Reconstruction and Sustainable Development Pathways of the Embroidery Cultural Ecosystem in the Context of Rural Revitalization

Embroidery, as a quintessential traditional Chinese handicraft, embodies rich ethnic cultural memory and local knowledge systems, making it a vital object of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) safeguarding. However, amid the processes of industrialization and urbanization, the rural social ecology on which embroidery culture depends has been severely disrupted, giving rise to increasingly acute problems such as the loss of inheritors, the rupture of transmission chains, and the depletion of its cultural soil. The comprehensive implementation of the Rural Revitalization Strategy presents a historic institutional opportunity for the revival and development of embroidery culture. Drawing on cultural ecology theory, sustainable livelihoods theory, and rural revitalization theory as analytical frameworks, this paper systematically investigates the disintegration and crisis of the embroidery cultural ecosystem in contemporary society. On this basis, it proposes an integrated four-dimensional reconstruction path for the embroidery cultural ecosystem, namely “subject reshaping – industry reengineering – spatial reconstruction – institutional empowerment.” The study finds that the sustainable development of embroidery culture necessitates a paradigm shift from “heritage protection” to “ecological reconstruction.” By cultivating new types of inheriting subjects, constructing a whole-industry-chain system, reshaping cultural spatial carriers, and enhancing institutional safeguard mechanisms, a virtuous cycle of synergistic development among culture, economy, society, and ecology can be established. Through case analyses of typical embroidery traditions such as Miao embroidery, Su embroidery, and Shu embroidery, this paper proposes feasible pathways and policy recommendations for leveraging the construction of an embroidery cultural ecosystem to facilitate rural revitalization.