Place Attachment Theory (original) (raw)

Theory of Attachment and Place Attachment

2003

The theme of this chapter has its general reference frame in that sector of human experience represented by affect-feelings, moods, emotions, etc.which people experience in v arious ways, forms, degrees, with varying awareness, with reference to the places in which they are born, live and act. Also, in relation to the other persons who live and operate in the same places. We have all experienced some form of affective bond, either positive or negative, pleasant or unpleasant, with some place or other-a place that can be related to our current or past experience (childhood places), sometimes to the future (the place we dream of living in, where we would like to go/return to), and more or less restricted in scale: the house in which we live or have lived, a certain room in the home, the area around the home, the neighbourhood, the city, the country... Each of us is familiar with peculiar aspects, nuances, of this affective world. It not only permeates our daily life but very often appears also in the representations, idealisations and expressions of life and affect represented by art products-in the first instance literature, but also other genres. Indeed, not only do we acknowledge the existence of an affective bond with places, but also the importance that this can have in qualifying our existence, whether positively or negatively. And not just our individual, private, existence, but also the existence of entire human groups. There is perhaps no feeling of mutual affinity, community, fraternity among persons, whether formal or informal, institutionalised or not-nor feeling of diversity, aversion, hostility − that is not in some way related to matters of place, territory and attachment to places. For better or worse, this has far-reaching implications. The feeling we experience towards certain places and to the communities that the places help to define and that are themselves defined by the places − home (family, relations, friends), workplace (colleagues), church (fellow worshippers), neighbourhood (neighbours), city, country, continent-certainly has a strong positive effect in defining our identity, in Giuliani, M. V. (2003). Theory of attachment and place attachment. In M. Bonnes, T. Lee, and M. Bonaiuto (Eds.), Psychological theories for environmental issues (pp. 137-170). Aldershot: Ashgate. Psychological Theories For Environmental Issues 138 Place Attachment 141 relationships, the relationship exists in its own right and has a key survival function of its own, namely protection (p. 120-121).

PLACE ATTACHMENT: CONCEPTUAL AND EMPIRICAL QUESTIONS

Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2001

One of the limitations in the study of attachment to place has been its restriction to the spatial range of neighbourhood. Apart from some studies analysing attachment to house, there is a gap regarding other spatial environments. In this sense, we do not know to what extent people can be attached to other spatial categories, i.e., to bigger or smaller places, and whether the neighbourhood range is effectively the basic level of attachment, as many studies assume. On the other hand, most studies on attachment to place have viewed places as social environments only. We have found very few references to the physical dimension of place in the definition of the concept and also few regarding its operationalization. In this study, we measured place attachment within three spatial ranges (house, neighbourhood, and city) and two dimensions (physical and social), in order to establish some comparison between them. We did so by interviewing 177 people from different areas of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain). The results indicate that attachment to place develops to different degrees within different spatial ranges and dimensions. Among the results, we can highlight that: 1) attachment to neighbourhood is the weakest; 2) social attachment is greater than physical attachment; and 3) the degree of attachment varies with age and sex.

Place attachment And place identity

about the effective physical elements on the sense of place for architects and designers. The main contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that a physically distinctive character based environment is more successful in creation of the sense of place. Hypothesis: Defining the space is an effective element in making architecture distinctive from environment which is related to the quality of edge and boundary, enclosure, contrast and variety, views, landscaping and naming. Therefore, a physically distinctive character based environment is more successful in creation of the sense of place. Hypothesis: Since the space is a significant element in making the environment different from the architecture physically, a special and a specified character based environment can be successful in creating the sense of place.

The power of place in understanding place attachments and meanings

Geoforum, 2019

This contribution to a spatial theory of sense of place is an invitation to seek a better understanding of the importance of physical and concrete places in dynamic territorial attachments and meanings. The objective is to build a theoretical and methodological framework embracing a spatial approach to relations with place, and of testing it on different territories. From 130 individual interviews conducted in four rural areas, this article provides four main scientific insights: (1) a theoretical input through clarification and classification of seven concepts involved in the interactions between people and places; (2) a framework proposition in order to highlight the important role of place in defining sense of place; (3) an empirical input, with a comparative multiple case analysis; and (4) schematic representations of place attachment (based on place dependence and place identity) and place meaning (based on liked, disliked and notorious entities). Such results may be of interest to both land-use planners, in order to match facilities to affinities, and to inhabitants themselves, as tools for dialog.

Place attachment as discursive practice.

Place attachments are emotional bonds that form between people and their physical surroundings. These connections are a powerful aspect of human life that inform our sense of identity, create meaning in our lives, facilitate community and influence action. Place attachments affect issues as diverse as rootedness and belonging, placemaking and displacement, mobility and migration, intergroup conflict, civic engagement, social housing and urban redevelopment, natural resource management and global climate change.

