Ethnic Villages Research Articles

A Study on Sustainable Design of Traditional Tujia Village Architecture in Southwest Hubei, China

The rapid urbanization in China in the past four decades has significantly affected traditional villages, resulting in a series of problems such as limited space, damaged style, weak sense of place, and loss of skills. This paper aims to establish a new paradigm for the sustainable development of village architecture in the Tujia ethnic area of southwestern Hubei province in order to address the issues of development and renovation of village architecture in this region. To achieve this goal, first, through field investigations and records of typical villages in the Tujia ethnic area of southwestern Hubei province, the characteristics of Tujia ethnic villages and the real challenges faced by village architecture are summarized. Secondly, the Delphi method is used to conduct expert interviews, construct a multi-level evaluation index system for sustainable development, and use the analytic hierarchy process to determine the weights of each index. Based on this, four design paradigms for sustainable development are proposed, including flexible layout, integrated interface composition, localized housing construction, and modular unit construction. These four paradigms cover the entire design stage from function to form, and from overall scene to structure. At the same time, multiple modular options are provided for each stage. Compared to the traditional experience-based construction model, the comprehensive benefits and promotability are greatly improved. Therefore, the research findings provide a reference for the sustainable development of traditional village architecture in other ethnic areas of China.

Refactoring and Rebirth of traditional residential buildings based on the reconstruction of Yi Minority Country

The protection and renewal of traditional residential buildings help to enhance the functionality and adaptability of the buildings, pass on the traditional architectural culture, promote the sustainable development of traditional buildings, and contribute to rural revitalization. This article proposes some practical strategies for the protection and renovation of traditional residential buildings, and elaborates in detail on the long-term development of the reconstruction and renovation of traditional Yi ethnic villages’ residential buildings in Damoyu Village, Kunming City and Dabudong Village, Luoping County. It can provide methodological references for the renovation and reuse of traditional residential buildings.

A Study on the “Songhe” Ritual and Cultural Connotation of Dai Ethnic Villages in Border Areas—Taking Mengku, Yunnan as an example

A Study on the “Songhe” Ritual and Cultural Connotation of Dai Ethnic Villages in Border Areas—Taking Mengku, Yunnan as an example

Exploring the spatial configuration of tourism resources through ecosystem services and ethnic minority villages

The rampant and unregulated development of natural landscapes has depleted vital environmental resources, degraded ecosystems, and diminished the allure of ecotourism. Identifying natural spaces suitable for tourism development using a holistic approach that evaluates surrounding ecosystem structure and function is therefore imperative to safeguarding ecological integrity and fostering sustainable economic progress. Leveraging the InVEST model and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE), we assessed the spatial distribution of natural landscape resources and the density of ethnic minority villages to identify potential areas suitable for ecotourism development within the fragile Karst Region of Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture (QMDA), southeastern Guizhou Province, China. Results showed that habitat quality in QMDA was relatively high, with high-quality habitat (Class V) covering 19,554.76 km2, accounting for 65% of the total study area. Optimal natural landscape resources gravitated predominantly towards Liping and Rongjiang, collectively occupying 16% and 12% of the total optimal natural landscape resources, respectively. A total of 3439.95 km2 of potential natural resource development space was identified, with a discernible spatial distribution where the western region of the study area surpassed the eastern counterpart, and the southern region exceeded the northern expanse. The potential development space of tourism resources spanned a cumulative area of 1245.84 km2, located predominately in Kaili, and Danzhai, accounting for 26% and 16% of the total potential development space of tourism resources, respectively. To ensure sustainable use of ecological and cultural assets in QMDA, it is recommended that zoning and regulatory measures that encompass both ecological and touristic domains be enacted. Our findings contribute to a scientific foundation for the pursuits of ecological preservation and the administration of tourism planning for QMDA.

Traditional Village Classification Model Based on Transformer Network

The study of traditional villages holds significant implications in cultural, historical, and societal contexts. Despite the considerable research focus on the architectural styles of Qiang, Tibetan, Han, and Hui ethnic villages due to their distinctiveness, rapidly and accurately identifying the types of traditional villages in practical surveys remains a challenge. To address this issue, this paper establishes an aerial image dataset for Qiang, Tibetan, Han, and Hui ethnic villages and introduces a specialized feature extraction network, Transformer-Village, designed for the classification and detection of traditional villages using deep learning algorithms. The overall structure of the network is lightweight, incorporating condconv dynamic convolution as the core layer structure; furthermore, a spatial self-attention-related feature extraction network is designed based on Transformer. In conclusion, through simulated experiments, Transformer-Village coupled with the YOLO detector achieves a 97.2% mAP on the test set, demonstrating superior detection accuracy compared to other baseline models. Overall, the experimental results suggest that this work is feasible and practical.

