Resettlement and the Reconfiguration of the Good Life: Home-Hometown Attachment among Ethnic Villages in Northwestern Yunnan, China

Resettlement and the Reconfiguration of the Good Life: Home-Hometown Attachment among Ethnic Villages in Northwestern Yunnan, China | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Resettlement and the Reconfiguration of the Good Life: Home-Hometown Attachment among Ethnic Villages in Northwestern Yunnan, China Baibin Yang, Guo Taihui This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8939395/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract State-led resettlement has relocated millions, yet theories of resettlement inadequately grasp how it transforms the good life. Existing state-society frameworks reduce well-being to policy outputs or individual strategies, obscuring the relational fabric that renders rural existence meaningful. This article theorizes home-hometown attachment, a multidimensional bond tethering households to their socio-territorial world. Through a comparative analysis of four types of resettlement cases (geological disaster, ecological conservation, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure displacemen) in ethnic regions of northwestern Yunnan, we show that resettlement differentially disrupts attachment across socio-spatial, political-economic, symbolic-religious, and temporal-developmental dimensions. The findings indicate that, whether in the early, middle, or late stages of resettlement, or across different types of resettlement, peasants’ pursuit of the good life is consistently adjusted around the axis of Home–Hometown. The article advances resettlement studies by theorizing how spatial reconfiguration reshapes existence, and contributes to the sociology of well-being by grounding the good life in the relational worlds resettlement illuminates. Resettlement Good life Home-hometown attachment Ethnic minorities China Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 1. Introduction Throughout history, the meaning and practical pathways of the good life have been in a constant state of evolution (King and Napa, 1998; Chekola, 2007). Within this dynamic landscape, state-led resettlement has emerged as a significant force compelling populations to reconstruct their visions of the good life. Since the 1970s, China has gradually developed a relatively mature resettlement model (Yang et al., 2020; Tang et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2019). Macro-level data and official documents indicate that resettlement has indeed improved basic conditions such as housing, education, and healthcare for relocated populations (Lo et al., 2016; Rogers et al., 2020). Between 2016 and 2020 alone, approximately 9.6 million registered poor households were relocated through the national poverty alleviation resettlement program, a population equivalent to that of a medium-sized country, supported by over one trillion RMB in public investment and resulting in 35,000 new resettlement sites and 2.66 million housing units (Garred and Yuan, 2025; Cheng, 2023). In Yunnan Province, a southwestern frontier characterized by mountainous terrain, ethnic diversity, and developmental marginality, nearly 700,000 individuals have been affected by resettlement since 2016, fundamentally transforming rural spatial organization (Yunnan Provincial DRC, 2025). However, a growing body of ethnographic research reveals a more ambivalent picture. While some resettled households experience the anticipated upward mobility, others confront livelihood precarity, the dissolution of long-standing social networks, the erosion of cultural practices, and a profound, often inarticulable sense of dislocation (Mao et al., 2021; Feng et al., 2022). This disparity between policy narratives and lived experience raises a fundamental question that extends beyond program evaluation: how do resettled peasants themselves imagine, experience, and re-evaluate the good life in the wake of state-imposed resettlement? The complexity of this question lies not merely in the implementation challenges of resettlement policy but in its revelation of the structural tensions between the state and peasants amidst rapid urbanization and profound social transformation. Existing scholarship on resettlement and the pursuit of the good life has largely operated within two parallel paradigms (Briggs and Briggs, 2020; Sanford, 2017; Thompson, 2001). The first is a statist paradigm centered on national public interests, emphasizing the state’s dominant role in resource allocation and order construction (Gilbert and Howe, 1991). This body of work examines resettlement primarily as a governance instrument, analyzing how states design and implement relocation programs to achieve developmental objectives, manage risks, and optimize spatial distribution of populations. The second is an individualist paradigm centered on peasants’ personal interests, focusing on their agency in responding to policy interventions through mechanisms of moral economy, rational choice, or everyday forms of resistance (Das, 2007). This literature illuminates how displaced populations negotiate, accommodate, or contest state-imposed arrangements in pursuit of their own visions of well-being. While both paradigms offer valuable insights, each takes as its analytical starting point one pole of the state-individual dyad. The statist paradigm begins from the state’s perspective, examining how governance logics shape resettlement outcomes. The individualist paradigm begins from the peasant’s perspective, analyzing how individuals and households strategize within constraints imposed by state action. What remains undertheorized is the intermediate realm where state and society actually intersect: the nexus of home and hometown through which peasants experience, interpret, and respond to resettlement. Neither paradigm adequately captures how the good life is pursued through the relational and moral infrastructures that bind households to their socio-territorial worlds, infrastructures that resettlement simultaneously disrupts and renders visible. This article neither begins from the state nor from the individual. It begins from the spatial and relational ground on which peasants actually live: the household embedded in its hometown. In China’s ethnic borderlands, home and hometown are not merely locations but constitute the very fabric within which personhood, sociality, and cosmological orientation are woven (Guo et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2020). The concept of home-hometown attachment therefore offers a third analytical pathway that complements and extends existing approaches by illuminating what statist and individualist paradigms necessarily obscure: the multidimensional bonds through which the pursuit of the good life is anchored in place, relationship, and moral order. 2. Literature Review and Analytical Framework 2.1 Resettlement and the Good Life: Three Generations of Scholarship The study of resettlement has evolved through three overlapping generations of scholarship, each with distinctive theoretical commitments, methodological preferences, and blind spots. Understanding this intellectual history is essential for situating the contribution of the home-hometown attachment framework. The first generation, emerging from late nineteenth-century migration studies, approached resettlement through the lens of push-pull dynamics and individual decision-making. Ravenstein’s (1889) “laws of migration” established the foundational premise that migration results from the interaction of factors pushing individuals out of origin areas and pulling them toward destinations. Lee’s (1966) intervening obstacles model refined this framework by specifying the barriers (distance, cost, information asymmetries) that mediate between migration intentions and outcomes (Oliver-Smith and de Sherbinin, 2014). In resettlement research, this tradition generated important knowledge about the demographic characteristics of migrant populations, the economic determinants of relocation decisions, and the patterns of spatial redistribution produced by large-scale programs. Yet its methodological individualism and economistic assumptions rendered it ill-equipped to capture the cultural, relational, and existential dimensions of the resettlement experience. Migration was conceptualized as a choice among alternatives, not as a fundamental transformation of the conditions under which choice itself becomes meaningful. The second generation, influenced by the cultural turn in social theory and the expansion of state-led development interventions in the postcolonial world, shifted attention from individual decision-making to the institutional and cultural dimensions of resettlement. The World Bank’s operational directives on involuntary resettlement, developed in the 1980s and subsequently revised, codified a set of principles—compensation, livelihood restoration, community participation, that have shaped resettlement policy globally (Cernea, 1997; Wachter et al., 2022). Ethnographic studies of dam-induced resettlement, conservation migration, and urban renewal documented the often-devastating social and cultural impacts of state-led relocation, giving rise to concepts such as “impoverishment risks” and “social capital loss” (Oliver-Smith and de Sherbinin, 2014). This generation significantly expanded the analytical lens beyond economic outcomes to encompass social networks, cultural practices, and political dynamics. Yet it remained largely within a state-society framework that framed resettlement as a contest between state power and community resistance. The good life, when it appeared in such analyses, was conceptualized either as a set of goods and services the state should provide, or as a set of values and practices communities sought to defend. The third generation, emerging over the past two decades, has been shaped by the spatial turn in social theory and the growing influence of relational approaches in the social sciences. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s production of space, Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, and Doreen Massey’s relational geography, scholars have reframed resettlement as a process of spatial reconfiguration that transforms not only where people live but how they inhabit the world (Wilmsen, 2019; Rogers et al., 2020). This perspective attends to the ways in which resettlement projects impose abstract, planned spatial orders on pre-existing lived spaces, generating conflicts that are not merely about resource distribution but about the very organization of social life. It has generated rich analyses of how resettlement reshapes domestic architecture, community boundaries, ritual landscapes, and everyday spatial practices. Yet even this sophisticated spatial literature exhibits limitations that the home-hometown attachment framework seeks to address. First, it emphasizes the production of space at the expense of analyzing how space is inhabited, experienced, and made meaningful. The focus on state planning and spatial abstraction has not been matched by equally developed accounts of what Soja (2008:63–75) terms Thirdspace: the lived space of everyday experience, symbolism, and memory through which places become meaningful. Second, the spatial turn has proceeded independently of developments in the philosophy and sociology of well-being. The question of how spatial reconfiguration affects the conditions under which people can lead flourishing lives has been addressed primarily through material outcomes and social capital, not through engagement with relational theories of the good life that attend to meaning, moral order, and existential orientation. 2.2 Relational Conceptions of the Good Life Parallel to developments in resettlement studies, scholarship on the good life has undergone its own transformations. Early approaches rooted in utilitarian philosophy and welfare economics conceptualized well-being as preference satisfaction or utility maximization, lending itself to measurement through income, consumption, and subjective life satisfaction (King and Napa, 1998). Critics have argued that preference-satisfaction accounts conflate what people want with what is genuinely good for them, and that subjective measures are vulnerable to adaptation: the tendency of individuals in deprived circumstances to lower their aspirations and report satisfaction with objectively poor conditions (Sen, 2014; Nussbaum, 2011). The capabilities approach, developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (1993: 9–30), offered an influential alternative by shifting attention from what people have or feel to what they are able to do and be. Well-being, on this view, consists in the capabilities to achieve valuable functionings. This framework has been widely adopted in development studies and has generated important insights into the multidimensional nature of poverty and the limitations of income-based measures. Yet it has also been criticized for its residual individualism and its difficulty in accounting for the social and cultural conditions under which capabilities are defined and valued. A third generation of scholarship, drawing on philosophical traditions from Aristotle to contemporary virtue ethics and on sociological traditions from Durkheim to Bourdieu, has articulated a relational and practice-based conception of the good life (Wolf, 1997; Bernstein et al., 2018; Scott et al., 2018). On this view, well-being is not a state of the individua (whether subjective or objective), but an ongoing accomplishment achieved through participation in meaningful social practices, maintenance of valued relationships, and coherence with morally significant orders. The good life is lived, not possessed; it is constituted through activity, not given in outcomes (Hong and Sun, 2020; Van der Ploeg et al., 2014). This relational conception is particularly well-suited to understanding the good life in contexts of resettlement. When people are uprooted from familiar social and spatial environments, what is disrupted is not merely access to goods and services but the very frameworks within which the pursuit of a good life has been conducted. resettlement severs the connections between daily activity and the places, relationships, and practices that have given it meaning. The post-resettlement challenge, therefore, is not simply to acquire new goods but to reconstruct the relational and moral infrastructures within which a meaningful life can again be pursued. This is a fundamentally different problematic from that addressed by compensation-based approaches to resettlement. 2.3 Home-Hometown Attachment as Relational-Spatial Framework The concept of home-hometown attachment synthesizes the spatial insights of contemporary resettlement studies with the relational conception of well-being, grounding both in the cultural context of rural China while attending to the distinctive features of minority religious regions. Grounded in this understanding, this article seeks to return to the Chinese cultural tradition of the “familial-national community”, to identify the connecting mechanisms between state vision and individual pursuit, and to locate the intersection of top-down state initiatives and bottom-up peasant agency. The framework rests on four premises. (see Fig. 1 ). First, the household (jia) constitutes the primary unit of social, economic, and moral reproduction in Chinese rural society. This is not merely a descriptive claim about household composition but a theoretical claim about the locus of personhood and social identity (Rappa and Tan, 2003). As Fei Xiaotong (2017) demonstrated in his classic analysis, the Chinese rural self is not an autonomous individual but a person-in-relation, whose identity is constituted through participation in household-based practices of production, consumption, ritual, and care. The household is the site where the material and moral dimensions of existence intersect, it is simultaneously an economic unit, a ritual community, a space of intimacy, and a node in broader kinship and territorial networks. Second, the household is embedded in a spatial and social extension (the hometown /xiangtu) that provides the broader geography within which household life acquires meaning. The hometown encompasses the familiar landscapes of fields, forests, and water sources; the built environment of houses, paths, and ritual sites; the social geography of kin, neighbors, and co-villagers; and the symbolic geography of ancestors, deities, and sacred places. It is the space within which the practices that constitute household life are conducted and rendered meaningful. To be displaced from one’s hometown is not merely to change residence but to be severed from the spatial framework of a meaningful life. In the minority religious regions of northwestern Yunnan, home and hometown assume distinctive characteristics that diverge from mainstream Han Chinese understandings. In Han Chinese contexts, the hometown is primarily a site of ancestral lineage and cultural tradition, grounded in Confucian ethics of filial piety and patrilineal continuity. Ancestral graves, lineage halls, and the spatial markers of clan identity constitute the sacred geography of the hometown. While this is certainly a meaningful landscape, its sacrality derives primarily from human relationships extended through time. In Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi communities of northwestern Yunnan, however, the hometown is not only a human landscape but a cosmologically charged geography inhabited by deities, spirits, and non-human persons with whom humans must maintain proper relationships. Third, the attachment between home and hometown is not a unitary sentiment but a multidimensional bond comprising four analytically distinct but empirically interwoven dimensions. These dimensions are not merely categories imposed by the researcher but correspond to dimensions of experience that rural residents themselves recognize as constitutive of a well-lived life. The socio-spatial dimension concerns the articulation between domestic and communal space. Domestic space is not sealed off from community life but opens onto it; community space is not external to household life but continuous with it. This spatial organization supports a form of sociality in which household and community are mutually constituting rather than opposed. The political-economic dimension concerns the spatial configuration of livelihood practices. Spatial integration sustains a form of livelihood autonomy in which households exercise significant control over the conditions of their material existence. Resettlement disrupts this integration by separating households from their productive land, forcing them into unfamiliar livelihood configurations, and subjecting them to new forms of dependency on markets and state institutions. The symbolic-religious dimension concerns the inscription of sacred order onto the lived environment. Sacred geography is woven into the fabric of everyday life through practices that embed the sacred in domestic and communal space. To be displaced from this landscape is to be severed not only from familiar places but from the cosmological order that gives life meaning. The temporal-developmental dimension concerns the negotiation of past, present, and future in spatial form. To inhabit this landscape is to be situated in a temporal continuity that extends backward into the past and forward into the future. At the same time, the hometown is a site of aspiration and development. The good life, from this perspective, is neither a return to an idealized past nor a leap into an abstract modernity but a selective integration that honors continuity while embracing change. Fourth, resettlement operates as a contingent event that disrupts each dimension of attachment through mechanisms specific to the type and logic of resettlement. Different resettlement types embody different state logics and produce different patterns of disruption. Geological disaster resettlement, driven by risk mitigation, may prioritize speed over cultural sensitivity, generating particular pressures on symbolic-religious attachment. Ecological conservation migration, framed in terms of environmental protection, may restrict access to traditional resource-use areas, disrupting political-economic attachment. Poverty alleviation resettlement, oriented toward integration into modern urban systems, may systematically dismantle the socio-spatial and symbolic-religious infrastructures of village life. Infrastructure-induced resettlement, governed by compensation logics derived from property law, may fail to recognize attachments that cannot be priced. The analytical task, therefore, is to trace how specific resettlement logics engage with the four dimensions of attachment, how these engagements are experienced and negotiated by affected populations during the planning and implementation phases, and what patterns of adaptation emerge as households seek to reconstitute meaningful lived space in the post-resettlement period. This framework guides the comparative analysis that follows. 