Processes of Place Attachment: An Interactional Framework

How do people form place attachments through interaction with others and with places over time? I propose that there are seven distinct processes through which people form bonds with places. This framework was developed from the analysis of 104 depth interviews conducted in California and Colorado, newspaper and magazine columns and letters, memoirs, and first person essays. This framework proposes that seven distinct processes interact at the individual, group, and cultural level to shape place attachment. Each of the seven processes has a unique nature and develops differently over time and space.

The measurement of place attachment: Personal, community, and environmental connections

Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2010

Keywords: Sense of place Place identity Community attachment Scale development Place attachment Construct validity a b s t r a c t Place attachment has been researched extensively in the social and behavioural sciences over the past two decades. However, it is challenging for researchers to assimilate the mixed messages presented in the place attachment literature and to understand the multiple place attachment terms. In this study, a four-dimensional model of rural landholder attachments to their natural resource management region was conceptually and empirically developed with the aim of developing an integrated approach to the measurement of place attachment that clearly distinguishes between different elements of place scholarship. A 29-item place attachment scale with the dimensions of place identity, place dependence, nature bonding, and social bonding was tested on a random sample of rural landholders in the Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges in South Australia (N ¼ 320). The majority of respondents were male (69.3%) and the average age was 59 years. The scale was reduced to 20-items and then administered simultaneously and in the same response format to rural landholders in two other areas of South Australia: the Northern and Yorke region (N ¼ 664) and South Australian Murray-Darling Basin region (N ¼ 659). In both studies, the majority of respondents were male (85%) and the average age was 55 years. Exploratory factor and reliability analyses of Adelaide and Mount Lofty Ranges and Northern and Yorke datasets produced a five-dimensional model of place attachment with high reliabilities. Social bonding divided into the constructs of family bonding and friend bonding. The refined five-dimensional model was then examined for convergent validity, with moderate but significant correlations found between individual attachment constructs and dependent variables expected to be related to the construct, such as place identity and length of residence, and nature bonding and time currently spent in nature. We used confirmatory factor analysis to test the goodness-of-fit of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin (SAMDB) dataset to the proposed five-dimensional model and then compared its fit to the traditional two-dimensional model of place identity and place dependence. The five-dimensional model provided moderate fit for the SAMDB data. We conclude with a discussion of the validity and reliability of the fivedimensional model and its future role in place attachment research.

Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years

Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2011

This paper reviews research in place attachment and organizes the material into three sections: research, method, and theory. A review of several hundred empirical and theoretical papers and chapters reveals that despite mobility and globalization processes, place continues to be an object of strong attachments. The main message of the paper is that of the three components of the tripartite model of place attachment (Scannell & Gifford, 2010a), the Person component has attracted disproportionately more attention than the Place and Process components, and that this emphasis on individual differences probably has inhibited the development of a theory of place attachment. Suggestions are offered for theoretical sources that might help to fill the gaps, including theories of social capital, environmental aesthetics, phenomenological laws of order, attachment, and meaning-making processes that stem from movements and time-space routines.

Sense of Place and Place Attachment

Today, concepts such as place attachment, sense of place, meaning of place, place identity, has devoted many studies In literature of architecture and urban design particularly in the field of environmental psychology. It is obvious that in all these concepts, various aspects of interaction between human and place and the impact that places have on people has been presented. This paper defines the concepts of sense of place and place attachment and explains the factors that affect them. Sense of place is a comprehensive concept which in it men feels places, percept them and attached meaning to them. Understanding the fundamental aspects of sense of place, can be effective in assess the level of public attachment to place sand tendency of people to places. Place attachment refer to emotional and functional bonds between place and people which Interpreted in different scale from a district to a country in Environmental psychology. In this regard different studies point to varied of spatial and human factors. Review the literature, this paper achieves a comprehensive definition of these concepts and then it try to compare them to find their relationship. What will come eventually is that place attachment is one of the sense of place subsets. Thus in encounter of people and place if assume people sense of place a general feeling to that place, place attachment is a positive emotion which people have about the place.

Defining place attachment: A tripartite organizing framework

Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2010

Place attachment has been researched quite broadly, and so has been defined in a variety of ways. The various definitions of the concept are reviewed and synthesized into a three-dimensional, personprocess-place organizing framework. The person dimension of place attachment refers to its individually or collectively determined meanings. The psychological dimension includes the affective, cognitive, and behavioral components of attachment. The place dimension emphasizes the place characteristics of attachment, including spatial level, specificity, and the prominence of social or physical elements. In addition, potential functions of place attachment are reviewed. The framework organizes related place attachment concepts and thus clarifies the term. The framework may also be used to stimulate new research, investigate multidimensionality, create operational definitions for quantitative studies, guide semi-structured interviews for qualitative studies, and assist in conflict resolution for successful land-use management.