Abstract
The intrinsic characteristics of built environments shape the way one identifies with any place. The dialectics of people and their physical settings over time negotiate and establish intricate bonds between the two; interweaved by belief systems, memories, experiences, and deep-rooted meanings. Peoples’ association with place depends not only on its tangible aspects but are profoundly ingrained in its intangibles, temporalities, depiction in narratives, semiotics, diverse forms of cultural manifestations and one’s varied experiences of such engagements. Accumulated meanings of place, passed on through generations, negotiated, partly eroded and transformed are the basis of a continuum of people–place ties forming ‘Place-Identity’ (PI). Scholars from across disciplines have defined and refined the theoretical construct of ‘Place-Identity’ (PI) and the processes of its formation. The objective of this paper is to theorize the construct of ‘Place-Identity’ through an in-depth literature review and deconstruct it into factors that can be observed and analyzed for documenting the same. A perception study conducted in various cities of the geographical subregion of Southern Asia has been used to evaluate these factors derived from literature. Extracts from this perception study are put forth in the paper to reinforce the theoretical narrative. In conclusion, this paper proposes a framework for systematically gathering the Place-Identity of a city.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Altman, I., Low, S.M.: Symbolic Ties that Bind-Place Attachment in the Plaza, Human Behaviour and Environment-Place Attachment, vol. 12. Plenum Press, New York (1992)
Appleyard, D.: The environment as a social symbol: within a theory of environmental action and perception. J. Am. Plann. Assoc. 45(2), 143–153 (1979)
Ardakani, M.K., Oloonabadi, S.S.: Collective memory as an efficient agent in sustainable urban conservation. In: International Conference on Green Buildings and Sustainable Cities, pp. 985–988. Elsevier Ltd. (2011)
Auge, M.: Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. Verso, London (1995)
Bourdieu, P.: The forms of capital. In: Richardson, J.: Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, pp. 241–258. Greenwood, Westport, CT (1986)
Breakwell, G.: Threatened Identities. Wiley, Chichester (1983)
Brower, S.N.: Territory in urban settings. Environ. Cult., 179–207 (1980)
Casey, E.S.: Public memory in place and time. In: Phillips, K.R. (ed.) Framing Public Memory, pp. 17–44. University Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa (2004)
Castells, M.: The Rise of the Network Society, vol. I, 2nd edn. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford (1996)
Cross, J.E.: Processes of place attachment—an interactional framework. Symb. Interact. 38(4), 493–520 (2015)
Cullen, G.: The Concise Townscape. Architectural Press, London (1971)
Eck, D.L.: Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in India. Anima Books, Chambersburg, PA (1981)
Eck, D.L.: Banaras: City of Light. Alfred A. Knopf Inc., New York (1982)
Gehl, J.: Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. Island Press (2011(first published 1971)))
Gibberd, F.: Town Design. Architectural Press, London (1953)
Hague, C.: Planning and Place Identity. In: Hague, C., Jenkins, P. (eds.) Place Identity, Participation and Planning, p. 4. Routledge, Oxfordshire, New York (2005)
Halbwachs, M.: On Collective Memory. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, London (1992)
Harvey, D.: The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford (1989)
Hay, R.: Sense of place in developmental context. J. Environ. Psychol. 18, 5–29 (1998)
Hayden, D.: The Power of Place-Urban Landscapes as Public History. The MIT Press, Cambridge (1995)
Jacob, J.: The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House, New York (1961)
Korpela, K.M.: Place-identity as a product of environmental self-regulation. J. Environ. Psychol. 9(3), 241–256 (1989)
Krier, R.: Urban Space. Cademy Editions, Great Britain (1979)
Lefebvre, H.: The Production of Space (trans: Smith, D.N.). Blackwell, Oxford (1991)
Lewicka, M.: Ways to make people active: the role of place attachment, cultural capital, and neighborhood ties. J. Environ. Psychol. 25, 381–395 (2005)
Lewicka, M.: Place attachment, place identity, and place memory: restoring the forgotten city past. J. Environ. Psychol. 28, 209–231 (2008)