3. Research Design, Setting, and Methods 3.1 The Field Site D County (see Fig. 2 ), located in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of northwestern Yunnan Province, provides an exceptionally strategic context for investigating the dynamics of home-hometown attachment under conditions of state-led resettlement. The county occupies the southern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, encompassing 8,364 square kilometers of precipitous terrain carved by the parallel gorges of the Nujiang (Salween), Lancang (Mekong), and Jinsha (Yangtze) rivers. Elevations range from below 2,000 meters in the river valleys to over 6,000 meters at the summit of Kawagebo, the region’s dominant sacred peak (PHRO-DCCPC, 2024: 60). The county’s population, approximately 68,000 as of 2024, reflects the region’s complex ethnic history (People’s Government of Deqin County, 2024). Tibetans constitute the majority, concentrated in the higher-elevation areas and organized around Tibetan Buddhist institutions and practices. Lisu populations occupy intermediate elevations, maintaining distinctive linguistic and ritual traditions while also participating in broader regional networks. Naxi, Hui, Bai, and Han communities are present in smaller numbers, often in valley-bottom settlements or market towns. Religious affiliations crosscut ethnic categories: Tibetan Buddhism predominates, but Catholicism has been present since nineteenth-century missionary activity, Islam is practiced by Hui communities, and indigenous ritual traditions persist in various forms. This ethnic and religious diversity, combined with the spatial isolation produced by topography, has generated a mosaic of local cultures in which the articulation between household and community takes distinctive forms while sharing common structural features. Since the early 2000s, D County has experienced multiple waves of resettlement driven by distinct policy imperatives. Geological hazard resettlement responds to the high incidence of landslides, debris flows, and other disasters in the county’s unstable terrain (People’s Government of Deqin County, 2025). Ecological conservation resettlement implements the national program to protect the upper watersheds of major Asian rivers by relocating populations from designated conservation areas (PHRO-DCCPC, 2024:78). Poverty alleviation resettlement, accelerated during the 2016–2020 national poverty elimination campaign, has moved households from remote, resource-poor locations to sites with better access to infrastructure and services. Infrastructure-induced resettlement, most recently associated with the Longpan hydropower project, involves relocation to accommodate reservoir flooding and related construction. This history of multiple, overlapping resettlement programs creates unusual research opportunities. Different villages and even different households within the same village have experienced different resettlement types at different times, enabling comparative analysis that controls for regional and cultural background while varying the nature of the resettlement intervention. Moreover, the temporal distribution of resettlement projects (some completed, some ongoing, some in planning stages), allows analysis of the process across its full trajectory, from pre-resettlement anticipation through post-resettlement adaptation. 3.2 Case Selection Strategy From the universe of resettlement-affected villages in D County, we selected cases according to a purposive sampling strategy designed to maximize analytical leverage for comparative analysis (shown in Table 1 ). Selection criteria included: (1) representation of each of the four major resettlement types; (2) variation in the spatial configuration of resettlement (distance moved, degree of concentration vs. dispersal, urban vs. rural destination); (3) variation in the timing of resettlement (completed vs. ongoing, recent vs. longer-term); and (4) accessibility for sustained fieldwork. Table 1 Selected Resettlement Cases by Type Resettlement Type Village Cases Administrative Location Status Key Characteristics Geological Disaster DH Village S Town, D County Ongoing (2025–2026) High-altitude hazard zone; 945 households; multi-ethnic population; planned relocation to Yezhi Town Ecological Conservation GW Village (to YR Village) Y Township to Shangri-La City Completed (2018) Long-distance relocation (280 km); conversion of public rental housing; urban destination Ecological Conservation MD Village (to DR Village) Y Township to B Township Completed (2012, 2017) Short-distance relocation (across township boundary); maintained cultural continuity Poverty Alleviation YL Village Y Township Completed (2018) On-site upgrading with partial relocation Poverty Alleviation JZ Village T Township Completed (2018) Relocation to roadside site within same township Infrastructure LS, LY, JZ, XR Villages T and X Townships Ongoing (planning phase) Longpan hydropower project; approximately 110,000 affected persons 3.3 Data Collection Methods Data collection was conducted between February 2025 and January 2026 through an integrated strategy combining three complementary methods. Participant observation. The first author completed a three-month embedded internship (February-May 2025) in the D County Resettlement Administration, with supplementary placements in the Township S and Township Y government offices. This placement enabled continuous observation of policy implementation processes, including planning meetings, community consultations, household negotiations, and inter-agency coordination sessions. Field notes were recorded daily, focusing on how resettlement policies were interpreted, adapted, and contested at different administrative levels, and on the interactions between officials and affected households. A total of 47 observed events were systematically documented. In-depth interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 87 individuals selected through purposive and snowball sampling to capture variation across resettlement types, social positions, and stages of the resettlement process. The sample included: resettled household members (n = 52), stratified by resettlement type, stage (pre/during/post), age cohort, gender, and primary livelihood; grassroots cadres and community workers (n = 22), including village heads, Party secretaries, and social workers involved in resettlement implementation; and county- and township-level officials (n = 13), from departments including planning, natural resources, ethnic affairs, and poverty alleviation. Interviews averaged 75 minutes in duration (range: 45–120 minutes), were conducted in Mandarin or with local interpreters in Tibetan or Lisu, were audio-recorded with informed consent, and were transcribed verbatim and translated where necessary. The interview guide covered: pre-resettlement life and attachment to place; perceptions of the resettlement process and interactions with officials; experiences of disruption and adaptation in livelihood, social relations, and cultural practice; and evaluations of well-being and the good life post-resettlement. Archival and documentary collection. We collected and analyzed: policy documents, planning blueprints, and government work reports (n = 41); local archives including village chronicles, meeting minutes, and mediation records (n = 28); and visual materials including photographs, videos, and maps documenting village landscapes, housing, and ritual activities before and after resettlement (n = 235 items). These materials served to reconstruct the spatial and social transformations associated with resettlement and to triangulate interview accounts. 3.4 Data Analysis Procedures Analysis proceeded through an iterative process combining inductive and deductive strategies. All interview transcripts and field notes were imported into NVivo 14 for coding and analysis. Coding followed a three-stage procedure.First, open coding identified recurrent themes related to place attachment, experiences of disruption, adaptation strategies, and evaluations of well-being. This phase generated an initial set of empirically grounded categories that captured how respondents themselves articulated their experiences.Second, axial coding organized these empirically grounded categories in relation to the theoretical dimensions of the analytical framework. Codes were grouped under the four dimensions of home-hometown attachment (socio-spatial, political-economic, symbolic-religious, temporal-developmental), with additional categories for resettlement processes, state-peasant interactions, and temporal phases (pre-resettlement, planning/transition, post-resettlement).Third, selective coding traced the configurations and reconfigurations of attachment across cases and phases. For each resettlement type, we constructed a case narrative that mapped the baseline attachment configuration, traced the disruptions introduced during planning and implementation, and documented the adaptation pathways that emerged post-resettlement. Cross-case comparison focused on identifying patterns in how different resettlement logics engaged with the four dimensions and how these engagements shaped divergent experiences of the good life. To enhance reliability, a second researcher independently coded a 20% subsample of transcripts, achieving 86% inter-coder agreement. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion and refinement of coding categories. All interview excerpts cited in the text are identified by a unique code indicating resettlement type (GD for geological disaster, EC for ecological conservation, PA for poverty alleviation, IC for infrastructure construction), respondent number, and interview date. The research received ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board of Yunnan University (approval number: IRB-2025-012) on 15 January 2025. All respondents provided informed consent after receiving detailed information about research purposes, data handling procedures, and their rights to withdraw or restrict use of their data. The consent process was conducted in Mandarin, Tibetan, or Lisu languages according to participants’ preferences to ensure full comprehension. Participants were assured of confidentiality through the use of pseudonyms for all individual and village names, except where explicit permission was granted for identification. All data are stored securely on password-protected university servers accessible only to the research team. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of Yunnan University Institutional Review Board and adhered to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki for research involving human participants. 4. Home-Hometown Unity: The Pre-Resettlement Configuration of Attachment Understanding how resettlement transforms the pursuit of the good life requires first establishing the baseline configuration of home-hometown attachment—the spatial, social, and moral order within which the good life was pursued before resettlement. In the multi-ethnic villages of northwestern Yunnan, this baseline is characterized by what we term “home-hometown unity”: a mode of spatial identity in which the household and its encompassing socio-territorial milieu are experienced as integrated rather than opposed, continuous rather than separate. This unity is not a state of static harmony but a dynamic equilibrium sustained through practices that weave together the four dimensions of attachment. 4.1 Socio-Spatial Integration: The Articulation of Domestic and Communal Space The villages of D County exhibit settlement patterns that embed households within communities through carefully articulated spatial sequences. Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi villages, typically located on mid-elevation slopes, are organized in clusters or rows in which individual houses are connected by networks of paths, shared courtyards, and communal spaces. The traditional Tibetan house is a multi-story structure organized vertically, the ground floor houses livestock, the first floor contains the main living spaces organized around a central hearth, and the upper floor serves as a shrine room and storage area for grain and fodder. This vertical organization integrates production (livestock), reproduction (daily life), and sacred practice (worship) within a single architectural volume. Crucially, the house opens onto communal space through a graduated sequence. The private courtyard, enclosed by the house and auxiliary structures, connects to semi-public verandas where household members gather for work and conversation. Paths leading from the courtyard to the village lane are spaces of encounter where neighbors meet and exchange news. The village lane itself connects to communal spaces (threshing grounds, water sources, village squares) where larger gatherings occur. This spatial grammar enables a form of sociality in which household autonomy and community integration are mutually supporting rather than opposed. As one Tibetan elder from DH Village explained: “For our generation, the house and the land cannot be separated. The cattle and sheep in front of the door, the hearth in the courtyard, the sacred mountains for pilgrimage, and the prayer paths of the monastery—these are all part of life. People and land, home and hometown, are like beads on the same string; once broken apart, life feels scattered.” (GD-03, Tibetan male, 68, pre-resettlement) The socio-spatial dimension of attachment, then, consists not merely in the physical arrangement of houses and paths but in the ways this arrangement enables particular forms of relationship and experience. It is the condition of possibility for a form of the good life in which household flourishing and community well-being are experienced as intertwined rather than competing. 4.2 Political-Economic Integration: The Spatial Organization of Livelihood The livelihood systems of D County’s villages are characterized by spatial arrangements that integrate production and reproduction, household and land, labor and its fruits. In the Tibetan villages, the agropastoral economy combines highland barley cultivation at intermediate elevations with livestock herding in alpine pastures. The spatial organization of this economy follows seasonal rhythms: households maintain permanent settlements at mid-elevation, from which they cultivate surrounding fields and make seasonal journeys to high pastures for summer grazing. The Lisu economy, concentrated at lower elevations, emphasizes swidden cultivation of corn and buckwheat, supplemented by collection of forest products and hunting. Here the spatial organization is more diffuse, fields are scattered across the landscape, shifting as soil fertility declines, and the relationship between settlement and productive space is less fixed than in Tibetan villages. Yet the principle of integration remains: productive activities are embedded in the same landscape as daily life, and the knowledge required for successful cultivation is knowledge of local places. This spatial integration sustains a form of livelihood autonomy that is itself a component of the good life. Households exercise significant control over the conditions of their material existence, they produce much of their own food, build their own houses using local materials, and maintain the skills and knowledge required for these activities. When they participate in markets, it is from a position of relative security rather than desperate necessity. As a Lisu farmer from MD Village recalled: “Back then, we could harvest barley at the doorstep and feed livestock right next to the house. The land on the mountain and the hearth inside the house were all parts growing from the same root of life.” (EC-04, Lisu male, 52, post-resettlement to DR Village) The political-economic dimension of attachment, therefore, is not merely about material provisioning but about the relationship between spatial organization and autonomy. The good life, from this perspective, includes the capacity to exercise meaningful control over the conditions of one’s existence, a capacity that is grounded in spatial arrangements that embed livelihood within the familiar landscape. 4.3 Symbolic-Religious Integration: The Sacred Geography of Everyday Life Multi-ethnic villages in northwest Yunnan embed sacred beliefs into secular settings through spatial symbols. Tibetan Buddhist monasteries are often built on elevated sites, where temples and pilgrimage paths intersect with villagers’ daily walking routes, so that pilgrimage trails overlap with commuting paths. In Lisu villages, prayer flag poles stand at village entrances or near water sources, functioning both as boundary markers and blessings. In Naxi households, the central hearth serves not only as a cooking place but also as the ritual site for ancestor worship, where the daily act of adding firewood carries both practical and sacred meaning. Uniquely, portraits of national leaders are often displayed alongside Tibetan Buddhist lamas or Christian icons in both private homes and communal gongfang (public houses). Individual spiritual practices and collective rituals thus resonate within spatial sequences, sustaining a worldview of “humans and deities co-inhabiting.” As a Christian villager put it: “We celebrate both Christmas and Spring Festival; we hang the Chairman’s portrait and also the image of Jesus. Beliefs differ, but we respect each other—divinity exists right within everyday life.” (PA-07, female, 49, pre-resettlement) This symbolic-religious integration constitutes a third dimension of home-hometown attachment. The good life, from this perspective, includes dwelling in a landscape that is meaningfully ordered, in which one’s place in the cosmos is visibly and tangibly marked, and in which relationships with the powers that govern existence can be properly maintained. resettlement from this landscape threatens not merely material loss but cosmological dislocation. 4.4 Temporal-Developmental Integration: Memory, Aspiration, and Continuity The fourth dimension of attachment concerns the temporal organization of lived space, the ways in which the landscape carries traces of the past and opens possibilities for the future. In D County’s villages, the hometown is a palimpsest inscribed with the marks of previous generations. Ancestral graves dot the hillsides; the sites of former villages are remembered and visited; the paths and terraces built by grandparents and great-grandparents continue to structure daily movement. To inhabit this landscape is to be situated in a continuity that extends backward in time, connecting the present household to its predecessors. At the same time, the hometown is a site of aspiration and development. Households invest in improving their houses, adding rooms, installing modern amenities. Communities seek access to roads, electricity, schools, and clinics. Young people imagine futures that may diverge from their parents’ lives, education leading to urban employment, migration to cities for work, marriage into distant places. The good life, from this perspective, is neither a return to an idealized past nor a leap into an abstract modernity but a selective integration that honors continuity while embracing change. This temporal-developmental dimension is particularly salient in how villagers articulate their hopes for resettlement. A young Lisu man from JZ Village expressed it this way: “Our old home was cold and far from everything. But during festivals, everyone danced together in the courtyard, and you could feel that this was where we belonged. If we move, I want the new place to have electricity and roads. I’m not stupid, I know these things are good. But I also want a courtyard where we can dance. Otherwise, even New Year will feel empty.” (PA-12, Lisu male, 24, pre-resettlement) This statement captures the temporal-developmental aspiration precisely: the desire for change that does not sever continuity, for improvement that does not erase the conditions of meaningful life. 4.5 The Unity of Attachment as Baseline In the pre-resettlement configuration, these four dimensions are not separate domains but mutually reinforcing aspects of a single lived reality. This baseline is not an unchanging tradition but a dynamic equilibrium continuously adjusted in response to changing circumstances. Villagers have long experience with change, with shifts in markets and state policies, with the arrival of new technologies and ideas, with the departure of young people for education and employment. Yet these changes have occurred within a spatial framework that remained fundamentally intact. Resettlement, by contrast, threatens to dissolve that framework itself, severing the connections between household and landscape that have organized life across generations. The question that animates the remainder of this analysis is how villagers navigate this more radical transformation—how they imagine, negotiate, and reconstruct the attachments that give life meaning when the spatial grounds of those attachments are themselves displaced. 5. Home Without Hometown: The Planning Phase as Site of Expectation and Anxiety The planning phase of resettlement constitutes a distinct temporal and experiential moment in which the future is rendered present through anticipation, negotiation, and imagination. Before any physical relocation occurs, resettlement already begins to reshape the good life by transforming its temporal structure. The taken-for-granted continuity of past, present, and future is disrupted by the imposition of a planned horizon, a point after which life will be organized differently. In this phase, villagers confront the question that haunts the entire resettlement process: can there be a home without a hometown? 