Cultural Resources of Costume, Market Operation, and Cultural Capitalization Role of Cultural Heritage

The conspicuous capitalization of costume culture within Chinese ethnic tourism villages is readily discernible. This paper aims to understand the impact of costume culture resources on costume culture capitalization, and to discusses the intermediary role of market operation and the moderate effect of cultural heritage. Using 402 survey valid data from the operators, managers, and practitioners of ethnic tourism villages three ethnic tourism villages (Nangang Millennium Yao Village, Zhaoxing Dong Village, Zhoucheng Bai Village) in China for empirical path analysis, mediation analysis and moderation analysis. The results indicates that clothing cultural resources positively impacts the capitalization of costume culture, and clothing cultural resources is the predictor of market operation, furthermore, the market operation plays a mediating role in the relationship between clothing cultural resources and clothing cultural capitalization. Significantly, cultural heritage positively moderates the impact of clothing cultural resources on the capitalization of costume culture. The research has expanded the internal mechanism of the influence of clothing cultural resources on the capitalization of costume culture, revealing the importance of cultural heritage in achieving the capitalization of costume culture in ethnic tourism villages.

The Role of Tourism in Promoting the Urbanization of Ethnic Border Areas: A Case Study of Xishuangbanna

Taking Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, a typical ethnic border area with rapid tourism development, as an example, this study uses a coupling coordination degree model to quantitatively analyze tourism and urbanization, two subsystems in Xishuangbanna, and measure the level of coordinated development between tourism and urbanization in Xishuangbanna. This study provides a theoretical basis for building famous tourist cities and for improving the urbanization efficiency and level in areas such as Xishuangbanna with abundant tourism resources but insufficient urbanization. The following results were obtained: (1) Xishuangbanna’s tourism plays a strong role in promoting urbanization, and its tourism urbanization response coefficient, tourism industry location entropy, and tourism urbanization level indicator all show clear upward trends; tourism has become a local advantage industry and has a significant positive correlation with urbanization. (2) In the evaluation system for tourism urbanization quality, the weights are ranked in the order of social indicators > economic indicators > population indicators > spatial indicators > eco-environmental indicators; over time, social indicators and economic indicators show clear fluctuating upward trends, population indicators fluctuate greatly, and spatial indicators and eco-environmental indicators fluctuate little. (3) The top five indicators influencing tourism urbanization are the number of the incoming individuals, the number of travel agencies, the number of corporate enterprises in the catering industry, the forest coverage rate, and the number of ethnic minority villages. (4) In the evaluation of the coupling coordination degree, the comprehensive evaluation indicator is low, resulting in an overall low coupling coordination degree of tourism urbanization quality in Xishuangbanna, and three types of coupling coordinated development (i.e., severe, moderate, and mild imbalances) are observed.

A Study of Cultural Acculturation in Architecture: Semarang Chinatown, Indonesia

The Semarang Chinatown is one of the Chinatowns that shows the strength of the cultural economy, diversity and multiculturalism. Economic and socio-cultural activities that form the background of spatial formations influence the development of the area both physically and non-physically, especially the exploitation of the area for recreation and tourism purposes. The result is a decrease in the physical condition of the area, both buildings and the environment. This is of course not in line with the local government's policy of establishing the Semarang Chinatown as a Historical District based on Mayor Decree No. 645/50/1992. The character of the Semarang Chinatown is the result of a cross-cultural mix of immigrants at the beginning of the formation of ethnic villages in Semarang and developed over time. The existence of cultural diversity and multiculturalism of the immigrants resulted in an architectural blend that colored the architectural formations.The focus of this research is to discuss an architectural formation in the Semarang Chinatown which has a correlation with the acculturation process. The aim of the research is to explore in depth an architectural formation of the Semarang Chinatown which is influenced by a process of acculturation of culture and reveal the background of the cultural system in the form of ideas, ideas, values, norms, regulations, and so on that influence the architectural formation of the Semarang Chinatown. This study uses a naturalistic qualitative research paradigm with a grounded theory approach and inductive qualitative methods. In this research data is grouped into four: interviews, observations, documents, audio-visual materials. The result is giving directions for Preservation of the Environment and Historic Buildings in Semarang Chinatown.

