Reframing Place Identity for Traditional Village Conservation: A Theoretical Model with Evidence from Dali Dong Village

Rapid socio-spatial change in China’s traditional villages threatens living heritage and weakens locally grounded identity. This paper theorizes place identity as a dynamic, embodied and performative ecology and examines it in Dali Dong Village across four dimensions, emotional attachment, symbolic meaning, continuity and behavioural commitment, using a triangulated qualitative design that integrates interviews, spatial observation and visual ethnography. Findings show that identity is enacted around ritual architectures and everyday settings, particularly the Drum Tower, Flower Bridge, and Sa altar. Emotional attachment and symbolic meaning are expressed consistently across sources, whereas continuity and behavioural commitment are uneven, shaped by ritual fatigue (compressed rehearsal windows), symbolic commodification under tourism, and selective continuity in intergenerational transmission. These mechanisms identify where the identity fabric is most fragile and where intervention leverage lies. Conceptually, the study relocates place identity from cognition-centred, urban models to ritualized rural lifeworlds. Practically, it offers a portable framework for community-anchored stewardship that can be adapted to similar settlements and aligned with policy aims for safeguarding living heritage.