5.1 The Planning Process as Institutional and Experiential Terrain The planning of resettlement in D County follows procedures established by national and provincial regulations, adapted to local conditions. For geological disaster resettlement in DH Village, the process began in 2018 with hazard assessments by the China Geological Environment Monitoring Institute, followed by feasibility studies and site selection (Deqin County People’s Government, 2024). In 2024, following the jurisdictional transfer of Yezhi Town into D County, the county government established an Emergency Command Office and initiated household surveys to collect data on family composition, economic resources, and settlement preferences (People’s Government of Deqin County, 2025). Three rounds of community mobilization meetings were conducted, and individualized household files were created documenting each family’s situation and expressed preferences. For villagers, however, the planning phase is experienced not as a technical exercise but as a period of profound uncertainty and intense speculation. Official information is filtered through layers of interpretation and rumor; unofficial channels (networks of kin and neighbors, contacts with relatives in previously resettled areas) become primary sources of intelligence about what resettlement might actually entail. The future becomes a subject of collective deliberation and individual anxiety. The intensity of this experience varies with the stage of the planning process. In DH Village, where resettlement was still in preparatory stages at the time of fieldwork, the dominant mood was anticipatory anxiety mixed with strategic calculation. In the Longpan hydropower resettlement, where planning had progressed further but implementation had not yet begun, villagers were engaged in more concrete forms of negotiation and positioning. In both cases, the planning phase revealed the differentiated ways in which different social groups imagine the good life and evaluate the prospects for its realization post-resettlement. 5.2 Differentiated Imaginations: Four Social Positions expectations based on occupational identities, economic conditions, and lived experiences. These can be distilled into four typical types. (1) Livelihood-dependent groups, mainly ordinary villagers, whose decisions hinge on neighborhood reference networks, often displaying a “follow-the-majority” mindset. Their imagination of the future is organized around the question: will there be land? A Tibetan farmer from DH Village expressed this orientation: “We don’t have many ideas of our own. We mainly look at what our neighbors do. If they move, we’ll move as well. Besides, we are used to farming, so we hope to still have some land after resettlement.” (GD-08, Tibetan male, 56, planning phase) (2) Interest-negotiating groups, primarily small business owners, who emphasize economic rationality and self-interest. As one guesthouse owner explained: “The government gave us two options: cash or housing. If we take cash, it’s ’70,000 from the state + 70,000 from the county + additional compensation based on measurement,’ but this money is barely enough to cover anything. Furniture and renovations are not included, only house area. It’s far from enough for new housing. The housing scheme itself is still unclear, so we feel insecure.” (GD-11, Han male, 44, planning phase) Yet some business owners reconcile personal livelihood with national imperatives, expressing strong identification with the state. A restaurant owner remarked: “After retiring from the army, I opened this restaurant. Every time customers come, I toast them and say, ’We must support the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government.’” (GD-09, Tibetan male, 61, planning phase) (3) Structure-compliant groups, primarily public-sector employees, who show institutional loyalty yet face economic loss and psychological dissonance in resource exchanges and spatial resettlement. Their compliance stems less from voluntary choice than from bureaucratic pressure, revealing “silent resistance” under administrative constraints. A grassroots cadre from DH Village described this tension: “My husband and I both work in the system. We bought our apartment in 2018 for 830,000 yuan—that was our savings, our investment in the future. Now the compensation is 510,000 yuan. They say it’s ’apartment-for-apartment,’ but the price per square meter is half what we paid. We lose everything—the money, the furniture, the years of work. But we can’t complain publicly. We have to set an example, to mobilize our relatives. Inside, though, we feel betrayed.” (GD-14, female, 38, planning phase) (4) Faith-based groups, largely religious believers, for whom sacred spaces and spiritual practices are central to the meaning of hometown. Beyond material compensation, faith becomes a decisive factor hindering willingness to relocate. An elderly Tibetan woman from DH Village articulated this orientation: “We live in the jade dish of Kawagebo, the sacred mountain. This land holds treasures that protect us, that bring blessings. Our ancestors are here; the deities are here. If we leave, who will make offerings? Who will maintain the relationship? The sacred mountain will still be here, but we will be far away, unable to see it, unable to feel its protection. How can we live like that?” (GD-03, Tibetan female, 72, planning phase) Overall, such differentiation results not only from mismatches between institutional arrangements and local demands, but also from the tension between local socio-cultural logics and national planning objectives. When imagining new forms of Home-Hometown, resettled peasants often articulate individualized and divergent expectations. Since planning cannot simultaneously satisfy all needs, doubts and anxieties emerge, intensifying fears of “losing hometown” and “cutting roots.” 5.3 The Collective Production of Uncertainty These differentiated orientations interact to produce a collective experience of uncertainty that characterizes the planning phase. As households share information, compare interpretations, and observe each other’s responses, a shared understanding of the situation emerges that may diverge significantly from official representations. Rumors circulate about compensation levels, about the quality of new housing, about the experiences of previously resettled populations. Official information is scrutinized for hidden meanings; ambiguous statements become objects of collective interpretation. This collective production of uncertainty has its own temporal dynamics. Early in the planning phase, uncertainty may be experienced as openness, a space of possibility in which favorable outcomes can still be imagined. As deadlines approach and decisions become imminent, uncertainty transforms into anxiety—a sense of being caught between unsatisfactory options, of facing a future that cannot be controlled. Some households respond by seeking to delay decisions, postponing the moment of commitment in the hope that circumstances will clarify. As one villager in the Longpan resettlement area explained: “If I sign now, the roots are cut. Once the agreement is signed, there’s no going back. So I wait. I watch what others do, see how the negotiations go. Maybe if enough people wait, the terms will improve. Or maybe I’ll wait until the last moment and then decide. Right now, I don’t feel secure, so I won’t sign.” (IC-05, Tibetan male, 50, planning phase) This strategy of “deliberate suspension” is not irrational obstruction but a rational response to a situation in which the consequences of decisions cannot be reliably predicted. It reflects the fundamental challenge of the planning phase, the requirement to make decisions about a future that cannot be known, to commit to a path whose destination is obscure. 5.4 The Central Anxiety: Home Without Hometown Across the differentiated orientations and strategic responses, a common anxiety emerges: the fear of ending up with a home but no hometown. Respondents across all categories articulate this fear in various ways. The physical structure of the new home (its size, its amenities, its compensation value) is less salient than the question of what will surround it. Will there be neighbors who share one’s language and customs? Will there be places to worship, to gather, to remember? Will the landscape itself be meaningful? This anxiety reflects the fundamental premise of the home-hometown attachment framework, that the good life requires not only a dwelling place but a world within which dwelling is meaningful. The planning phase, by forcing households to imagine a future detached from the spatial and social grounds of their present existence, reveals the depth of this requirement. Even as they engage in practical negotiations about compensation and housing, villagers are grappling with a more fundamental question: can the attachments that have organized life across generations be reconstituted in new places, or will resettlement produce a world in which home exists but hometown is lost? The answer to this question, as the following section demonstrates, depends critically on the spatial and social logic of the resettlement itself. Different resettlement types produce different possibilities for the reconstruction of attachment, generating divergent trajectories toward or away from a reconstituted good life. 6. Separation and Reconstruction: Post-Resettlement Pathways The post-resettlement period is the crucible in which the promises and perils of resettlement are tested against lived experience. As households settle into new environments, the anticipations and anxieties of the planning phase confront the practical realities of daily life in unfamiliar settings. This section traces two contrasting pathways that emerge from the comparative analysis: “proximate reconstruction”, in which spatial proximity enables continuity of attachment and gradual adaptation, and “radical rupture”, in which long-distance resettlement and urban resettlement necessitate more fundamental and difficult processes of reconstruction. 6.1 Leaving the Land Without Leaving the Hometown: Proximate Reconstruction The case of MD Village’s multiple resettlements illustrates a pathway in which resettlement, while disruptive, does not entirely sever the connections between home and hometown. MD Village, located in Y Township, is a Lisu community that has experienced two major resettlements over the past decade. The first, completed in 2012, relocated approximately 450 villagers from elevations above 3,000 meters to DR Village in B Township as part of an ecological conservation program. Although DR Village lies in a different administrative township, its location near the Yunnan-Sichuan border places it within the same broader cultural region, approximately 40 kilometers from the original village site. The second resettlement, completed in 2018 as part of the national poverty alleviation campaign, relocated the SR and GY hamlets of MD Village to a roadside site within Y Township itself, approximately 15 kilometers from their original location (PHRO-DCCPC, 2024:58-90). Both resettlements exemplify what we term “proximate reconstruction”, resettlement that maintains sufficient spatial proximity to enable continued relationship with the original hometown while establishing new settlement sites with improved infrastructure and services. (1) Socio-spatial continuity. In both DR Village and the MM resettlement site, the spatial organization of the new settlements was designed to accommodate the social patterns of the originating communities. Houses are arranged in clusters that preserve neighborhood groupings from the original villages; paths and lanes connect households in patterns that facilitate continued interaction. The new settlements include communal spaces (village squares, covered gathering areas) that support the collective activities central to village sociality. While the architecture is standardized and materials differ from traditional construction, the spatial grammar of village life is partially preserved. A middle-aged woman from the SR hamlet described the experience: “When we first moved, I worried that everything would be different. But we came here with the same people we lived with before. My sister is three houses down; my cousin is across the lane. In the mornings, we walk to the fields together, just like before. The houses are different—they’re made of brick now, not wood—but the people are the same.” (EC-09, Lisu female, 45, post-resettlement to MM site) (2) Political-economic adaptation. The economic transformation accompanying resettlement is more significant. In the original villages, livelihoods combined subsistence agriculture with limited market engagement. In the new settlements, proximity to roads and markets enables more intensive commercialization, and households have diversified into new activities. The SR hamlet, according to village records, now cultivates 496 mu of land (approximately 33 hectares) producing corn, wheat, and highland barley, generating total annual income of 5.5 million yuan and per capita net income of 27,105 yuan. The GY hamlet, with access to 4,000 mu of forest resources, has developed specialized forestry products generating 2.27 million yuan annually with per capita income of 38,530 yuan.This economic transformation has reshaped household division of labor in ways that reflect the temporal-developmental dimension of attachment. As the SR village head explained: “The old people go back to the mountain to work the land. They spent their whole lives there; the land is in their bones. Working it makes them feel secure, even if it’s hard. The middle-aged ones—they have to think about the children, about the new house payments. They take whatever work they can find, construction or driving or laboring. The young people, they study for the civil service exams. They see that as the way to a better life.” (EC-17, male, 48, post-resettlement) This generational division reveals the temporal complexity of the good life in resettlement: for the elderly, continuity with the past is paramount; for the middle-aged, present economic pressures dominate; for the young, the future beckons with possibilities that diverge from parental experience. (3) Symbolic-religious accommodation. The proximate location of the new settlements enables continued access to the sacred geography of the original villages. Households return for major festivals and life-cycle rituals; the original village’s ritual sites—its temples, sacred groves, and offering places—remain accessible for pilgrimage and ceremony. At the same time, the new settlements have been equipped with basic religious infrastructure: small stupas, prayer flag poles, and in some cases, community prayer rooms. This dual access—to the original sacred landscape and to new ritual spaces—enables a form of religious life that maintains continuity while adapting to new circumstances.A Lisu elder described the accommodation: “In the old village, we had our places—the grove where we make offerings to the forest spirits, the stone where we remember the ancestors, the path where we walk at New Year. Some of those places are still there, still accessible. We go back when we need to. But here, we also have places. The stupa by the village entrance—we circumambulate it in the mornings. The prayer flags on the hill—they carry our prayers to the sky. So we have both: the old places that connect us to our past, and new places that connect us to each other.” (EC-21, Lisu male, 72, post-resettlement to DR Village) (4) The achieved good life. For most households in the MD Village resettlements, the outcome is a form of the good life that, while different from the pre-resettlement baseline, is experienced as satisfactory and in some respects improved. The core elements of attachment—socio-spatial integration, livelihood autonomy, religious meaning, temporal continuity—have been partially preserved while adaptation to new conditions has occurred. The key enabling condition is spatial proximity: the ability to maintain relationship with the original hometown while establishing a new home. This is not to say that the transition has been without difficulty. Households report struggles with new agricultural techniques, with the costs of modern housing, with the complexities of market engagement. Some elderly villagers express nostalgia for the old ways and difficulty adjusting to new routines. Yet these difficulties occur within a framework of continuity that provides resources for coping. As one respondent summarized: “We left the land, but we didn’t leave the hometown. The old place is still there—we can go back when we need to, for festivals or funerals or just to remember. And the new place is becoming home. The children are growing up here; they’ll know this as their village. Maybe for them, this will be the hometown.” (EC-14, Lisu male, 52, post-resettlement to DR Village) 6.2 Leaving One’s Native Place: Radical Rupture and the Challenge of Reconstruction The case of GW Village’s resettlement to YR Village in Shangri-La City presents a starkly contrasting pathway. GW Village, located in the high mountains of Y Township approximately 280 kilometers from the prefectural capital, was characterized by extreme poverty, poor transportation access, harsh climate, and limited livelihood options. In 2018, the D County government implemented an innovative resettlement solution: the conversion of 606 existing public rental units in the Kangzhu Jiayuan residential compound in Shangri-La City into resettlement housing for GW Village households.This resettlement exemplifies what we term “radical rupture”: long-distance resettlement into an urban environment that fundamentally transforms every dimension of home-hometown attachment (PPHRO-DCCPC, 2024:101). (1) Socio-spatial dissolution. The Kangzhu Jiayuan compound consists of multi-story apartment buildings organized on a grid pattern characteristic of Chinese urban residential development. Each household received an apartment of approximately 25 square meters per capita, with modern amenities but minimal space. The apartment layout—separate rooms, shared corridors, elevators, locked doors—embodies a spatial logic fundamentally different from that of the traditional village. Private space is sealed off from public space; neighbors are encountered in corridors rather than courtyards; the graduated sequence from domestic to communal space is absent. This spatial reorganization dissolves the socio-spatial integration that characterized village life. Households from different original hamlets were assigned to apartments in the same buildings, mixing populations that previously maintained separate community identities. The intimate knowledge of neighbors—their families, histories, characters—that structured village sociality cannot be reproduced in the anonymous environment of urban apartment living. An elderly woman described the experience: “In the old village, you knew everyone. You knew whose children were whose, whose parents were whose, who could be trusted and who needed watching. Here, I live on the fifth floor. The people on the fourth floor—I don’t know them. The people across the hall—I see them in the elevator, we nod, but I don’t know their names. When I close my door, I’m alone. In the village, you were never alone.” (EC-22, Tibetan female, 69, post-resettlement to YR Village) (2) Political-economic deskilling. The urban resettlement severs households entirely from the agricultural livelihoods that structured their previous existence. There is no land for cultivation, no space for livestock, no access to forest products. Households must instead seek wage employment in the urban economy—as construction workers, cleaners, restaurant staff, or in the informal sector. This transition requires skills, knowledge, and social networks that most resettled villagers lack. The government has implemented job training programs and employment assistance, but these have proven insufficient for the scale of the challenge. Many households cycle through temporary, low-wage positions; others rely on government transfers and occasional remittances from family members who have migrated elsewhere. The autonomy that characterized village livelihoods—the capacity to provide for oneself through one’s own labor on one’s own land—has been replaced by dependency on employers, markets, and state support.A middle-aged man described the transformation: “In the village, I knew what to do every day. I woke up, I went to the fields, I worked until the work was done. At the end of the day, I could see what I had accomplished. Here, I wake up, I go to wherever the agency sends me, I do whatever the boss tells me. At the end of the day, I have money—sometimes—but I don’t have anything I’ve made. The work doesn’t feel like mine.” (EC-27, Tibetan male, 45, post-resettlement to YR Village) (3) Symbolic-religious privatization. The urban resettlement environment lacks the sacred infrastructure that organized religious life in the original village. There are no temples, no stupas, no prayer flag poles, no sacred mountains visible from the apartment windows. Collective religious practices—festival celebrations, communal rituals, pilgrimage—are difficult or impossible to maintain. Religious life has retreated into the domestic sphere. Households maintain small shrines in their apartments, continue individual prayer practices, and observe major festivals in attenuated form. But the collective dimension of religious life—the sense of participating with one’s community in relationship with the sacred—has been largely lost. An elderly woman expressed this loss: “In the old village, I went to the temple every morning. I walked the prayer path, turned the prayer wheels, chanted with the others. The sound of the prayers filled the village. Here, I pray alone in my apartment. I turn a small prayer wheel in my hand. I chant quietly so the neighbors won’t hear. The deities feel far away—not angry, but distant. Like they’re in the mountains and I’m somewhere else.” (EC-24, Tibetan female, 65, post-resettlement to YR Village) (4) Temporal-developmental dislocation. The temporal structure of life has been fundamentally disrupted. The past—the ancestral village, the familiar landscape, the accumulated traces of generations—is physically inaccessible, a six-hour journey away that most households cannot afford to make regularly. The present is organized around unfamiliar routines and precarious livelihoods. The future is uncertain: young people may adapt to urban life, but for the elderly, the future holds only continued dislocation. This temporal dislocation is experienced as a form of being suspended between worlds—no longer fully belonging to the village, not yet belonging to the city. A young woman, one of the few from GW Village to find stable urban employment, described the feeling: “Home is two places now, and neither feels completely like home. When I’m in Shangri-La, in my apartment, I think about the village—the smell of the pine smoke, the sound of the prayer bells, the faces of the old people. When I go back to the village for festivals, I realize how much has changed—the houses are empty, the young people are gone, the prayer flags are faded. I don’t belong there anymore either. So I’m here, but not fully here; I’m there, but not fully there.” (EC-31, Tibetan female, 28, post-resettlement to YR Village) The contrast between the MD Village and GW Village cases reveals the critical importance of resettlement design for post-resettlement outcomes. Proximate resettlement that maintains spatial connection to the original hometown enables continuity of attachment and gradual adaptation. Long-distance urban resettlement that severs this connection demands a more fundamental reconstruction whose success is far from assured. The good life, in the latter case, is not an outcome that can be delivered by policy but a precarious achievement that displaced populations must struggle to construct with severely constrained resources. 