Keywords

1 Introduction

In recent years, an increasing number of traditional Chinese villages have adopted a coexistence model of heritage conservation and tourism development, gradually evolving into popular tourist destinations. However, behind this tourism boom, it is essential to recognize that traditional villages, despite assuming the roles of tourist attractions and heritage sites, fundamentally remain crucial communities for local residents’ residence, production, and daily life, and the agency of indigenous inhabitants should be emphasized. Prior to the influx of tourists, the landscapes of traditional villages were often overlooked by villagers due to their everyday familiarity. Nevertheless, with the arrival of mass tourists, villagers have begun to retrospect and reevaluate the once-overlooked village landscapes, giving rise to new spatial perceptions. How to start from the perspective of the villagers’ main body to evaluate the current use of the village environment and improve the quality of the village habitat is an issue worth studying at this stage. Given this context, this paper selects Hongkeng Village in southwestern Fujian, China, as the research subject. Established approximately 500 years ago and home to numerous well-preserved Tulou buildings, the village was inscribed as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2008 [1]. It has since adopted a development model that simultaneously emphasizes heritage conservation and tourism development, serving as a quintessential example of tourism-oriented villages in China. This study combines survey questionnaires and cognitive mapping to explore local residents’ perceptions and preferences of the village space.

2 Theoretical Foundation

2.1 The Theory of Local Gaze

In 2006, Israeli scholar Darya Maoz introduced the concept of the “local gaze”, building upon the theory of the “tourist gaze” proposed by British sociologist John Urry [2], which shifted the focus from tourists to local residents [3] 2. It can be understood as follows: in the process of tourism development, local inhabitants typically consider the natural and cultural landscapes of their region as ordinary facets of daily life. However, with the continuous influx of tourists who identify with these local landscapes, local residents often begin to reevaluate their own environment [4]. Under the tourist gaze, local hosts present their culture, including their own identities, as commodities showcased to tourists, leading to a certain degree of “Staged Authenticity” in the social living spaces of the local hosts. The “front stage” of a tourist destination refers to the space for local exhibitions and performances to promote local economic development, while “the back stage” refers to the cultural reserve, i.e. the space for indigenous culture [5, 6]. On this basis, Yang proposed a transitional “curtain zone” as a cultural buffer between the front stage and the back stage [7]. Today, the “gaze theory” has gradually evolved into a prominent analytical tool that finds widespread application in various research domains [8,9,10].

2.2 The Theory of Environmental Perception

Environmental perception refers to individuals’ recognition and understanding of their surroundings, encompassing their inner representations or cognitions of structures, entities, and spatial relationships within an environment [11]. As people enter a traditional village, they will establish subjective judgments and evaluations about the environment and spatial features of the village through cognitive information and decide their own behavior in the space. The primary research methods for studying environmental perception include the semantic differential method and cognitive mapping, with the latter first applied by American urban planning expert Kevin Lynch [12, 13]. Research on environmental perception covers a diverse range of subjects, from macro-level urban conglomerates to micro-level individual village spaces [14]. Research subjects have primarily focused on tourists [15], while studies on the spatial perception of local residents have often revolved around spatial transformations and identity identification [16, 17]. In conclusion, there remains a need to further explore research related to the environmental perception of traditional village residents, taking the perspective of the local gaze, and placing villagers as the primary subjects of investigation.

3 Selection of the Case Study Site

Situated in the southwestern part of Fujian Province, China, Hongkeng Village boasts a substantial number of Tulou buildings, characterized by their historical significance and well-preserved state. In 2008, this village was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Subsequently, it adopted a development model that combines heritage conservation with tourism development. As a result, the tourism industry in the village has experienced rapid growth, leading to its recognition as a 5A-level national tourist attraction in China in 2011 [1]. However, this development has also brought about challenges, including the transformation of living space into consumption space and the difficulty in maintaining the original authenticity of the village, and the villagers’ feelings towards the village have also undergone subtle changes. Therefore, using this village as a research case on the environmental perception problem of traditional villages is highly representative.

Fig. 1.
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(Source: photos by the authors)

Site Plan and Key Nodal Spaces of Hongkeng Village

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Hongkeng Village stretches along a river, featuring a narrow and elongated layout. The villagers used to take the Lin Family Temple as the center point, dividing the village into two parts, the upper village and the lower village (Fig. 1). The most famous one in the village is the cluster of Tulou buildings represented by Zhencheng Tulou, known as the “Prince of the Tulou buildings”. To cater to tourism development, the ground floor of Zhencheng Tulou has been converted from residential space into retail shops. Additionally, daily performances are conducted outside, rendering it a “Cultural stage space” in the eyes of the villagers. Furthermore, Fuyu Tulou has been transformed into a hotel and restaurant, while Kuiju Building still maintains its residential function. The entrance to the village is marked by the Mazu Temple, and the village center hosts the Lin Family Temple, both serving as essential places of worship and repositories of collective memory for the villagers. The most frequented location for social interactions among village residents is the banyan tree square, situated near the central dividing point of the village and adjacent to the waterfront. This square serves as a gathering place for villagers to socialize and seek respite. Lastly, the century-old “Rixin School (Hongchuan Primary School)” within the village bears witness to the enduring influence of cultural and educational ideals in the village’s history.

