Resettlement and spatial transformation: reconstructing sacred space in Wa homes in Yunnan, China

Development-induced resettlement has become an increasingly prominent form of spatial restructuring across the Global South, yet the spatial transformations it produces at the household scale remain empirically underexplored. Using an integrative spatial–ethnographic approach that combines ethnography, architectural analysis, and 3D documentation, this study examines the production of space and place-making through sacred space in the homes of a resettled Wa community in Yunnan, China, tracing the place–placelessness–re-placing process unfolding at the domestic scale. Resettlement housing disrupted the spatial order through which cosmology and hierarchy had been materialized, eroding shared spatial perceptions and cultural meanings, and producing placelessness. Through embodied spatial practice and the material reorganization of the home, Wa residents restored symbolic meaning, reaffirmed household authority and reverence, and transformed their new houses into places of Wa identity and emotional attachment. This re-placing process reveals Wa residents’ cultural spatial agency—their capacity to actively reshape space and sustain cultural identity through vernacular beliefs and spatial practices, fostering collective belonging and cultural resilience. At the same time, the growing diversification of spatial patterns risks weakening shared spatial perceptions over time. By extending the analysis of spatial production to the household scale and foregrounding the materiality of domestic space in post-resettlement home-making, this study highlights resettlement as both a spatial and an existential process, contributing to broader debates on the production of space, place-making, and cultural transformation in development-induced resettlement.