7. Conclusion: Attachment, resettlement, and the Good Life This article has examined how resettled peasants in the ethnic borderlands of northwestern Yunnan imagine, negotiate, and reconstruct the good life in the context of state-led resettlement. Moving beyond the state-society binaries that have structured much existing scholarship, we have developed and deployed an analytical framework centered on home-hometown attachment—a multidimensional bond tethering households to their socio-territorial milieu through socio-spatial, political-economic, symbolic-religious, and temporal-developmental channels. Through comparative analysis of four resettlement types across multiple villages, we have traced how different resettlement logics differentially disrupt these attachments and how affected populations navigate the work of reconstruction in the post-resettlement period. 7.1 Theoretical Contributions The study makes three interconnected theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to resettlement studies by theorizing the mechanisms through which spatial reconfiguration shapes the lived experience of resettlement. The existing literature has documented the social and cultural impacts of resettlement but has lacked an analytical framework capable of specifying precisely how resettlement transforms the conditions of meaningful life (Wang, 2022). The four-dimensional model of home-hometown attachment provides such a framework, enabling systematic comparison of how different resettlement types engage with different dimensions of attachment and producing a nuanced account of post-resettlement outcomes. Second, the study contributes to the sociology of well-being by grounding the good life in the concrete relational worlds of displaced populations. Philosophical and psychological literatures on well-being have increasingly recognized the limitations of materialist and individualist approaches, but have struggled to connect theoretical insights to empirical analysis of actually existing lives (Huang and Du, 2022). By tracing how the good life is pursued through the maintenance and reconstruction of attachment, we demonstrate that well-being is not a state or outcome but an ongoing accomplishment (Hulewat, 1996).Third, the concept of home-hometown attachment itself constitutes a theoretical contribution that extends beyond the Chinese context. While the specific cultural inflections of the framework derive from Chinese rural society, the underlying insight (that human well-being is anchored in multidimensional bonds to places and the social-moral orders they sustain) is broadly generalizable. The framework can be adapted to study other forms of resettlement—climate migration, urban renewal, refugee resettlement—in other cultural contexts, providing a common analytical language for comparing how different resettlement drivers interact with different attachment configurations to shape the lived experience of uprootedness. 7.2 Implications for Resettlement Policy The analysis suggests that resettlement policy should be guided by a “relational approach” that recognizes resettlement as a transformation of the conditions of meaningful life rather than a transaction requiring material compensation. Such an approach would involve: (1) pre-resettlement assessment of attachment configurations to identify dimensions particularly vulnerable to disruption; (2) participatory planning that engages affected populations in imagining how attachments might be reconstructed in new settings; (3) spatial design that supports the reconstruction of socio-spatial integration, including communal spaces, proximity among former neighbors, and access to sacred sites; (4) livelihood support that builds on existing skills and knowledge rather than imposing deskilling transitions; (5) cultural and religious provision that enables continuity of practice; and (6) long-term engagement that recognizes attachment reconstruction as a multi-generational process. 7.3 Limitations and Future Research This study has limitations that suggest directions for future research. First, while the comparative design enables systematic analysis of how different resettlement types produce different outcomes, the number of cases within each type limits the generalizability of findings. Future research should extend the comparative approach to larger samples and additional resettlement types, including cases from other regions of China and other national contexts. Second, the analysis captures a relatively short post-resettlement period. The long-term dynamics of attachment reconstruction—how the balance between continuity and change shifts across generations, how children raised in resettlement sites relate to parental homelands, how new attachments develop over time—require longitudinal research that tracks displaced populations over decades. Third, the concept of home-hometown attachment, while developed through grounded analysis of the Yunnan cases, requires further refinement and testing in other contexts. Future research should explore how the four dimensions of attachment manifest in different cultural settings, whether additional dimensions are needed to capture context-specific forms of attachment, and how the framework can be operationalized for quantitative as well as qualitative research. 7.4 Coda: The Good Life as Unfinished Work The Tibetan villagers who now live in Shangri-La City apartments, looking out at unfamiliar streets and distant mountains they cannot name; the Lisu farmers who tend new fields within sight of the old villages they left behind; the young people studying for civil service examinations in the hope of futures their grandparents cannot imagine—all are engaged in the same fundamental work: the work of making a life worth living in conditions not of their own choosing. The good life, as this study has shown, is not a destination at which one arrives but an ongoing accomplishment, continuously threatened by forces beyond individual control and continuously reconstructed through collective effort. Resettlement, by disrupting the spatial and relational grounds of this accomplishment, reveals both its fragility and its resilience. Whether resettlement produces enduring loss or opens possibilities for new forms of flourishing depends not only on what people are given but on what they are enabled to make. Declarations Funding This research was supported by the Major Bidding Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China [22&ZD193]. The funding source had no role or involvement in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the analysis; or in the decision to submit the article for publication. Author Contribution Yang Baibin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Project administration. Yang Baibin conducted the fieldwork, performed the qualitative data analysis, and drafted the initial manuscript. He led the revision process in response to reviewer comments and prepared the final submission.Gao Yuan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition. Gao Yuan contributed to the theoretical framework development, supervised the research design, and provided critical revisions throughout the writing and revision process. He secured the funding that supported this research. Acknowledgement First and foremost, we are deeply indebted to Professor Canglong Wang for his invaluable guidance throughout this project. His incisive feedback on multiple drafts of this manuscript challenged us to sharpen our theoretical arguments and strengthen our empirical analysis. His encouragement and intellectual generosity have been instrumental in shaping this work from its inception to its final form.We extend our heartfelt thanks to the villagers in D County who welcomed us into their communities and homes, shared their experiences and aspirations with patience and candor, and taught us what home and hometown truly mean. Their voices are the heart of this paper. We are also grateful to the local cadres and officials in the D County Resettlement Administration and the township governments who facilitated our fieldwork, provided access to documents and meetings, and offered their perspectives on the resettlement process.For research assistance in the field, we thank our interpreters and research assistants who helped navigate linguistic and cultural complexities in Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi communities. 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Effects of disaster-related resettlement on the livelihood resilience of rural households in China. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 49, 101649 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2020.101649. Liu, W., Xu, J., Li, J., & Li, S., 2019. Rural households’ poverty and resettlement and settlement: Evidence from Western China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(14), 2609 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16142609. Lo, K., Xue, L., & Wang, M., 2016. Spatial restructuring through poverty alleviation resettlement in rural China. Journal of Rural Studies, 47, 496-505 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.06.006. Lee, E. S., 1966. A theory of migration. Demography, 3(1), 47-57 https://doi.org/10.2307/2060063. Mao, S., & Chen, J., 2021. Residential mobility and post-move community satisfaction: Empirical evidence from guangzhou, china. Land, 10(7), 741 https://doi.org/10.3390/land10070741. Nussbaum, M. C., 2011. Perfectionist liberalism and political liberalism. Philosophy & public affairs, 39(1), 3-45 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1088-4963.2011.01200.x. Nussbaum, M., & Sen, A. (Eds.)., 1993. The quality of life. Clarendon press. Oliver-Smith, A., & de Sherbinin, A., 2014. Resettlement in the twenty-first century. Forced Migration Review, 45. People’s Government of Deqin County., 2024. Research Report on Precise Evaluation and Preventive Measures for Major Risks of High-Level Geological Hazards in Deqin County. People’s Government of Deqin County., 2025. Overall plan for the resettlement of the resident of the People’s Government of Deqin County. Party History Research Office of the Deqin County CPC Committee [PHRO-DCCPC]., 2024. Deqin County Yearbook. Published by Yunnan Fine Arts Publishing House. Rogers, S., Li, J., Lo, K., Guo, H., & Li, C., 2020. China’s rapidly evolving practice of poverty resettlement: Moving millions to eliminate poverty. Development Policy Review, 38(5), 541-554 https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12435. Ravenstein, E. G., 1889. The laws of migration. Journal of the royal statistical society, 52(2), 241-305 https://doi.org/10.2307/2979333. Rappa, A., & Tan, S. H., 2003. Political implications of Confucian familism. Asian Philosophy, 13(2-3), 87-102 https://doi.org/10.1080/0955236032000162709. Sen, A., 2014. Development as freedom (1999). The globalization and development reader: Perspectives on development and global change, 525. Soja, E. W., 2008. Thirdspace: Toward a new consciousness of space and spatiality. In Communicating in the third space. Routledge. Sanford, N., 2017. Self and society: Social change and individual development. Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315129112. Scott, K., Rowe, F., & Pollock, V., 2018. Creating the good life? A wellbeing perspective on cultural value in rural development. Journal of Rural Studies, 59, 173-182 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.07.001. Tang, J., Xu, Y., & Qiu, H., 2022. Integration of migrants in poverty alleviation resettlement to urban China. Cities, 120, 103501 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2021.103501. Thompson, A., 2001. Nations, national identities and human agency: Putting people back into nations. The Sociological Review, 49(1), 18-32 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954X.00242. Van der Ploeg, J. D., Ye, J., & Pan, L., 2014. Peasants, time and the land: The social organization of farming in China. Journal of Rural Studies, 36, 172-181 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2014.07.002. Wolf, S., 1997. Happiness and meaning: Two źspects of the good life. Social Philosophy and Policy, 14(1), 207-225 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0265052500001734. Wang, Z., 2022. Life after resettlement in urban China: State‐led community building as a reterritorialization strategy. International journal of urban and regional research, 46(3), 424-440 https://doi.org/z10.1111/1468-2427.13078. Wachter, K., Bunn, M., Schuster, R. C., Boateng, G. O., Cameli, K., & Johnson-Agbakwu, C. E., 2022. A scoping review of social support research among refugees in resettlement: Implications for conceptual and empirical research. Journal of Refugee Studies, 35(1), 368-395 httpzs://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feab040. Wilmsen, B., 2019. Towards a critical geography of resettlement. Progress in Human Geography https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132518824659. Yang, Y., de Sherbinin, A., & Liu, Y., 2020. China’s poverty alleviation resettlement: Progress, problems and solutions. Habitat International, 98, 102135 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2020.102135. Yunnan Provincial Development and Reform Commission., 2025. Progress related to resettlement in Yunnan https://yndrc.yn.gov.cn. Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8939395","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":595380451,"identity":"07901c04-0d18-4b6c-9df2-c875e920cd8d","order_by":0,"name":"Baibin Yang","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA7ElEQVRIiWNgGAWjYJACZgYGiQQ2BsbGB0AODx8JWpibDUBa2IjUwpDAwMDeJgHiEdRicPzs4dcFNRZ5fNKNbZVfc+xkgNY9fHQDn5YzeWnWM45JFLPJHGy7LbstGegwNmPjHHxaDuSYGfOwSSS2AdFtyW3MQC08bNJ4tZx/A9TyD6KlWHJbPRFabuQYP+Ztg2hh/LjtMGEtkjfemDHP7AP6RSKxWZpx23EeNmYCfuE7n2P8ueBbXZ78jPSHH39uq7bnZ29++BifFoUDDGwSMA4zD5jEoxwE5BsYmD/AOIw/CKgeBaNgFIyCkQkAJsNFrcZ9CGsAAAAASUVORK5CYII=","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Baibin","middleName":"","lastName":"Yang","suffix":""},{"id":595380452,"identity":"cf80373b-7458-4062-b350-ded99646e555","order_by":1,"name":"Guo Taihui","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Guo","middleName":"","lastName":"Taihui","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-02-22 13:24:11","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8939395/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8939395/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":103440934,"identity":"2fba6bdd-f6ad-4801-86b0-cb0ac75181af","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-25 17:15:46","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":29713,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThe peasant– State nexus and the pursuit of the good life in the context of resettlement\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8939395/v1/e496df00399344179b6cbbd4.png"},{"id":103440933,"identity":"d95727bb-827d-4dd2-a2b6-a853740a5100","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-25 17:15:46","extension":"jpeg","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":62862,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eOverview of the field site\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage2.jpeg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8939395/v1/bd7e30b56a4eabcb17944bc0.jpeg"},{"id":103507934,"identity":"fe1d9dbc-8f06-4981-935a-e60f87cc6b33","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-26 13:46:31","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1038706,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8939395/v1/34ced97f-1938-4ed2-96b3-8f3adf6b5c05.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Resettlement and the Reconfiguration of the Good Life: Home-Hometown Attachment among Ethnic Villages in Northwestern Yunnan, China","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eThroughout history, the meaning and practical pathways of the good life have been in a constant state of evolution (King and Napa, 1998; Chekola, 2007). Within this dynamic landscape, state-led resettlement has emerged as a significant force compelling populations to reconstruct their visions of the good life. Since the 1970s, China has gradually developed a relatively mature resettlement model (Yang et al., 2020; Tang et al., 2022; Liu et al., 2019). Macro-level data and official documents indicate that resettlement has indeed improved basic conditions such as housing, education, and healthcare for relocated populations (Lo et al., 2016; Rogers et al., 2020). Between 2016 and 2020 alone, approximately 9.6\u0026nbsp;million registered poor households were relocated through the national poverty alleviation resettlement program, a population equivalent to that of a medium-sized country, supported by over one trillion RMB in public investment and resulting in 35,000 new resettlement sites and 2.66\u0026nbsp;million housing units (Garred and Yuan, 2025; Cheng, 2023). In Yunnan Province, a southwestern frontier characterized by mountainous terrain, ethnic diversity, and developmental marginality, nearly 700,000 individuals have been affected by resettlement since 2016, fundamentally transforming rural spatial organization (Yunnan Provincial DRC, 2025).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eHowever, a growing body of ethnographic research reveals a more ambivalent picture. While some resettled households experience the anticipated upward mobility, others confront livelihood precarity, the dissolution of long-standing social networks, the erosion of cultural practices, and a profound, often inarticulable sense of dislocation (Mao et al., 2021; Feng et al., 2022). This disparity between policy narratives and lived experience raises a fundamental question that extends beyond program evaluation: how do resettled peasants themselves imagine, experience, and re-evaluate the good life in the wake of state-imposed resettlement?\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe complexity of this question lies not merely in the implementation challenges of resettlement policy but in its revelation of the structural tensions between the state and peasants amidst rapid urbanization and profound social transformation. Existing scholarship on resettlement and the pursuit of the good life has largely operated within two parallel paradigms (Briggs and Briggs, 2020; Sanford, 2017; Thompson, 2001). The first is a statist paradigm centered on national public interests, emphasizing the state\u0026rsquo;s dominant role in resource allocation and order construction (Gilbert and Howe, 1991). This body of work examines resettlement primarily as a governance instrument, analyzing how states design and implement relocation programs to achieve developmental objectives, manage risks, and optimize spatial distribution of populations. The second is an individualist paradigm centered on peasants\u0026rsquo; personal interests, focusing on their agency in responding to policy interventions through mechanisms of moral economy, rational choice, or everyday forms of resistance (Das, 2007). This literature illuminates how displaced populations negotiate, accommodate, or contest state-imposed arrangements in pursuit of their own visions of well-being.