Liu, J.H., Hilton, D.J.: How the past weighs on the present: social representations of history and their role in identity politics. Br. J. Soc. Psychol. 44, 537–556 (2005)
Lynch, K.: Image of the City. MIT Press, Cambridge (1960)
Lynch, K.: What Time is this Place? MIT Press, Cambridge (1962)
Lynch, K.: A Theory of Good City Form. MIT Press, Cambridge (1981)
Madanipour, A.: Design of Urban Space: An Inquiry into a Socio-Spatial Process. Wiley, West Sussex, England (1996)
Maslow, A.H.: A theory of human motivation. Psychol. Rev. (1943)
Massey, D.: Space, Place, and Gender. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (1994)
Mazumdar, S., Mazumdar, S.: Religion and place attachment—a study of sacred places. J. Environ. Psychol. 24, 385–397 (2004)
Nanda, G.: Place-identity and its significance for a Heritage city: the case of Puri, India. J. Indian Anthropol. Soc. 54, 74–87 (2019)
Nanda, G., Khare, A.: Spatial map** of ‘people–place ties’ as an integral part of heritage management process. J. Herit. Manage. 3(2), 192–208 (2018)
Proshansky, H.M.: The city and self-identity. Environ. Behav. 155 (1978)
Rapoport, A.: Human Aspects of Urban Form Towards a Man—Environment Approach to Urban Form and Design. Pergamon Press Ltd., Oxford (1977)
Relph, E.: Place and Placelessness. Pion Limited, London (1976)
Rossi, A.: The Architecture of the City. The MIT Press, Cambridge and London (1982)
Sack, R.D.: Conceptions of Space in Social Thought: A Geographic Perspective. Macmillan Education UK, London (1980)
Schmid, C.: Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space-towards a three-dimensional dialectic. In: Goonewardena, K., Kipfer, S., Milgrom, R., Schmid, C. (eds.) Space, Difference, Everyday Life—Reading Henri Lefebvre, pp. 27–45. Routledge, New York (2008)
Schulz, N.C.: Genius Loci-Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture. Rizzoli (1979)
Seamon, D.: Place attachment and phenomenology: the synergistic dynamism of place. In: Manzo, L.C., Wright, P.D. (eds.) Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods, and Applications, pp. 11–22. Routledge, New York (2013)
Sepe, M.: Planning and Place in the City: Map** Place Identity. Routledge, Oxon (2013)
Singh, M.: Rani of Jhansi. Mumbai: Amar Chitra Katha Private Limited (1974)
Sitte, C.: City Planning According to Artistic Principles. Phaidon Press, London (1889)
Smart, J.: Space, time and motion. In: Parkinson, G. (ed.) An Encyclopedia of Philosophy, pp. 256–274. Routledge, London (1988)
Soja, E.W.: Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Wiley-Blackwell, Cambridge (1996)
Speller, G.M., Lyons, E., Twigger-Ross, C.: A community in transition: the relationship between spatial change and identity processes. Soc. Psychol. Rev. 4(2), 39–58 (2002)
Stokols, D., Shumaker, S.A.: People in places: a transactional view of settings. In: Yadav, C.S. (ed.) Perspectives in Urban Geography-Perceptual and Cognitive Image of the City, pp. 91–153. Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi (1987)
Thrift, N., May, J.: Timespace: Geographies of Temporality (Critical Geographies). Routledge, London, New York (2001)
Tschumi, B.: Questions of Space. Architectural Association, London (1990)
Tuan, Y.-F.: Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. Columbia University Press, New York (1974)
Tuan, Y.-F.: Space and Place—The Perspective of Experience. University of Minnesota Press, London (1977)
Tuan, Y.-F.: Rootedness versus sense of place. Landscape 24, 3–8 (1980)
Twigger-Ross, C.L., Uzzell, D.L.: Place and Identity Processess. J. Environ. Psychol. 205–220 (1996)
Unwin, R.: Town Planning in Practice: An Introduction to Artistic City Planning. T. Fisher Unwin, London (1909)
Whyte, W.H.: The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. Conservation Foundation, Washington, DC (1980)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Nanda, G., Meel, A.K. (2023). Theorizing the Construct of Place-Identity. In: Kostopoulou, S., Herrera-Franco, G., Wood, J., Al-Kodmany, K. (eds) Cities’ Vocabularies and the Sustainable Development of the Silkroads. SRSTDCH 2021. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31027-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31027-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-31026-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-31027-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)