The Influence of Traditional Ethnic Villages on Forest Structure Based on PLS-SEM: A Case Study of Miao Inhabited Area

The activity characteristics of the village and its symbiotic relationship with the environment play an important role in the sustainable development of the surrounding environment. Miao villages have a long history. In the process of long-term interaction with the surrounding natural environment, Miao villages have formed a unique forest culture, which has an important impact on the distribution of the surrounding forests and plays a crucial role in local forest management. In this study, we took the Miao villages of China that are distributed in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of China as an example and constructed a research framework to study the interaction between the natural environment and human activities around the Miao villages and its impact on forest change based on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and geographically weighted regression modeling (GWR) methods. The validity and reliability evaluations showed that the PLS-SEM model was reasonable. The results showed that the Miao villages were randomly distributed within 0–2 km and clustered in the 8–10 km buffer zone. The temporal variation of the forest landscape around the Miao villages was small, and the spatial heterogeneity was obvious. Within the 0~2 km buffer zone, the proportion of closed-canopy forest was the largest, and with the increase in the buffer zone radius, the proportion of closed-canopy forest gradually decreased, the open-canopy forest gradually grew, and the proportion of shrubbery and other forests showed an upward trend first and then a downward trend. Temporally, the four forest landscapes did not change much, with closed and open forests sliding, and shrubbery and other forests increasing. Regarding the drivers of forest structure change, topographic factors and landscape patterns had a positive effect on forest structure, while human activities had a negative effect. The influence of topography on human activities in the Miao villages weakened the direct positive effect of topography on forests and promoted the positive effect of the landscape pattern on forests. There were significant spatial differences in the GWR regression coefficients of the effects of different factors on forest structure in 2020, with a pivotal negative correlation between NDVI and night-time light data. In addition, the higher the elevation, the more unfavorable the distribution of open-canopy forests and the better the distribution of closed-canopy forests. The higher the slope, the higher the NDVI but the more unfavorable the distribution of closed-canopy forests. In general, the impacts of Miao villages on forest structure are highly complex and interactive, with both direct and indirect effects. Different factors interact to affect the structure of the forest. The study on the effect of Miao villages on forests is helpful for more targeted forest protection and the formulation of laws and regulations, so as to find a balance between human activities and forest management, in order to maintain the ecological balance of local areas. This study introduced the PLS-SEM model to investigate the impacts of Miao villages on forest structure, which effectively enhanced our understanding of the drivers and impacts of forest change and provides theoretical support and a basis for forest protection and management.

Let’s listen: the voices of ethnic villagers in identifying host-tourist interaction issues in the Central Highlands, Vietnam

ABSTRACT Host-tourist interaction is a core attraction of ethnic tourism. Yet both parties may confront challenges in such interactions because of different cultural backgrounds. This study aims to investigate host-tourist interaction issues in Vietnam’s Central Highlands by adopting a qualitative approach wherein 31 semi-structured interviews were conducted with villagers. Results find that villagers interacted with domestic tourists mostly in private houses, tourist attractions and facilities, and on tours. In such settings, the content of interactions varied from low to high intensity. Derived from the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory [Pearce, W. B., & Cronen, V. E. (1980). Communication action and meaning. Praeger], verbal (language) and non-verbal behaviour and cultural patterns were the greatest interaction difficulties. While interaction difficulties occurred across different settings, higher intensity interactions resulted in more positive outcomes. This study enriches the existing knowledge on interaction between ethnic hosts and domestic tourists in the intra-national context. The interpretive theoretical and methodological utility of CMM provided insight into interaction difficulties, and opportunities to facilitate positive interactions in ethnic tourism development. Further implications for villagers, tourists, local policymakers, and tour operators were suggested to build long-term sustainability of the host-tourist relationship in the Central Highlands.

Issues and Challenges of The Minority Muslim Community in The Kadazandusun Ethnic Village Area in Sabah

Issues and Challenges of The Minority Muslim Community in The Kadazandusun Ethnic Village Area in Sabah

Spatial Morphological Characteristics of Ethnic Villages in the Dadu River Basin, a Sino-Tibetan Area of Sichuan, China

Analysis of spatial patterns and driving factors of different ethnic villages under regional integration is important for the conservation and development of ethnic villages. This article takes seven multi-ethnic villages in the Dadu River Basin of Ganzi Prefecture as an example; we employ a quantitative model of spatial syntax based on the theory of figure–ground relationship to link the tangible and intangible spaces. The results reveal the logical context and formation mechanism among the overall layout, residential architecture, and public space of the villages. The findings of this study are as follows: (1) The site of different ethnic villages reflects commonality. (2) The spatial configurations of the villages are significantly influenced by the surrounding natural environment, with significant differences. Cluster-concentrated villages exhibit the smallest expansion trend, rich spatial levels, and strong ethnic territoriality; strip-intensive villages have the largest scale and the strongest permeability; and radiation-dispersion villages have variable expansion directions and architectural relationships among residents. (3) Both of the participants’ selection behaviors and residential spaces constitute the internal structure for the ethnic culture, which is driven by the humanistic spirit and force of social order, making the spatial morphology a diversified and multi-layered characteristic. (4) The rural space has gradually changed from a single residential unit to a complex unit with multiple functions. The findings extend the scope of research to ethnic villages in watersheds and provide a theoretical and practical basis for the development of other similar rural villages.

