Recognition of Values of Traditional Villages in Southwest China for Sustainable Development: A Case Study of Liufang Village

Abstract

With the implementation of China’s Rural Revitalization Strategy, more and more traditional villages have been developed. However, due to the lack of value awareness, many rural planning policies are unreasonable, and therefore, characteristics disappear. In the past, the value identification of traditional villages mostly stayed in the general value description, which was not enough to highlight the unique overall value of the village. From the perspective of the cultural landscape, taking Liufang village in Liping County of Guizhou Province as an example, this paper interprets the value of cultural landscape from the concept of “long-term interaction between human and nature,” and then carry out three value themes of “settlement landscape of Dong people in the low and middle mountain valley area,” “agricultural landscape and activities of Dong people under traditional rice farming,” and “spiritual landscape of Dong People’s beliefs, systems and customs”. Moreover, by interviewing local residents, this paper summarizes two aspects of Liufang village value consensus—traditional culture and landscape construction, as well as tourism development opportunities and challenges—and analyzes the relationship between them. The new attempt to identify traditional village’s value in this paper lies in the combination of object value and subject perception, which is more conducive to the scientific formulation of traditional village protection and tourism sustainable development strategy.