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhile both paradigms offer valuable insights, each takes as its analytical starting point one pole of the state-individual dyad. The statist paradigm begins from the state\u0026rsquo;s perspective, examining how governance logics shape resettlement outcomes. The individualist paradigm begins from the peasant\u0026rsquo;s perspective, analyzing how individuals and households strategize within constraints imposed by state action. What remains undertheorized is the intermediate realm where state and society actually intersect: the nexus of home and hometown through which peasants experience, interpret, and respond to resettlement. Neither paradigm adequately captures how the good life is pursued through the relational and moral infrastructures that bind households to their socio-territorial worlds, infrastructures that resettlement simultaneously disrupts and renders visible.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis article neither begins from the state nor from the individual. It begins from the spatial and relational ground on which peasants actually live: the household embedded in its hometown. In China\u0026rsquo;s ethnic borderlands, home and hometown are not merely locations but constitute the very fabric within which personhood, sociality, and cosmological orientation are woven (Guo et al., 2024; Liu et al., 2020). The concept of home-hometown attachment therefore offers a third analytical pathway that complements and extends existing approaches by illuminating what statist and individualist paradigms necessarily obscure: the multidimensional bonds through which the pursuit of the good life is anchored in place, relationship, and moral order.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Literature Review and Analytical Framework","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec3\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.1 Resettlement and the Good Life: Three Generations of Scholarship\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study of resettlement has evolved through three overlapping generations of scholarship, each with distinctive theoretical commitments, methodological preferences, and blind spots. Understanding this intellectual history is essential for situating the contribution of the home-hometown attachment framework. The first generation, emerging from late nineteenth-century migration studies, approached resettlement through the lens of push-pull dynamics and individual decision-making. Ravenstein\u0026rsquo;s (1889) \u0026ldquo;laws of migration\u0026rdquo; established the foundational premise that migration results from the interaction of factors pushing individuals out of origin areas and pulling them toward destinations. Lee\u0026rsquo;s (1966) intervening obstacles model refined this framework by specifying the barriers (distance, cost, information asymmetries) that mediate between migration intentions and outcomes (Oliver-Smith and de Sherbinin, 2014). In resettlement research, this tradition generated important knowledge about the demographic characteristics of migrant populations, the economic determinants of relocation decisions, and the patterns of spatial redistribution produced by large-scale programs. Yet its methodological individualism and economistic assumptions rendered it ill-equipped to capture the cultural, relational, and existential dimensions of the resettlement experience. Migration was conceptualized as a choice among alternatives, not as a fundamental transformation of the conditions under which choice itself becomes meaningful.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe second generation, influenced by the cultural turn in social theory and the expansion of state-led development interventions in the postcolonial world, shifted attention from individual decision-making to the institutional and cultural dimensions of resettlement. The World Bank\u0026rsquo;s operational directives on involuntary resettlement, developed in the 1980s and subsequently revised, codified a set of principles\u0026mdash;compensation, livelihood restoration, community participation, that have shaped resettlement policy globally (Cernea, 1997; Wachter et al., 2022). Ethnographic studies of dam-induced resettlement, conservation migration, and urban renewal documented the often-devastating social and cultural impacts of state-led relocation, giving rise to concepts such as \u0026ldquo;impoverishment risks\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;social capital loss\u0026rdquo; (Oliver-Smith and de Sherbinin, 2014). This generation significantly expanded the analytical lens beyond economic outcomes to encompass social networks, cultural practices, and political dynamics. Yet it remained largely within a state-society framework that framed resettlement as a contest between state power and community resistance. The good life, when it appeared in such analyses, was conceptualized either as a set of goods and services the state should provide, or as a set of values and practices communities sought to defend.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe third generation, emerging over the past two decades, has been shaped by the spatial turn in social theory and the growing influence of relational approaches in the social sciences. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre\u0026rsquo;s production of space, Michel Foucault\u0026rsquo;s concept of heterotopia, and Doreen Massey\u0026rsquo;s relational geography, scholars have reframed resettlement as a process of spatial reconfiguration that transforms not only where people live but how they inhabit the world (Wilmsen, 2019; Rogers et al., 2020). This perspective attends to the ways in which resettlement projects impose abstract, planned spatial orders on pre-existing lived spaces, generating conflicts that are not merely about resource distribution but about the very organization of social life. It has generated rich analyses of how resettlement reshapes domestic architecture, community boundaries, ritual landscapes, and everyday spatial practices.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eYet even this sophisticated spatial literature exhibits limitations that the home-hometown attachment framework seeks to address. First, it emphasizes the production of space at the expense of analyzing how space is inhabited, experienced, and made meaningful. The focus on state planning and spatial abstraction has not been matched by equally developed accounts of what Soja (2008:63\u0026ndash;75) terms Thirdspace: the lived space of everyday experience, symbolism, and memory through which places become meaningful. Second, the spatial turn has proceeded independently of developments in the philosophy and sociology of well-being. The question of how spatial reconfiguration affects the conditions under which people can lead flourishing lives has been addressed primarily through material outcomes and social capital, not through engagement with relational theories of the good life that attend to meaning, moral order, and existential orientation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.2 Relational Conceptions of the Good Life\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eParallel to developments in resettlement studies, scholarship on the good life has undergone its own transformations. Early approaches rooted in utilitarian philosophy and welfare economics conceptualized well-being as preference satisfaction or utility maximization, lending itself to measurement through income, consumption, and subjective life satisfaction (King and Napa, 1998). Critics have argued that preference-satisfaction accounts conflate what people want with what is genuinely good for them, and that subjective measures are vulnerable to adaptation: the tendency of individuals in deprived circumstances to lower their aspirations and report satisfaction with objectively poor conditions (Sen, 2014; Nussbaum, 2011).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe capabilities approach, developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum (1993: 9\u0026ndash;30), offered an influential alternative by shifting attention from what people have or feel to what they are able to do and be. Well-being, on this view, consists in the capabilities to achieve valuable functionings. This framework has been widely adopted in development studies and has generated important insights into the multidimensional nature of poverty and the limitations of income-based measures. Yet it has also been criticized for its residual individualism and its difficulty in accounting for the social and cultural conditions under which capabilities are defined and valued.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e A third generation of scholarship, drawing on philosophical traditions from Aristotle to contemporary virtue ethics and on sociological traditions from Durkheim to Bourdieu, has articulated a relational and practice-based conception of the good life (Wolf, 1997; Bernstein et al., 2018; Scott et al., 2018). On this view, well-being is not a state of the individua (whether subjective or objective), but an ongoing accomplishment achieved through participation in meaningful social practices, maintenance of valued relationships, and coherence with morally significant orders. The good life is lived, not possessed; it is constituted through activity, not given in outcomes (Hong and Sun, 2020; Van der Ploeg et al., 2014).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis relational conception is particularly well-suited to understanding the good life in contexts of resettlement. When people are uprooted from familiar social and spatial environments, what is disrupted is not merely access to goods and services but the very frameworks within which the pursuit of a good life has been conducted. resettlement severs the connections between daily activity and the places, relationships, and practices that have given it meaning. The post-resettlement challenge, therefore, is not simply to acquire new goods but to reconstruct the relational and moral infrastructures within which a meaningful life can again be pursued. This is a fundamentally different problematic from that addressed by compensation-based approaches to resettlement.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e2.3 Home-Hometown Attachment as Relational-Spatial Framework\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe concept of home-hometown attachment synthesizes the spatial insights of contemporary resettlement studies with the relational conception of well-being, grounding both in the cultural context of rural China while attending to the distinctive features of minority religious regions. Grounded in this understanding, this article seeks to return to the Chinese cultural tradition of the \u0026ldquo;familial-national community\u0026rdquo;, to identify the connecting mechanisms between state vision and individual pursuit, and to locate the intersection of top-down state initiatives and bottom-up peasant agency. The framework rests on four premises. (see Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFirst, the household (jia) constitutes the primary unit of social, economic, and moral reproduction in Chinese rural society. This is not merely a descriptive claim about household composition but a theoretical claim about the locus of personhood and social identity (Rappa and Tan, 2003). As Fei Xiaotong (2017) demonstrated in his classic analysis, the Chinese rural self is not an autonomous individual but a person-in-relation, whose identity is constituted through participation in household-based practices of production, consumption, ritual, and care. The household is the site where the material and moral dimensions of existence intersect, it is simultaneously an economic unit, a ritual community, a space of intimacy, and a node in broader kinship and territorial networks.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSecond, the household is embedded in a spatial and social extension (the hometown /xiangtu) that provides the broader geography within which household life acquires meaning. The hometown encompasses the familiar landscapes of fields, forests, and water sources; the built environment of houses, paths, and ritual sites; the social geography of kin, neighbors, and co-villagers; and the symbolic geography of ancestors, deities, and sacred places. It is the space within which the practices that constitute household life are conducted and rendered meaningful. To be displaced from one\u0026rsquo;s hometown is not merely to change residence but to be severed from the spatial framework of a meaningful life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the minority religious regions of northwestern Yunnan, home and hometown assume distinctive characteristics that diverge from mainstream Han Chinese understandings. In Han Chinese contexts, the hometown is primarily a site of ancestral lineage and cultural tradition, grounded in Confucian ethics of filial piety and patrilineal continuity. Ancestral graves, lineage halls, and the spatial markers of clan identity constitute the sacred geography of the hometown. While this is certainly a meaningful landscape, its sacrality derives primarily from human relationships extended through time. In Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi communities of northwestern Yunnan, however, the hometown is not only a human landscape but a cosmologically charged geography inhabited by deities, spirits, and non-human persons with whom humans must maintain proper relationships.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThird, the attachment between home and hometown is not a unitary sentiment but a multidimensional bond comprising four analytically distinct but empirically interwoven dimensions. These dimensions are not merely categories imposed by the researcher but correspond to dimensions of experience that rural residents themselves recognize as constitutive of a well-lived life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003col\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe socio-spatial dimension concerns the articulation between domestic and communal space. Domestic space is not sealed off from community life but opens onto it; community space is not external to household life but continuous with it. This spatial organization supports a form of sociality in which household and community are mutually constituting rather than opposed.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe political-economic dimension concerns the spatial configuration of livelihood practices. Spatial integration sustains a form of livelihood autonomy in which households exercise significant control over the conditions of their material existence. Resettlement disrupts this integration by separating households from their productive land, forcing them into unfamiliar livelihood configurations, and subjecting them to new forms of dependency on markets and state institutions.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe symbolic-religious dimension concerns the inscription of sacred order onto the lived environment. Sacred geography is woven into the fabric of everyday life through practices that embed the sacred in domestic and communal space. To be displaced from this landscape is to be severed not only from familiar places but from the cosmological order that gives life meaning.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe temporal-developmental dimension concerns the negotiation of past, present, and future in spatial form. To inhabit this landscape is to be situated in a temporal continuity that extends backward into the past and forward into the future. At the same time, the hometown is a site of aspiration and development. The good life, from this perspective, is neither a return to an idealized past nor a leap into an abstract modernity but a selective integration that honors continuity while embracing change.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003c/ol\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFourth, resettlement operates as a contingent event that disrupts each dimension of attachment through mechanisms specific to the type and logic of resettlement. Different resettlement types embody different state logics and produce different patterns of disruption. Geological disaster resettlement, driven by risk mitigation, may prioritize speed over cultural sensitivity, generating particular pressures on symbolic-religious attachment. Ecological conservation migration, framed in terms of environmental protection, may restrict access to traditional resource-use areas, disrupting political-economic attachment. Poverty alleviation resettlement, oriented toward integration into modern urban systems, may systematically dismantle the socio-spatial and symbolic-religious infrastructures of village life. Infrastructure-induced resettlement, governed by compensation logics derived from property law, may fail to recognize attachments that cannot be priced.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe analytical task, therefore, is to trace how specific resettlement logics engage with the four dimensions of attachment, how these engagements are experienced and negotiated by affected populations during the planning and implementation phases, and what patterns of adaptation emerge as households seek to reconstitute meaningful lived space in the post-resettlement period. This framework guides the comparative analysis that follows.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"3. Research Design, Setting, and Methods","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.1 The Field Site\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eD County (see Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e), located in the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of northwestern Yunnan Province, provides an exceptionally strategic context for investigating the dynamics of home-hometown attachment under conditions of state-led resettlement. The county occupies the southern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, encompassing 8,364 square kilometers of precipitous terrain carved by the parallel gorges of the Nujiang (Salween), Lancang (Mekong), and Jinsha (Yangtze) rivers. Elevations range from below 2,000 meters in the river valleys to over 6,000 meters at the summit of Kawagebo, the region\u0026rsquo;s dominant sacred peak (PHRO-DCCPC, 2024: 60).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe county\u0026rsquo;s population, approximately 68,000 as of 2024, reflects\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ethe region\u0026rsquo;s complex ethnic history (People\u0026rsquo;s Government of Deqin County, 2024). Tibetans constitute the majority, concentrated in the higher-elevation areas and organized around Tibetan Buddhist institutions and practices. Lisu populations occupy intermediate elevations, maintaining distinctive linguistic and ritual traditions while also participating in broader regional networks. Naxi, Hui, Bai, and Han communities are present in smaller numbers, often in valley-bottom settlements or market towns. Religious affiliations crosscut ethnic categories: Tibetan Buddhism predominates, but Catholicism has been present since nineteenth-century missionary activity, Islam is practiced by Hui communities, and indigenous ritual traditions persist in various forms. This ethnic and religious diversity, combined with the spatial isolation produced by topography, has generated a mosaic of local cultures in which the articulation between household and community takes distinctive forms while sharing common structural features.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSince the early 2000s, D County has experienced multiple waves of resettlement driven by distinct policy imperatives. Geological hazard resettlement responds to the high incidence of landslides, debris flows, and other disasters in the county\u0026rsquo;s unstable terrain (People\u0026rsquo;s Government of Deqin County, 2025). Ecological conservation resettlement implements the national program to protect the upper watersheds of major Asian rivers by relocating populations from designated conservation areas (PHRO-DCCPC, 2024:78). Poverty alleviation resettlement, accelerated during the 2016\u0026ndash;2020 national poverty elimination campaign, has moved households from remote, resource-poor locations to sites with better access to infrastructure and services. Infrastructure-induced resettlement, most recently associated with the Longpan hydropower project, involves relocation to accommodate reservoir flooding and related construction.