The role of qualitative approaches to place attachment research

Abstract

Much has been written about place attachment as a construct over the years. Yet, less attention has been paid to the broad methodological aspects of place attachment, and the epistemological implications of researchers' choice of paradigms. In this chapter, we review different onto-epistemological approaches to researching and understanding place attachment, examining the specific role and value of qualitative/subjectivist/critically reflexive approaches in terms of what they make room for in the understanding of place attachment. The authors propose that these approaches are essential to exploring the less well-understood and emergent aspects of place attachment—for example, how place attachments are complicated by power relations, and how attachments play a role in people's response to place change and increasing socio-spatial precarity. This chapter invites an opening of a renewed discussion regarding the epistemological and methodological implications of place attachment research particularly around whether and how research reproduces existing power dynamics or reveals and challenges them, and whether research involves people as active agents of their attachment experience.