Sense of place and perceived community change in perceived impacts of and cooperation with local aquaculture development in the US

Abstract

The emotional, social, and other bonds people have with specific locations, labeled “sense of place” (SoP), have been covered by diverse academic literatures, but conceptual and methodological contradictions and omissions leave their effects unclear. For example, the role of SoP in support of or resistance to siting of potentially hazardous facilities is uncertain due to mixed findings, disparate methods, and no consideration of mechanism(s) for SoP effects. We use a survey (n = 523) of Americans living near three proposed or operating land-based recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) facilities to explore how multiple dimensions of SoP might affect local support for these developments, with perceived community change and perceived facility impacts as serial mediators. Direct effects of SoP were absent, but indirect effects of identity with place, and especially of social bonding with local family and friends, increased support via positive evaluations of past community change and/or perceived facility impacts; bonding with nature did not affect facility support, or even perception of the facility's environmental impacts. Examining effects of different dimensions of SoP, as well as the mediating effects of seeing community change generally as positive, may provide both the basis for explanatory mechanisms of SoP effects and for divergent findings; however, causal claims would depend on longitudinal or experimental methods.