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis history of multiple, overlapping resettlement programs creates unusual research opportunities. Different villages and even different households within the same village have experienced different resettlement types at different times, enabling comparative analysis that controls for regional and cultural background while varying the nature of the resettlement intervention. Moreover, the temporal distribution of resettlement projects (some completed, some ongoing, some in planning stages), allows analysis of the process across its full trajectory, from pre-resettlement anticipation through post-resettlement adaptation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.2 Case Selection Strategy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom the universe of resettlement-affected villages in D County, we selected cases according to a purposive sampling strategy designed to maximize analytical leverage for comparative analysis (shown in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). Selection criteria included: (1) representation of each of the four major resettlement types; (2) variation in the spatial configuration of resettlement (distance moved, degree of concentration vs. dispersal, urban vs. rural destination); (3) variation in the timing of resettlement (completed vs. ongoing, recent vs. longer-term); and (4) accessibility for sustained fieldwork.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e \u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eSelected Resettlement Cases by Type\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/caption\u003e \u003ccolgroup cols=\"5\"\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003cthead\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eResettlement Type\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eVillage\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCases\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eAdministrative Location\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eStatus\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eKey\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCharacteristics\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/th\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/thead\u003e \u003ctbody\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eGeological Disaster\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eDH Village\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eS Town, D County\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOngoing (2025\u0026ndash;2026)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eHigh-altitude hazard zone; 945 households; multi-ethnic population; planned relocation to Yezhi Town\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEcological Conservation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eGW Village (to YR Village)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eY Township to Shangri-La City\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCompleted (2018)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLong-distance relocation (280 km); conversion of public rental housing; urban destination\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eEcological Conservation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eMD Village (to DR Village)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eY Township to B Township\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCompleted (2012, 2017)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eShort-distance relocation (across township boundary); maintained cultural continuity\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePoverty Alleviation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eYL Village\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eY Township\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCompleted (2018)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOn-site upgrading with partial relocation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003ePoverty Alleviation\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eJZ Village\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT Township\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eCompleted (2018)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eRelocation to roadside site within same township\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003ctr\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eInfrastructure\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLS, LY, JZ, XR Villages\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eT and X Townships\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eOngoing (planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e \u003cp\u003eLongpan hydropower project; approximately 110,000 affected persons\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e \u003c/tr\u003e \u003c/tbody\u003e \u003c/colgroup\u003e \u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3 Data Collection Methods\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eData collection was conducted between February 2025 and January 2026 through an integrated strategy combining three complementary methods.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eParticipant observation. The first author completed a three-month embedded internship (February-May 2025) in the D County Resettlement Administration, with supplementary placements in the Township S and Township Y government offices. This placement enabled continuous observation of policy implementation processes, including planning meetings, community consultations, household negotiations, and inter-agency coordination sessions. Field notes were recorded daily, focusing on how resettlement policies were interpreted, adapted, and contested at different administrative levels, and on the interactions between officials and affected households. A total of 47 observed events were systematically documented.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn-depth interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 87 individuals selected through purposive and snowball sampling to capture variation across resettlement types, social positions, and stages of the resettlement process. The sample included: resettled household members (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;52), stratified by resettlement type, stage (pre/during/post), age cohort, gender, and primary livelihood; grassroots cadres and community workers (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;22), including village heads, Party secretaries, and social workers involved in resettlement implementation; and county- and township-level officials (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;13), from departments including planning, natural resources, ethnic affairs, and poverty alleviation. Interviews averaged 75 minutes in duration (range: 45\u0026ndash;120 minutes), were conducted in Mandarin or with local interpreters in Tibetan or Lisu, were audio-recorded with informed consent, and were transcribed verbatim and translated where necessary. The interview guide covered: pre-resettlement life and attachment to place; perceptions of the resettlement process and interactions with officials; experiences of disruption and adaptation in livelihood, social relations, and cultural practice; and evaluations of well-being and the good life post-resettlement.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eArchival and documentary collection. We collected and analyzed: policy documents, planning blueprints, and government work reports (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;41); local archives including village chronicles, meeting minutes, and mediation records (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;28); and visual materials including photographs, videos, and maps documenting village landscapes, housing, and ritual activities before and after resettlement (n\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;235 items). These materials served to reconstruct the spatial and social transformations associated with resettlement and to triangulate interview accounts.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.4 Data Analysis Procedures\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnalysis proceeded through an iterative process combining inductive and deductive strategies. All interview transcripts and field notes were imported into NVivo 14 for coding and analysis. Coding followed a three-stage procedure.First, open coding identified recurrent themes related to place attachment, experiences of disruption, adaptation strategies, and evaluations of well-being. This phase generated an initial set of empirically grounded categories that captured how respondents themselves articulated their experiences.Second, axial coding organized these empirically grounded categories in relation to the theoretical dimensions of the analytical framework. Codes were grouped under the four dimensions of home-hometown attachment (socio-spatial, political-economic, symbolic-religious, temporal-developmental), with additional categories for resettlement processes, state-peasant interactions, and temporal phases (pre-resettlement, planning/transition, post-resettlement).Third, selective coding traced the configurations and reconfigurations of attachment across cases and phases. For each resettlement type, we constructed a case narrative that mapped the baseline attachment configuration, traced the disruptions introduced during planning and implementation, and documented the adaptation pathways that emerged post-resettlement. Cross-case comparison focused on identifying patterns in how different resettlement logics engaged with the four dimensions and how these engagements shaped divergent experiences of the good life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo enhance reliability, a second researcher independently coded a 20% subsample of transcripts, achieving 86% inter-coder agreement. Discrepancies were resolved through discussion and refinement of coding categories. All interview excerpts cited in the text are identified by a unique code indicating resettlement type (GD for geological disaster, EC for ecological conservation, PA for poverty alleviation, IC for infrastructure construction), respondent number, and interview date.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e The research received ethical approval from the Institutional Review Board of Yunnan University (approval number: IRB-2025-012) on 15 January 2025. All respondents provided informed consent after receiving detailed information about research purposes, data handling procedures, and their rights to withdraw or restrict use of their data. The consent process was conducted in Mandarin, Tibetan, or Lisu languages according to participants\u0026rsquo; preferences to ensure full comprehension. Participants were assured of confidentiality through the use of pseudonyms for all individual and village names, except where explicit permission was granted for identification. All data are stored securely on password-protected university servers accessible only to the research team. The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical standards of Yunnan University Institutional Review Board and adhered to the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki for research involving human participants.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. Home-Hometown Unity: The Pre-Resettlement Configuration of Attachment","content":"\u003cp\u003eUnderstanding how resettlement transforms the pursuit of the good life requires first establishing the baseline configuration of home-hometown attachment\u0026mdash;the spatial, social, and moral order within which the good life was pursued before resettlement. In the multi-ethnic villages of northwestern Yunnan, this baseline is characterized by what we term \u0026ldquo;home-hometown unity\u0026rdquo;: a mode of spatial identity in which the household and its encompassing socio-territorial milieu are experienced as integrated rather than opposed, continuous rather than separate. This unity is not a state of static harmony but a dynamic equilibrium sustained through practices that weave together the four dimensions of attachment.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1 Socio-Spatial Integration: The Articulation of Domestic and Communal Space\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe villages of D County exhibit settlement patterns that embed households within communities through carefully articulated spatial sequences. Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi villages, typically located on mid-elevation slopes, are organized in clusters or rows in which individual houses are connected by networks of paths, shared courtyards, and communal spaces. The traditional Tibetan house is a multi-story structure organized vertically, the ground floor houses livestock, the first floor contains the main living spaces organized around a central hearth, and the upper floor serves as a shrine room and storage area for grain and fodder. This vertical organization integrates production (livestock), reproduction (daily life), and sacred practice (worship) within a single architectural volume.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCrucially, the house opens onto communal space through a graduated sequence. The private courtyard, enclosed by the house and auxiliary structures, connects to semi-public verandas where household members gather for work and conversation. Paths leading from the courtyard to the village lane are spaces of encounter where neighbors meet and exchange news. The village lane itself connects to communal spaces (threshing grounds, water sources, village squares) where larger gatherings occur. This spatial grammar enables a form of sociality in which household autonomy and community integration are mutually supporting rather than opposed. As one Tibetan elder from DH Village explained:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;For our generation, the house and the land cannot be separated. The cattle and sheep in front of the door, the hearth in the courtyard, the sacred mountains for pilgrimage, and the prayer paths of the monastery\u0026mdash;these are all part of life. People and land, home and hometown, are like beads on the same string; once broken apart, life feels scattered.\u0026rdquo; (GD-03, Tibetan male, 68, pre-resettlement)\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe socio-spatial dimension of attachment, then, consists not merely in the physical arrangement of houses and paths but in the ways this arrangement enables particular forms of relationship and experience. It is the condition of possibility for a form of the good life in which household flourishing and community well-being are experienced as intertwined rather than competing.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2 Political-Economic Integration: The Spatial Organization of Livelihood\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe livelihood systems of D County\u0026rsquo;s villages are characterized by spatial arrangements that integrate production and reproduction, household and land, labor and its fruits. In the Tibetan villages, the agropastoral economy combines highland barley cultivation at intermediate elevations with livestock herding in alpine pastures. The spatial organization of this economy follows seasonal rhythms: households maintain permanent settlements at mid-elevation, from which they cultivate surrounding fields and make seasonal journeys to high pastures for summer grazing. The Lisu economy, concentrated at lower elevations, emphasizes swidden cultivation of corn and buckwheat, supplemented by collection of forest products and hunting. Here the spatial organization is more diffuse, fields are scattered across the landscape, shifting as soil fertility declines, and the relationship between settlement and productive space is less fixed than in Tibetan villages. Yet the principle of integration remains: productive activities are embedded in the same landscape as daily life, and the knowledge required for successful cultivation is knowledge of local places.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis spatial integration sustains a form of livelihood autonomy that is itself a component of the good life. Households exercise significant control over the conditions of their material existence, they produce much of their own food, build their own houses using local materials, and maintain the skills and knowledge required for these activities. When they participate in markets, it is from a position of relative security rather than desperate necessity. As a Lisu farmer from MD Village recalled:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Back then, we could harvest barley at the doorstep and feed livestock right next to the house. The land on the mountain and the hearth inside the house were all parts growing from the same root of life.\u0026rdquo; (EC-04, Lisu male, 52, post-resettlement to DR Village)\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe political-economic dimension of attachment, therefore, is not merely about material provisioning but about the relationship between spatial organization and autonomy. The good life, from this perspective, includes the capacity to exercise meaningful control over the conditions of one\u0026rsquo;s existence, a capacity that is grounded in spatial arrangements that embed livelihood within the familiar landscape.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3 Symbolic-Religious Integration: The Sacred Geography of Everyday Life\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eMulti-ethnic villages in northwest Yunnan embed sacred beliefs into secular settings through spatial symbols. Tibetan Buddhist monasteries are often built on elevated sites, where temples and pilgrimage paths intersect with villagers\u0026rsquo; daily walking routes, so that pilgrimage trails overlap with commuting paths. In Lisu villages, prayer flag poles stand at village entrances or near water sources, functioning both as boundary markers and blessings. In Naxi households, the central hearth serves not only as a cooking place but also as the ritual site for ancestor worship, where the daily act of adding firewood carries both practical and sacred meaning. Uniquely, portraits of national leaders are often displayed alongside Tibetan Buddhist lamas or Christian icons in both private homes and communal gongfang (public houses). Individual spiritual practices and collective rituals thus resonate within spatial sequences, sustaining a worldview of \u0026ldquo;humans and deities co-inhabiting.\u0026rdquo; As a Christian villager put it:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We celebrate both Christmas and Spring Festival; we hang the Chairman\u0026rsquo;s portrait and also the image of Jesus. Beliefs differ, but we respect each other\u0026mdash;divinity exists right within everyday life.\u0026rdquo; (PA-07, female, 49, pre-resettlement)\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis symbolic-religious integration constitutes a third dimension of home-hometown attachment. The good life, from this perspective, includes dwelling in a landscape that is meaningfully ordered, in which one\u0026rsquo;s place in the cosmos is visibly and tangibly marked, and in which relationships with the powers that govern existence can be properly maintained. resettlement from this landscape threatens not merely material loss but cosmological dislocation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.4 Temporal-Developmental Integration: Memory, Aspiration, and Continuity\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe fourth dimension of attachment concerns the temporal organization of lived space, the ways in which the landscape carries traces of the past and opens possibilities for the future. In D County\u0026rsquo;s villages, the hometown is a palimpsest inscribed with the marks of previous generations. Ancestral graves dot the hillsides; the sites of former villages are remembered and visited; the paths and terraces built by grandparents and great-grandparents continue to structure daily movement. To inhabit this landscape is to be situated in a continuity that extends backward in time, connecting the present household to its predecessors.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAt the same time, the hometown is a site of aspiration and development. Households invest in improving their houses, adding rooms, installing modern amenities. Communities seek access to roads, electricity, schools, and clinics. Young people imagine futures that may diverge from their parents\u0026rsquo; lives, education leading to urban employment, migration to cities for work, marriage into distant places. The good life, from this perspective, is neither a return to an idealized past nor a leap into an abstract modernity but a selective integration that honors continuity while embracing change.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis temporal-developmental dimension is particularly salient in how villagers articulate their hopes for resettlement. A young Lisu man from JZ Village expressed it this way:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Our old home was cold and far from everything. But during festivals, everyone danced together in the courtyard, and you could feel that this was where we belonged. If we move, I want the new place to have electricity and roads. I\u0026rsquo;m not stupid, I know these things are good. But I also want a courtyard where we can dance. Otherwise, even New Year will feel empty.\u0026rdquo; (PA-12, Lisu male, 24, pre-resettlement)\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis statement captures the temporal-developmental aspiration precisely: the desire for change that does not sever continuity, for improvement that does not erase the conditions of meaningful life.