The Power of Place in Place Attachment

This book provides geographical perspectives on the complex and multifaceted relationship between people and their lived environments. Scholars with varied regional, theoretical, and topical specialties offer chapters that explore different aspects of a phenomenon so pervasive that no conception of social or political action can afford to ignore it.

In the process of spatial organization and differentiation, people develop emotional attachments to specific places, as well as people, objects, and practices associated with those places. Place attachments thereby shape everyday routines (e.g., routes to work, shopping, social interactions), major life choices (e.g., places of residence, education, and vacations), and identities (e.g., civic, national, and religious). These attachments occur across multiple scales from personal dwellings to community, region, and homeland. It is our hope that this book reveals synergies between geography and other disciplines engaging with place attachment whilst invigorating research on the topic. The Power of Place in Place Attachment will be of great value to researchers and scholars of geography, identity, mobility, and urban landscape change. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Geographical Review.

Alexander C. Diener is Professor of Geography at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA. He works at the nexus of political, social, economic, and cultural geography, engaging topics such as geopolitics and borders, identity and migration, citizenship, development and mobility, and urban landscape change.

Joshua Hagen is Dean of the College of Letters and Science at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, USA. His areas of research include borders and border theory; cultural politics of place names; demography, economics, and sustainability; and geographies of the pre-modern world.