Change and Driving Mechanism of the Daily Living Space of Residents in Rural Tourist Destinations—An Exploratory Analysis Based on a Cognitive Map

Abstract: The research on the daily living space of residents in rural tourist destinations focuses on the spatial change and functional transformation at the regional level; however, it dedicates insufficient attention to the daily behavior and emotional changes of “individuals” in the human-land relationship. This study proposes the analysis framework of residents' daily living space constructed by a material-behavioral-emotional ternary space, and expands the application of the cognitive map from the large scale urban-structure spatial image to the small-scale daily living space of rural residents; thus, it aims to enhance the visualization and effectiveness of the research. The study observed the following: (1) In the cognitive map, for the residents' of Naobao Village, the cognition pertaining to the material space changes of their daily life has shifted from road-oriented to area-oriented; In the behavioral space, the residential space has shifted from scattered to focused, the employment space has shifted from the “circular focus + extended sector” structure to the “circular focus” structure, the consumption space has shifted from explicit space to implicit space, and the leisure space has shifted from the “point set” mode to “circle layer” mode. In the emotional space, the pattern of “one ring, one network and four centers” has shifted to the “single ring type” pattern. (2) Based on the findings of the interviews, natural conditions, policies, and institutions, self-organizations and other organizations jointly form the “driving system-pattern evolution-spatial representation” driving mechanism, which promotes the evolution of the daily living space of Naobao Village. This research provides relevant reference for the construction and development of residents' living space in the development of rural tourism; meanwhile, it also attempts to analyze the change pertaining to residents' living space form and spatial cognition using a new method.