Protection and Development of Ethnic Minority Characteristic Cultural Villages

In the process of protecting and developing ethnic minority characteristic cultural villages in Panzhihua, the overall trend of rural revitalization and development in Panzhihua is to make reasonable use of the unique resources of each ethnic minority village and build ethnic minority characteristic villages with rich cultural elements. For a long time, there have been problems in the protection and development of ethnic minority cultural villages in Panzhihua, such as insufficient local government awareness, single cultural village functions, serious loss of young labor force, and a lack of reasonable planning and scientific management. For this reason, this study will explore new ways to protect and develop ethnic minority cultural villages with distinctive characteristics in Panzhihua. This approach has significant practical significance for the inheritance of ethnic minority culture, ecological environment protection, rural revitalization, and sustainable economic development in Panzhihua.

Spatial Distribution of Ethnic Villages in the Mountainous Region of Northwest Yunnan and Their Relationship with Natural Factors

The mountainous region of northwest Yunnan is a multi-ethnic region in China where several ethnic groups, such as the Tibetans, Lisu, and Naxi, reside. This study utilises the average nearest neighbour index, kernel density analysis, and GeoDetector (Geographical Detector) to analyse the spatial distribution characteristics of different types of ethnic villages, their correlation with the natural environment, and differences in the influence of various natural environmental factors. The results show the following: (1) the spatial distribution of the three types of ethnic villages in the mountainous region of northwest Yunnan are clustered. (2) Tibetan villages are characterised by high elevation, gentle slopes, proximity to the river, low annual average temperature, and low annual precipitation. Lisu villages are characterised by medium elevation, steep slopes, high annual average temperature, and high annual precipitation. Multi-ethnic villages are characterised by low elevation, medium slopes, proximity to rivers, high annual average temperature, and high annual precipitation. (3) Ethnic villages are affected by various natural factors such as elevation, slope, river buffer zone, annual average temperature, annual precipitation, and ecological environment. Among these, ecological environment has the greatest impact on Tibetan villages, and annual precipitation has the greatest impact on Lisu and multi-ethnic villages. (4) The distribution of the Tibetan villages is mostly constrained by the composite factors of ecosystem and precipitation, while that of the Lisu villages by the composite factors of precipitation and elevation, and that of the multi-ethnic villages by the composite factors of precipitation and temperature.

Ethnic tourism and Folksongs: A case study among the Blang (Bulang) of Yunnan, China

Abstract In 2008 “Blang Nationality’s Singing and Instrument Playing” (Bulangzu tanchang) was listed as China’s intangible cultural heritage protection. The creation of ethnic parks, cultural villages, and ecomuseums in Southwest China raises some questions about the ethnic minorities’ traditional cultural/musical heritage and its sustainable development: What is the impact of ethnic tourism development on local minorities and what is the role played by government cultural policy in the preservation and dissemination of Blang musical heritage? How is this ethnic group’s identity represented in staged performances for tourists and in mass media? And what is the agency of Blang culture bearers officially appointed ‘cultural heritage inheritors’ in constructing, defining, and representing their own ethnic/musical identity? This article deals with a research project conducted mainly among the Blang of Manxi village in Xishuangbanna (Sipsongpanna), Yunnan Province, Southwest China, in the Spring of 2017. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the current interplay of ethnic tourism, government policy, mass media and culture bearers among an ethnic group considered a “minority among the minorities” in China and the effects of this interplay on the sustainability of traditional musical heritage.

Environmental and ecological preservation-oriented tourism development of the intangible cultural heritage of Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou ethnic minorities

The intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou is born and grows essentially basing local environmental protection. Doubling efforts in protecting the ecological environment is the key to enabling the live transmission of such non-material cultural heritage. To better preserve the environment in places inhabited by ethnic minorities, this paper probed into and verified the live transmission tourism development of the intangible cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou, in virtue of the evaluation system built applying the dimensionless method. The results suggested that tourism development has improved the ecological environment of ethnic minority villages. Digitally, the utilization rate of clean energy and resource exceeded 85% and 76.8%, while the vegetarian coverage and afforestation area reached 45% and 137.4 hectares respectively. That made level 5 the impact of the intangible cultural heritage tourism development of ethnic minorities on the corresponding ecological environment, enabling joint development.