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.5 The Unity of Attachment as Baseline\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn the pre-resettlement configuration, these four dimensions are not separate domains but mutually reinforcing aspects of a single lived reality. This baseline is not an unchanging tradition but a dynamic equilibrium continuously adjusted in response to changing circumstances. Villagers have long experience with change, with shifts in markets and state policies, with the arrival of new technologies and ideas, with the departure of young people for education and employment. Yet these changes have occurred within a spatial framework that remained fundamentally intact. Resettlement, by contrast, threatens to dissolve that framework itself, severing the connections between household and landscape that have organized life across generations. The question that animates the remainder of this analysis is how villagers navigate this more radical transformation\u0026mdash;how they imagine, negotiate, and reconstruct the attachments that give life meaning when the spatial grounds of those attachments are themselves displaced.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. Home Without Hometown: The Planning Phase as Site of Expectation and Anxiety","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe planning phase of resettlement constitutes a distinct temporal and experiential moment in which the future is rendered present through anticipation, negotiation, and imagination. Before any physical relocation occurs, resettlement already begins to reshape the good life by transforming its temporal structure. The taken-for-granted continuity of past, present, and future is disrupted by the imposition of a planned horizon, a point after which life will be organized differently. In this phase, villagers confront the question that haunts the entire resettlement process: can there be a home without a hometown?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e5.1 The Planning Process as Institutional and Experiential Terrain\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe planning of resettlement in D County follows procedures established by national and provincial regulations, adapted to local conditions. For geological disaster resettlement in DH Village, the process began in 2018 with hazard assessments by the China Geological Environment Monitoring Institute, followed by feasibility studies and site selection (Deqin County People\u0026rsquo;s Government, 2024). In 2024, following the jurisdictional transfer of Yezhi Town into D County, the county government established an Emergency Command Office and initiated household surveys to collect data on family composition, economic resources, and settlement preferences (People\u0026rsquo;s Government of Deqin County, 2025). Three rounds of community mobilization meetings were conducted, and individualized household files were created documenting each family\u0026rsquo;s situation and expressed preferences.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor villagers, however, the planning phase is experienced not as a technical exercise but as a period of profound uncertainty and intense speculation. Official information is filtered through layers of interpretation and rumor; unofficial channels (networks of kin and neighbors, contacts with relatives in previously resettled areas) become primary sources of intelligence about what resettlement might actually entail. The future becomes a subject of collective deliberation and individual anxiety.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe intensity of this experience varies with the stage of the planning process. In DH Village, where resettlement was still in preparatory stages at the time of fieldwork, the dominant mood was anticipatory anxiety mixed with strategic calculation. In the Longpan hydropower resettlement, where planning had progressed further but implementation had not yet begun, villagers were engaged in more concrete forms of negotiation and positioning. In both cases, the planning phase revealed the differentiated ways in which different social groups imagine the good life and evaluate the prospects for its realization post-resettlement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e5.2 Differentiated Imaginations: Four Social Positions\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eexpectations based on occupational identities, economic conditions, and lived experiences. These can be distilled into four typical types.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(1) Livelihood-dependent groups, mainly ordinary villagers, whose decisions hinge on neighborhood reference networks, often displaying a \u0026ldquo;follow-the-majority\u0026rdquo; mindset. Their imagination of the future is organized around the question: will there be land? A Tibetan farmer from DH Village expressed this orientation:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t have many ideas of our own. We mainly look at what our neighbors do. If they move, we\u0026rsquo;ll move as well. Besides, we are used to farming, so we hope to still have some land after resettlement.\u0026rdquo; (GD-08, Tibetan male, 56, planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(2) Interest-negotiating groups, primarily small business owners, who emphasize economic rationality and self-interest. As one guesthouse owner explained:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The government gave us two options: cash or housing. If we take cash, it\u0026rsquo;s \u0026rsquo;70,000 from the state + 70,000 from the county + additional compensation based on measurement,\u0026rsquo; but this money is barely enough to cover anything. Furniture and renovations are not included, only house area. It\u0026rsquo;s far from enough for new housing. The housing scheme itself is still unclear, so we feel insecure.\u0026rdquo; (GD-11, Han male, 44, planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYet some business owners reconcile personal livelihood with national imperatives, expressing strong identification with the state. A restaurant owner remarked:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;After retiring from the army, I opened this restaurant. Every time customers come, I toast them and say, \u0026rsquo;We must support the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo; (GD-09, Tibetan male, 61, planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(3) Structure-compliant groups, primarily public-sector employees, who show institutional loyalty yet face economic loss and psychological dissonance in resource exchanges and spatial resettlement. Their compliance stems less from voluntary choice than from bureaucratic pressure, revealing \u0026ldquo;silent resistance\u0026rdquo; under administrative constraints. A grassroots cadre from DH Village described this tension:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;My husband and I both work in the system. We bought our apartment in 2018 for 830,000 yuan\u0026mdash;that was our savings, our investment in the future. Now the compensation is 510,000 yuan. They say it\u0026rsquo;s \u0026rsquo;apartment-for-apartment,\u0026rsquo; but the price per square meter is half what we paid. We lose everything\u0026mdash;the money, the furniture, the years of work. But we can\u0026rsquo;t complain publicly. We have to set an example, to mobilize our relatives. Inside, though, we feel betrayed.\u0026rdquo; (GD-14, female, 38, planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(4) Faith-based groups, largely religious believers, for whom sacred spaces and spiritual practices are central to the meaning of hometown. Beyond material compensation, faith becomes a decisive factor hindering willingness to relocate. An elderly Tibetan woman from DH Village articulated this orientation:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We live in the jade dish of Kawagebo, the sacred mountain. This land holds treasures that protect us, that bring blessings. Our ancestors are here; the deities are here. If we leave, who will make offerings? Who will maintain the relationship? The sacred mountain will still be here, but we will be far away, unable to see it, unable to feel its protection. How can we live like that?\u0026rdquo; (GD-03, Tibetan female, 72, planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOverall, such differentiation results not only from mismatches between institutional arrangements and local demands, but also from the tension between local socio-cultural logics and national planning objectives. When imagining new forms of Home-Hometown, resettled peasants often articulate individualized and divergent expectations. Since planning cannot simultaneously satisfy all needs, doubts and anxieties emerge, intensifying fears of \u0026ldquo;losing hometown\u0026rdquo; and \u0026ldquo;cutting roots.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e5.3 The Collective Production of Uncertainty\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese differentiated orientations interact to produce a collective experience of uncertainty that characterizes the planning phase. As households share information, compare interpretations, and observe each other\u0026rsquo;s responses, a shared understanding of the situation emerges that may diverge significantly from official representations. Rumors circulate about compensation levels, about the quality of new housing, about the experiences of previously resettled populations. Official information is scrutinized for hidden meanings; ambiguous statements become objects of collective interpretation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis collective production of uncertainty has its own temporal dynamics. Early in the planning phase, uncertainty may be experienced as openness, a space of possibility in which favorable outcomes can still be imagined. As deadlines approach and decisions become imminent, uncertainty transforms into anxiety\u0026mdash;a sense of being caught between unsatisfactory options, of facing a future that cannot be controlled. Some households respond by seeking to delay decisions, postponing the moment of commitment in the hope that circumstances will clarify. As one villager in the Longpan resettlement area explained:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If I sign now, the roots are cut. Once the agreement is signed, there\u0026rsquo;s no going back. So I wait. I watch what others do, see how the negotiations go. Maybe if enough people wait, the terms will improve. Or maybe I\u0026rsquo;ll wait until the last moment and then decide. Right now, I don\u0026rsquo;t feel secure, so I won\u0026rsquo;t sign.\u0026rdquo; (IC-05, Tibetan male, 50, planning phase)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis strategy of \u0026ldquo;deliberate suspension\u0026rdquo; is not irrational obstruction but a rational response to a situation in which the consequences of decisions cannot be reliably predicted. It reflects the fundamental challenge of the planning phase, the requirement to make decisions about a future that cannot be known, to commit to a path whose destination is obscure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e5.4 The Central Anxiety: Home Without Hometown\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAcross the differentiated orientations and strategic responses, a common anxiety emerges: the fear of ending up with a home but no hometown. Respondents across all categories articulate this fear in various ways. The physical structure of the new home (its size, its amenities, its compensation value) is less salient than the question of what will surround it. Will there be neighbors who share one\u0026rsquo;s language and customs? Will there be places to worship, to gather, to remember? Will the landscape itself be meaningful?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis anxiety reflects the fundamental premise of the home-hometown attachment framework, that the good life requires not only a dwelling place but a world within which dwelling is meaningful. The planning phase, by forcing households to imagine a future detached from the spatial and social grounds of their present existence, reveals the depth of this requirement. Even as they engage in practical negotiations about compensation and housing, villagers are grappling with a more fundamental question: can the attachments that have organized life across generations be reconstituted in new places, or will resettlement produce a world in which home exists but hometown is lost?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe answer to this question, as the following section demonstrates, depends critically on the spatial and social logic of the resettlement itself. Different resettlement types produce different possibilities for the reconstruction of attachment, generating divergent trajectories toward or away from a reconstituted good life.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"6. Separation and Reconstruction: Post-Resettlement Pathways","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe post-resettlement period is the crucible in which the promises and perils of resettlement are tested against lived experience. As households settle into new environments, the anticipations and anxieties of the planning phase confront the practical realities of daily life in unfamiliar settings. This section traces two contrasting pathways that emerge from the comparative analysis: \u0026ldquo;proximate reconstruction\u0026rdquo;, in which spatial proximity enables continuity of attachment and gradual adaptation, and \u0026ldquo;radical rupture\u0026rdquo;, in which long-distance resettlement and urban resettlement necessitate more fundamental and difficult processes of reconstruction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e6.1 Leaving the Land Without Leaving the Hometown: Proximate Reconstruction\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case of MD Village\u0026rsquo;s multiple resettlements illustrates a pathway in which resettlement, while disruptive, does not entirely sever the connections between home and hometown. MD Village, located in Y Township, is a Lisu community that has experienced two major resettlements over the past decade. The first, completed in 2012, relocated approximately 450 villagers from elevations above 3,000 meters to DR Village in B Township as part of an ecological conservation program. Although DR Village lies in a different administrative township, its location near the Yunnan-Sichuan border places it within the same broader cultural region, approximately 40 kilometers from the original village site. The second resettlement, completed in 2018 as part of the national poverty alleviation campaign, relocated the SR and GY hamlets of MD Village to a roadside site within Y Township itself, approximately 15 kilometers from their original location (PHRO-DCCPC, 2024:58-90).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBoth resettlements exemplify what we term \u0026ldquo;proximate reconstruction\u0026rdquo;, resettlement that maintains sufficient spatial proximity to enable continued relationship with the original hometown while establishing new settlement sites with improved infrastructure and services.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(1) Socio-spatial continuity. In both DR Village and the MM resettlement site, the spatial organization of the new settlements was designed to accommodate the social patterns of the originating communities. Houses are arranged in clusters that preserve neighborhood groupings from the original villages; paths and lanes connect households in patterns that facilitate continued interaction. The new settlements include communal spaces (village squares, covered gathering areas) that support the collective activities central to village sociality. While the architecture is standardized and materials differ from traditional construction, the spatial grammar of village life is partially preserved. A middle-aged woman from the SR hamlet described the experience:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;When we first moved, I worried that everything would be different. But we came here with the same people we lived with before. My sister is three houses down; my cousin is across the lane. In the mornings, we walk to the fields together, just like before. The houses are different\u0026mdash;they\u0026rsquo;re made of brick now, not wood\u0026mdash;but the people are the same.\u0026rdquo; (EC-09, Lisu female, 45, post-resettlement to MM site)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(2) Political-economic adaptation. The economic transformation accompanying resettlement is more significant. In the original villages, livelihoods combined subsistence agriculture with limited market engagement. In the new settlements, proximity to roads and markets enables more intensive commercialization, and households have diversified into new activities. The SR hamlet, according to village records, now cultivates 496 mu of land (approximately 33 hectares) producing corn, wheat, and highland barley, generating total annual income of 5.5 million yuan and per capita net income of 27,105 yuan. The GY hamlet, with access to 4,000 mu of forest resources, has developed specialized forestry products generating 2.27 million yuan annually with per capita income of 38,530 yuan.This economic transformation has reshaped household division of labor in ways that reflect the temporal-developmental dimension of attachment. As the SR village head explained:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The old people go back to the mountain to work the land. They spent their whole lives there; the land is in their bones. Working it makes them feel secure, even if it\u0026rsquo;s hard. The middle-aged ones\u0026mdash;they have to think about the children, about the new house payments. They take whatever work they can find, construction or driving or laboring. The young people, they study for the civil service exams. They see that as the way to a better life.\u0026rdquo; (EC-17, male, 48, post-resettlement)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis generational division reveals the temporal complexity of the good life in resettlement: for the elderly, continuity with the past is paramount; for the middle-aged, present economic pressures dominate; for the young, the future beckons with possibilities that diverge from parental experience.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(3) Symbolic-religious accommodation. The proximate location of the new settlements enables continued access to the sacred geography of the original villages. Households return for major festivals and life-cycle rituals; the original village\u0026rsquo;s ritual sites\u0026mdash;its temples, sacred groves, and offering places\u0026mdash;remain accessible for pilgrimage and ceremony. At the same time, the new settlements have been equipped with basic religious infrastructure: small stupas, prayer flag poles, and in some cases, community prayer rooms. This dual access\u0026mdash;to the original sacred landscape and to new ritual spaces\u0026mdash;enables a form of religious life that maintains continuity while adapting to new circumstances.A Lisu elder described the accommodation:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;In the old village, we had our places\u0026mdash;the grove where we make offerings to the forest spirits, the stone where we remember the ancestors, the path where we walk at New Year. Some of those places are still there, still accessible. We go back when we need to. But here, we also have places. The stupa by the village entrance\u0026mdash;we circumambulate it in the mornings. The prayer flags on the hill\u0026mdash;they carry our prayers to the sky. So we have both: the old places that connect us to our past, and new places that connect us to each other.\u0026rdquo; (EC-21, Lisu male, 72, post-resettlement to DR Village)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(4) The achieved good life. For most households in the MD Village resettlements, the outcome is a form of the good life that, while different from the pre-resettlement baseline, is experienced as satisfactory and in some respects improved. The core elements of attachment\u0026mdash;socio-spatial integration, livelihood autonomy, religious meaning, temporal continuity\u0026mdash;have been partially preserved while adaptation to new conditions has occurred. The key enabling condition is spatial proximity: the ability to maintain relationship with the original hometown while establishing a new home.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is not to say that the transition has been without difficulty. Households report struggles with new agricultural techniques, with the costs of modern housing, with the complexities of market engagement. Some elderly villagers express nostalgia for the old ways and difficulty adjusting to new routines. Yet these difficulties occur within a framework of continuity that provides resources for coping. As one respondent summarized:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We left the land, but we didn\u0026rsquo;t leave the hometown. The old place is still there\u0026mdash;we can go back when we need to, for festivals or funerals or just to remember. And the new place is becoming home. The children are growing up here; they\u0026rsquo;ll know this as their village. Maybe for them, this will be the hometown.