4 Research Design

4.1 Questionnaire and Cognitive Mapping Design

Based on the local gaze theory, this study classifies the spaces in Hongkeng Village into “front stage”, “back stage”, “curtain space” and daily life space. In order to better describe the local villagers’ perception of different spaces, the survey design draws on the research method of Place Attachment theory from three dimensions: cultural cognition, emotional preference, and behavioral activities [18]. Since the cultural cognition dimension shows the degree of individual cognitive understanding of the place, the emotional preference dimension shows the degree of individual emotional connection or integration to the place, and the behavioral activity dimension shows the degree of familiarity and dependence to the place.

Table 1. Statistics on basic information of villagers
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The research employed a combination of survey questionnaires and cognitive mapping. The survey questionnaire covered respondents’ basic information and inquired about their perceptions of the village environment in terms of cultural cognition (which spaces within the village are most representative) and emotional preferences (which spaces within the village they like the most). The dimension of behavioral activities was assessed through cognitive mapping. Villagers were provided with proportionally scaled printed village maps and were asked to mark the paths of their daily activities and the locations where they frequently engage in these activities.

4.2 Data Collection and Processing

Table 2. Objects of high-frequency perception in village space.
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The field research work was carried out from September 14th to 18th, 2022. Respondents within Hongkeng Village were randomly selected, and questionnaires were distributed. A total of 82 valid questionnaires were recovered. The statistics of the basic information of the respondents’ data are shown in Table 1. The survey questionnaire results were processed by organizing the data and ranking them based on word frequency. This process led to the identification of perceived frequencies for different locations. Locations perceived to have frequencies equal to or greater than 4 were defined as high-frequency perception targets. In this context, 12 places were identified as such for both cultural cognition and emotional preference, as shown in Table 2. Regarding the behavioral activity aspect, information was processed by plotting activity trajectories and marking stopping points based on the activity paths of different groups within the village. A total of 28 valid cognitive maps were collected.

5 Analysis of Villagers’ Environmental Perception

5.1 Analysis of Perceptions in the Cultural Cognitive Dimension

Tulou cluster is regarded as the most representative and well-known space by local villagers. Among them, Zhencheng Tulou is perceived most frequently, with a cumulative total of 40 times, and the building is also most favored by tourists due to better landscape maintenance, good publicity, and regular folklore performance activities. Additionally, historical buildings like Fuyu Tulou, designated as cultural heritage preservation units, are considered representative spaces by the villagers. The Banyan Tree Square was perceived 24 times in total due to its good location with the compound functions of sitting and chatting, as well as leisure, vending and praying for blessings. The Hongchuan River, closely related to villagers’ daily lives, is also deemed representative. Temples such as the Mazu Temple and the Lin Family Temple, which carry the collective memories of the villagers, have received high levels of recognition.

Fig. 2.
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(Source: produced by the authors)

Distribution of high-frequency perceived places in cultural cognitive dimension

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Based on frequency statistics, the Hongkeng Village map was imported into ArcGIS software, and the heat map analysis tool was used to create spatial distribution maps of perception levels for different locations (Fig. 2). According to the distribution map, the high-frequency perceived places in Hongkeng Village have obvious agglomeration and form two major grouping areas: the grouping space in series with Zhencheng Tulou and the Banyan Tree Square and the grouping space in series with Rusheng Tulou and Kuiju Tulou. The former has a high degree of functional complexity, including both the “front stage” for tourists’ cultural and entertainment performances, sales and displays, as well as the daily life space for residents’ living and leisure; while the latter mainly provides the “front stage” for cultural displays and consumption.

5.2 Analysis of Perceptions in the Emotional Preference Dimension

In terms of emotional preferences, villagers exhibit a greater fondness for daily living spaces that facilitate neighborly interactions and leisure activities. The Banyan Tree Square garnered the highest cumulative perception frequency, with 36 mentions. The Hongchuan River was mentioned 16 times. In addition, tree-lined corridors and Observation Decks with a wide view are the places favored by villagers. The concept of “home”, as an individual’s personal domain, was mentioned a total of 19 times, evoking sentiments of warmth, familiarity, and attachment among the villagers. As cultural exhibition spaces, the cluster of Tulou buildings hosts regular entertainment performances and light shows. Apart from serving as “Cultural stage space” showcased to tourists, they have also enriched the lives of the villagers to some extent. Spaces like the Lin Family Temple and the Mazu Temple bear certain symbolic significance, supporting the local and identity affiliations of the residents.