The Existing Problems and Suggestions for the Ethnic Village Tourism: A Case Study of Dong Village in Zhaoxing

Along with the improvement of economic income and education level of Chinese residents, cultural tourism is developing vigorously. In the face of the double-edged sword of tourism, how to find a balance between tourism development and cultural protection and inheritance, and not be harmed by this sword, is an important topic of academic research. At present, minority rural tourism has gradually become the entry point of rural revitalization in minority areas. With the development of economy, ethnic villages in different stages of tourism development have different status quo in the inheritance and protection of ethnic culture. Taking the opportunity of rural revitalization, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province pays attention to protecting and inheriting local intangible cultural heritage in the process of developing rural tourism, integrates local intangible cultural heritage, local conditions and customs into cultural tourism, and drives the development of tourism through cultural elements. Whether the development of tourism in ethnic villages is conducive to the protection and inheritance of ethnic culture, this paper proposes a path of integrated development of the two, in order to improve the existing problems and provide a reference for the development of village tourism in Dong villages in the future.

Ecological Security Pattern Construction in Rural Settlements Based on Importance and Vulnerability of Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of the Southeast Region of Chongqing, China

With the development of urbanization, a large number of village settlements have disappeared. As important carriers of ethnic and cultural heritage, village settlements are important for the continuation of folk culture and farming spirit. Building a regional ecological security pattern helps to protect the integrity of village settlements and promote the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. In this work, the importance of ecosystem services was first obtained by using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs model (In-VEST) and the revised universal soil loss equation model (RUSLE) to evaluate the regional ecosystem services in the southeastern region of Chongqing (SRC). Then, the ecological importance evaluation results were combined with the sensory evaluation results to derive ecological conservation importance areas and identify ecological source points in their high-value areas. Finally, the ecological corridors were obtained by the minimum cumulative resistance model (MCR). The regional ecological security pattern was constructed, i.e., the triangular protection area strategy of “one screen, one belt, and three cores”. The results show the following: the total area of ecological source sites larger than 20 km2 in SRC is 436.02 km2, accounting for 2.28% of the area of SRC. The largest ecological patch is 69.93 km2, accounting for 16.04% of the total area of ecological source sites. Thirteen ecological source sites were identified as follows: four in Youyang County, three in Shizhu County, three in Wulong County, and one in Pengshui County. There are 78 ecological corridors with a total length of 4832.82 km, including 32 important ecological corridors with a length of about 1544.53 km and 46 potential ecological corridors with a length of about 3288.29 km. Based on the minimum cumulative model constructed by eight resistance factors, the spatial variation of the ecological resistance surface was analyzed, showing a trend of being high in the west and central part and low in the surrounding area. There are one high-value area of the resistance surface of Wulong County Nature Reserve and one high-value area of ecological sensitivity that overlap to the extreme, and which should be given sufficient protection attention. The core protected areas consist of three mountains including the Qiyao Mountain Range, the Wuling Mountain Range, and the Wulong County Nature Reserve. The ecological security pattern in SRC based on the mode of “source–ecological corridor–ecological node” can identify important ecological function areas, providing scientific guidance for sustainable development and ecological security protection in the ethnic village settlements in China.

Visualization system of Hlai ethnic village landscape design based on machine learning

Visualization system of Hlai ethnic village landscape design based on machine learning

Analysis of the impact of traditional ethnic villages in Hani area on sustainable development.

Rapid economic development and accelerated urbanization have seriously affected the development of traditional ethnic villages in China. We used the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model based on land use, landscape pattern, and ecosystem service value (ESV) to evaluate the spatio-temporal dynamics of sustainable development in Hani traditional ethnic villages from 1995 to 2020. By analyzing changes in sustainability indicators in the Hani area and different buffer zones, this paper aims to assess the impact of ethnic villages in the Hani Area on sustainable development and provide recommendations for the sustainable development of traditional ethnic Hani villages. The results indicated that: (1) The area of construction land and landscape fragmentation in the Hani area significantly increased and the value of ecosystem services and levels of sustainable development decreased each year during the study period; (2) The area of cropland in the 2 km buffer zone of the traditional ethnic villages increased, the degree of landscape fragmentation, the value of ecosystem services, and the level of sustainable development were lower than in the 4 km buffer zone during the study period. This is due to population increases in traditional ethnic Hani villages, as well as the intensive reclamation of cropland, increased construction land, and landscape fragmentation. We suggest that the Hani should implement scientific land planning and management policies to protect the local ecosystem and realize the sustainable development of traditional ethnic Hani villages.