservation and Utilization of Traditional Villages", while offering a referential framework for holistic conservation and development research on traditional villages in other regions.
Traditional village is a unique type of living heritage, functioning as both precious historical and cultural heritage and practical human settlements for current residents. Residents constitute the core subject of traditional villages, and exploring their heritage responsibility behavior from the lens of their perceived value of human settlements is deemed a key prerequisite for balancing the dual attributes of traditional village-community and heritage-and facilitating their long-term sustainable development. Based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, this research establishes a multi-dimensional structural framework for the perceived value of human settlements among residents in traditional villages. Furthermore, grounded in the ABC attitude model, it formulates research hypotheses and develops a theoretical model following the influence pathway of "perceived value of human settlements-place attachmen-heritage responsibility behavior". To validate the theoretical model, this study selects 14 traditional villages located in southern Hunan as research cases, and employs structural equation modeling (SEM) to empirically examine the impact of perceived value of human settlements on heritage responsibility behavior, as well as the mediating role of place attachment in this pathway, based on the data collected from 306 valid questionnaires. The results show that: (1) The perceived value of human settlements of traditional village residents comprises five distinct dimensions: living value, safety value, social value, cultural value, and spiritual value. (2) Both safety value and place attachment exert a significant positive direct effect on heritage responsibility behavior. (3) Place attachment plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between safety value and heritage responsibility behavior, while exerting a full mediating effect between living value, social value and heritage responsibility behavior. (4) Cultural value and spiritual value do not demonstrate significant influences on either place attachment or heritage responsibility behavior. Drawing on these results, the study puts forward targeted suggestions: Firstly, give priority to ensuring and enhancing village's safety value. Secondly, strengthen the emotional connection between residents and traditional villages, stimulating their internal motivation to participate in heritage conservation. Lastly, after effectively meeting residents' basic needs, promote their perceptual response to growth-oriented needs, inspire their cultural awareness and cultural confidence, and further enhance their subjectivity in heritage protection and village development.
The conservation and utilization of underdeveloped traditional villages face significant challenges stemming from the absence of effective internal agency and insufficient external institutional support. This study adopts Taixiangsi village in Yanchuan county, Shaanxi province as a representative case to examine these issues through qualitative research methods. By introducing the "participation-feedback-response" analytical framework, this research systematically investigates the primary constraints hindering the revitalization of such development-challenged traditional settlements and explores sustainable governance approaches. (1) The preservation and utilization dilemmas manifest in three interconnected dimensions: difficulties in transforming resource values into sustainable development outcomes coupled with inadequate external support systems; insufficient benefits for community members leading to diminished participation motivation; and capacity limitations among key stakeholders constraining effective conservation actions. (2) The study identifies a potential pathway for breaking this cycle through the synergistic interaction of three mechanisms: comprehensive stakeholder mobilization to enhance villagers' engagement willingness, internal structural transformation that generates catalytic effects to attract external resources, and strategic external activation to improve the endogenous system's adaptability. This research demonstrates that achieving sustainable revitalization requires establishing a mutually reinforcing relationship between internal and external systems. The continuous interplay of these elements can create a virtuous cycle that addresses both the structural and motivational barriers to conservation. The study contributes to the field by providing a novel theoretical framework, a practical action logic, and valuable implementation insights for the regeneration of traditional villages, with important implications for policymakers and practitioners engaged in rural revitalization and cultural heritage preservation.