\u0026rdquo; (EC-14, Lisu male, 52, post-resettlement to DR Village)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e6.2 Leaving One\u0026rsquo;s Native Place: Radical Rupture and the Challenge of Reconstruction\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe case of GW Village\u0026rsquo;s resettlement to YR Village in Shangri-La City presents a starkly contrasting pathway. GW Village, located in the high mountains of Y Township approximately 280 kilometers from the prefectural capital, was characterized by extreme poverty, poor transportation access, harsh climate, and limited livelihood options. In 2018, the D County government implemented an innovative resettlement solution: the conversion of 606 existing public rental units in the Kangzhu Jiayuan residential compound in Shangri-La City into resettlement housing for GW Village households.This resettlement exemplifies what we term \u0026ldquo;radical rupture\u0026rdquo;: long-distance resettlement into an urban environment that fundamentally transforms every dimension of home-hometown attachment (PPHRO-DCCPC, 2024:101).\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(1) Socio-spatial dissolution. The Kangzhu Jiayuan compound consists of multi-story apartment buildings organized on a grid pattern characteristic of Chinese urban residential development. Each household received an apartment of approximately 25 square meters per capita, with modern amenities but minimal space. The apartment layout\u0026mdash;separate rooms, shared corridors, elevators, locked doors\u0026mdash;embodies a spatial logic fundamentally different from that of the traditional village. Private space is sealed off from public space; neighbors are encountered in corridors rather than courtyards; the graduated sequence from domestic to communal space is absent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis spatial reorganization dissolves the socio-spatial integration that characterized village life. Households from different original hamlets were assigned to apartments in the same buildings, mixing populations that previously maintained separate community identities. The intimate knowledge of neighbors\u0026mdash;their families, histories, characters\u0026mdash;that structured village sociality cannot be reproduced in the anonymous environment of urban apartment living. An elderly woman described the experience:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;In the old village, you knew everyone. You knew whose children were whose, whose parents were whose, who could be trusted and who needed watching. Here, I live on the fifth floor. The people on the fourth floor\u0026mdash;I don\u0026rsquo;t know them. The people across the hall\u0026mdash;I see them in the elevator, we nod, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know their names. When I close my door, I\u0026rsquo;m alone. In the village, you were never alone.\u0026rdquo; (EC-22, Tibetan female, 69, post-resettlement to YR Village)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(2) Political-economic deskilling. The urban resettlement severs households entirely from the agricultural livelihoods that structured their previous existence. There is no land for cultivation, no space for livestock, no access to forest products. Households must instead seek wage employment in the urban economy\u0026mdash;as construction workers, cleaners, restaurant staff, or in the informal sector. This transition requires skills, knowledge, and social networks that most resettled villagers lack.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe government has implemented job training programs and employment assistance, but these have proven insufficient for the scale of the challenge. Many households cycle through temporary, low-wage positions; others rely on government transfers and occasional remittances from family members who have migrated elsewhere. The autonomy that characterized village livelihoods\u0026mdash;the capacity to provide for oneself through one\u0026rsquo;s own labor on one\u0026rsquo;s own land\u0026mdash;has been replaced by dependency on employers, markets, and state support.A middle-aged man described the transformation:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;In the village, I knew what to do every day. I woke up, I went to the fields, I worked until the work was done. At the end of the day, I could see what I had accomplished. Here, I wake up, I go to wherever the agency sends me, I do whatever the boss tells me. At the end of the day, I have money\u0026mdash;sometimes\u0026mdash;but I don\u0026rsquo;t have anything I\u0026rsquo;ve made. The work doesn\u0026rsquo;t feel like mine.\u0026rdquo; (EC-27, Tibetan male, 45, post-resettlement to YR Village)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(3) Symbolic-religious privatization. The urban resettlement environment lacks the sacred infrastructure that organized religious life in the original village. There are no temples, no stupas, no prayer flag poles, no sacred mountains visible from the apartment windows. Collective religious practices\u0026mdash;festival celebrations, communal rituals, pilgrimage\u0026mdash;are difficult or impossible to maintain.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eReligious life has retreated into the domestic sphere. Households maintain small shrines in their apartments, continue individual prayer practices, and observe major festivals in attenuated form. But the collective dimension of religious life\u0026mdash;the sense of participating with one\u0026rsquo;s community in relationship with the sacred\u0026mdash;has been largely lost. An elderly woman expressed this loss:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;In the old village, I went to the temple every morning. I walked the prayer path, turned the prayer wheels, chanted with the others. The sound of the prayers filled the village. Here, I pray alone in my apartment. I turn a small prayer wheel in my hand. I chant quietly so the neighbors won\u0026rsquo;t hear. The deities feel far away\u0026mdash;not angry, but distant. Like they\u0026rsquo;re in the mountains and I\u0026rsquo;m somewhere else.\u0026rdquo; (EC-24, Tibetan female, 65, post-resettlement to YR Village)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(4) Temporal-developmental dislocation. The temporal structure of life has been fundamentally disrupted. The past\u0026mdash;the ancestral village, the familiar landscape, the accumulated traces of generations\u0026mdash;is physically inaccessible, a six-hour journey away that most households cannot afford to make regularly. The present is organized around unfamiliar routines and precarious livelihoods. The future is uncertain: young people may adapt to urban life, but for the elderly, the future holds only continued dislocation.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis temporal dislocation is experienced as a form of being suspended between worlds\u0026mdash;no longer fully belonging to the village, not yet belonging to the city. A young woman, one of the few from GW Village to find stable urban employment, described the feeling:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Home is two places now, and neither feels completely like home. When I\u0026rsquo;m in Shangri-La, in my apartment, I think about the village\u0026mdash;the smell of the pine smoke, the sound of the prayer bells, the faces of the old people. When I go back to the village for festivals, I realize how much has changed\u0026mdash;the houses are empty, the young people are gone, the prayer flags are faded. I don\u0026rsquo;t belong there anymore either. So I\u0026rsquo;m here, but not fully here; I\u0026rsquo;m there, but not fully there.\u0026rdquo; (EC-31, Tibetan female, 28, post-resettlement to YR Village)\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe contrast between the MD Village and GW Village cases reveals the critical importance of resettlement design for post-resettlement outcomes. Proximate resettlement that maintains spatial connection to the original hometown enables continuity of attachment and gradual adaptation. Long-distance urban resettlement that severs this connection demands a more fundamental reconstruction whose success is far from assured. The good life, in the latter case, is not an outcome that can be delivered by policy but a precarious achievement that displaced populations must struggle to construct with severely constrained resources.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"7. Conclusion: Attachment, resettlement, and the Good Life","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis article has examined how resettled peasants in the ethnic borderlands of northwestern Yunnan imagine, negotiate, and reconstruct the good life in the context of state-led resettlement. Moving beyond the state-society binaries that have structured much existing scholarship, we have developed and deployed an analytical framework centered on home-hometown attachment\u0026mdash;a multidimensional bond tethering households to their socio-territorial milieu through socio-spatial, political-economic, symbolic-religious, and temporal-developmental channels. Through comparative analysis of four resettlement types across multiple villages, we have traced how different resettlement logics differentially disrupt these attachments and how affected populations navigate the work of reconstruction in the post-resettlement period.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec26\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e7.1 Theoretical Contributions\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe study makes three interconnected theoretical contributions. First, it contributes to resettlement studies by theorizing the mechanisms through which spatial reconfiguration shapes the lived experience of resettlement. The existing literature has documented the social and cultural impacts of resettlement but has lacked an analytical framework capable of specifying precisely how resettlement transforms the conditions of meaningful life (Wang, 2022). The four-dimensional model of home-hometown attachment provides such a framework, enabling systematic comparison of how different resettlement types engage with different dimensions of attachment and producing a nuanced account of post-resettlement outcomes. Second, the study contributes to the sociology of well-being by grounding the good life in the concrete relational worlds of displaced populations. Philosophical and psychological literatures on well-being have increasingly recognized the limitations of materialist and individualist approaches, but have struggled to connect theoretical insights to empirical analysis of actually existing lives (Huang and Du, 2022). By tracing how the good life is pursued through the maintenance and reconstruction of attachment, we demonstrate that well-being is not a state or outcome but an ongoing accomplishment (Hulewat, 1996).Third, the concept of home-hometown attachment itself constitutes a theoretical contribution that extends beyond the Chinese context. While the specific cultural inflections of the framework derive from Chinese rural society, the underlying insight (that human well-being is anchored in multidimensional bonds to places and the social-moral orders they sustain) is broadly generalizable. The framework can be adapted to study other forms of resettlement\u0026mdash;climate migration, urban renewal, refugee resettlement\u0026mdash;in other cultural contexts, providing a common analytical language for comparing how different resettlement drivers interact with different attachment configurations to shape the lived experience of uprootedness.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec27\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e7.2 Implications for Resettlement Policy\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe analysis suggests that resettlement policy should be guided by a \u0026ldquo;relational approach\u0026rdquo; that recognizes resettlement as a transformation of the conditions of meaningful life rather than a transaction requiring material compensation. Such an approach would involve: (1) pre-resettlement assessment of attachment configurations to identify dimensions particularly vulnerable to disruption; (2) participatory planning that engages affected populations in imagining how attachments might be reconstructed in new settings; (3) spatial design that supports the reconstruction of socio-spatial integration, including communal spaces, proximity among former neighbors, and access to sacred sites; (4) livelihood support that builds on existing skills and knowledge rather than imposing deskilling transitions; (5) cultural and religious provision that enables continuity of practice; and (6) long-term engagement that recognizes attachment reconstruction as a multi-generational process.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec28\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e7.3 Limitations and Future Research\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis study has limitations that suggest directions for future research. First, while the comparative design enables systematic analysis of how different resettlement types produce different outcomes, the number of cases within each type limits the generalizability of findings. Future research should extend the comparative approach to larger samples and additional resettlement types, including cases from other regions of China and other national contexts. Second, the analysis captures a relatively short post-resettlement period. The long-term dynamics of attachment reconstruction\u0026mdash;how the balance between continuity and change shifts across generations, how children raised in resettlement sites relate to parental homelands, how new attachments develop over time\u0026mdash;require longitudinal research that tracks displaced populations over decades. Third, the concept of home-hometown attachment, while developed through grounded analysis of the Yunnan cases, requires further refinement and testing in other contexts. Future research should explore how the four dimensions of attachment manifest in different cultural settings, whether additional dimensions are needed to capture context-specific forms of attachment, and how the framework can be operationalized for quantitative as well as qualitative research.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec29\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e7.4 Coda: The Good Life as Unfinished Work\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Tibetan villagers who now live in Shangri-La City apartments, looking out at unfamiliar streets and distant mountains they cannot name; the Lisu farmers who tend new fields within sight of the old villages they left behind; the young people studying for civil service examinations in the hope of futures their grandparents cannot imagine\u0026mdash;all are engaged in the same fundamental work: the work of making a life worth living in conditions not of their own choosing. The good life, as this study has shown, is not a destination at which one arrives but an ongoing accomplishment, continuously threatened by forces beyond individual control and continuously reconstructed through collective effort. Resettlement, by disrupting the spatial and relational grounds of this accomplishment, reveals both its fragility and its resilience. Whether resettlement produces enduring loss or opens possibilities for new forms of flourishing depends not only on what people are given but on what they are enabled to make.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003ch2\u003eFunding\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis research was supported by the Major Bidding Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China [22\u0026amp;ZD193]. The funding source had no role or involvement in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the analysis; or in the decision to submit the article for publication.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eYang Baibin: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing \u0026ndash; original draft, Writing \u0026ndash; review \u0026amp; editing, Visualization, Project administration. Yang Baibin conducted the fieldwork, performed the qualitative data analysis, and drafted the initial manuscript. He led the revision process in response to reviewer comments and prepared the final submission.Gao Yuan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Validation, Writing \u0026ndash; review \u0026amp; editing, Supervision, Funding acquisition. Gao Yuan contributed to the theoretical framework development, supervised the research design, and provided critical revisions throughout the writing and revision process. He secured the funding that supported this research.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirst and foremost, we are deeply indebted to Professor Canglong Wang for his invaluable guidance throughout this project. His incisive feedback on multiple drafts of this manuscript challenged us to sharpen our theoretical arguments and strengthen our empirical analysis. His encouragement and intellectual generosity have been instrumental in shaping this work from its inception to its final form.We extend our heartfelt thanks to the villagers in D County who welcomed us into their communities and homes, shared their experiences and aspirations with patience and candor, and taught us what home and hometown truly mean. Their voices are the heart of this paper. We are also grateful to the local cadres and officials in the D County Resettlement Administration and the township governments who facilitated our fieldwork, provided access to documents and meetings, and offered their perspectives on the resettlement process.For research assistance in the field, we thank our interpreters and research assistants who helped navigate linguistic and cultural complexities in Tibetan, Lisu, and Naxi communities. Their local knowledge and cultural sensitivity were essential to the research.All errors and omissions remain our own.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBriggs, V. M., \u0026amp; Briggs, R. O., 2020. Mass immigration and the national interest: policy directions for the new century. Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003059530.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBernstein, H., Friedmann, H., Van der Ploeg, J. D., Shanin, T., \u0026amp; White, B., 2018. 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Habitat International, 98, 102135 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2020.102135.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eYunnan Provincial Development and Reform Commission., 2025. Progress related to resettlement in Yunnan https://yndrc.yn.gov.cn.\u003c/li\u003e\n\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Resettlement, Good life, Home-hometown attachment, Ethnic minorities, China","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8939395/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8939395/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eState-led resettlement has relocated millions, yet theories of resettlement inadequately grasp how it transforms the good life. Existing state-society frameworks reduce well-being to policy outputs or individual strategies, obscuring the relational fabric that renders rural existence meaningful. This article theorizes home-hometown attachment, a multidimensional bond tethering households to their socio-territorial world. Through a comparative analysis of four types of resettlement cases (geological disaster, ecological conservation, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure displacemen) in ethnic regions of northwestern Yunnan, we show that resettlement differentially disrupts attachment across socio-spatial, political-economic, symbolic-religious, and temporal-developmental dimensions. The findings indicate that, whether in the early, middle, or late stages of resettlement, or across different types of resettlement, peasants\u0026rsquo; pursuit of the good life is consistently adjusted around the axis of Home\u0026ndash;Hometown. The article advances resettlement studies by theorizing how spatial reconfiguration reshapes existence, and contributes to the sociology of well-being by grounding the good life in the relational worlds resettlement illuminates.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Resettlement and the Reconfiguration of the Good Life: Home-Hometown Attachment among Ethnic Villages in Northwestern Yunnan, China","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-02-25 17:15:41","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8939395/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"2c7a8bde-3f89-4503-9e47-0977e84681de","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 25th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"posted","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-03-03T07:12:10+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-02-25 17:15:41","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8939395","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8939395","identity":"rs-8939395","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}