Abstract:

Recently, people start to seek and experience space of slow living to resist and escape from the "constraint and pressure" caused by modern society. This becomes evident in some particular areas and provides empirical cases to extend the placeness theory. By selecting the Old Town of Lijiang as a case study, this research aims primarily to explore the manifestation and formation mechanism of the placeness feature of Lijiang from multiple identities. The data used in this study were collected through interviews of natives, non-native operators, tourists and government officials, and content analyses of web-blogs. The results show that, location, locale and sense of place, jointly build up the dimensions of identity with placeness of slow living in the Old Town of Lijiang. To be more specific, location includes relative location and absolute location; locale comprises external environment, internal space and social activity; and sense of place consists of two dimensions of affection and continued behavior. This study has indicated that identity with placeness of slow living in Lijiang is established by multiple subjects. Natives' slow living philosophy, which has formed on the basis of their history and culture, is the foundation of the lifestyle in the Old Town of Lijiang; non-native operators popularize the placeness feature and reinforce it to be a place character; at the same time such place character can satisfy tourists' needs and it is further promoted due to tourists' identity with the Old Town. Therefore, the combined effect of these three subjects has made slow living an indispensable feature of placeness in Lijiang. In addition, the paper has demonstrated the unique features in the touristic place, as well as the formation mechanism of identity with placeness under different paradigms.

Key words: slow living, placeness theory, identity with placeness, formation mechanism, Lijiang