Fig. 3.
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(Source: produced by the authors)

Distribution of high-frequency perceived places in emotional preference dimension

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Using the heat map analysis tool of ArcGIS once again, it is evident that preferred locations are predominantly distributed in the southern part of Hongkeng Village (the lower village), forming a patchy pattern with a degree of clustering (Fig. 3). Outdoor activity areas, such as those interlinked by shaded banyan trees and Zhencheng Tulou due to their convenient locations, are associated with the diverse scattered daily activities of the villagers, carrying the function for leisure and interaction of the villagers. Groupings of spaces like Chaoyang Tulou and Lin Family Temple constitute a combination of linear passages and point-like nodes, attracting the gathering of neighboring villagers. While Fuyu Tulou and Kuiju Tulou have distinctive architectural features, and Hongchuan Primary School has a long history, the three are representative of the village’s external display space.

5.3 Analysis of Perceptions in the Behavior Activity Dimension

Based on villagers’ recollections of their daily behavioral paths and stopping points, a total of 28 valid path information records were obtained, comprising 15 female respondents and 13 male respondents. Among these, 12 individuals reside in the upper village of Hongkeng, while 16 reside in the lower village. On a broader scale, the segment of the route from the village entrance arch to Chaoyang Tulou, situated on the eastern side of Hongchuan River, witnessed the highest pedestrian flow. The segment adjacent to Hongchuan Primary School on the south side of the river bridge, known as Xibei Bridge, experienced the second-highest pedestrian flow. Simultaneously, this route serves as the main thoroughfare within the village. The area around the Banyan Tree Square witnessed the highest number of people stopping, with a predominance of females. The fields near Yue’e Bridge, which serve as agricultural spaces, and the banks of Hongchuan River utilized for leisurely fishing activities, also frequently attracted villagers’ stopovers (Fig. 4 & Fig. 5).

Fig. 4.
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Overall activity paths and stop locations of villagers

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Fig. 5.
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(Source: photos by the authors)

On-site photos

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Regarding activity ranges, residents from both the upper and lower villages tended to center their activities around their homes. Despite residing in the same village, an intangible boundary seemed to exist, demarcated by the route from the Lin Family Temple to Yue’e Bridge and Xibei Bridge, which divided villagers’ activity paths (Fig. 6 & Fig. 7). Upper village residents primarily focused their activities around the earthen buildings in the upper village and the vicinity of Yue’e Bridge, with a noticeable difference in the activity range between females and males. Lower village residents similarly seldom ventured to the upper village, with their primary activity path being the main thoroughfare on the eastern side of the Hongchuan River. However, the activity range of lower village female residents was comparable to that of male residents, with both genders inclined to take walks toward the village entrance arch. Additionally, upper village residents had fewer stopping points, often resting in the vicinity of their homes.

In contrast, lower village residents had a greater number of stopping points, which to some extent reflects the inadequacy of public facilities in the upper village.

Fig. 6.
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(Source: produced by the authors)

Tracks and stops of upper village residents

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Fig. 7.
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(Source: produced by the authors)

Tracks and stops of lower village residents

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6 Conclusion

For traditional villages, tourism development provides economic support for heritage conservation but also triggers the neglect of heritage originality as well as villagers’ subjectivity. This paper, using Hongkeng Village as an example, explores the environmental perceptions of villagers in a tourism-oriented village under the influence of the “local gaze” and discusses these perceptions across three dimensions: cultural cognition, emotional preferences, and behavioral activities. The research reveals that villagers generally exhibit high levels of cultural cognition in the theme display space, or named “Cultural stage space” within the village, but their emotional preferences for these spaces are low. Conversely, they show a strong preference for the everyday living spaces within the village. In terms of behavioral activities, villagers’ activity area generally extends outward from the center of their home. And, the activity area of female villagers is smaller than that of males, and the space of neighborhood interaction is of great significance.

The unique Tulou buildings in Hongkeng Village is an advantage, yet the current tourism development has neglected the historical lineage and the spirit of place, and is more of a symbolic interception and utilisation of the local culture [19]. Originally serving as living spaces for local residents and a bond for connecting with relatives and friends, the Tulou clusters have seen the concept of “home” gradually fade as they transform into commercial spaces. “Front stage” and “back stage”, terms of cultural context, have led to physical spatial segregation in tourist destinations: the imbalanced tourism development between Hongkeng Village's upper and lower parts has resulted in disparities in the distribution of daily living facilities, leading to a split in the development of village spaces.

Based on the findings, this study suggests that tourism-oriented villages should pay close attention to the spatial perception of villagers. It recommends establishing a village environment that harmoniously integrates tourism development, cultural preservation, and the daily life of residents. This can be achieved by focusing on perpetuating the collective cultural memory of the inhabitants, enriching public life facilities, and enhancing interactions between villagers and tourists.