Place Attachment Research Articles

Evaluating the impact of place-based education: insights from a river environmental program in Taiwan

PurposeThe current education paradigm is often criticized for fostering human dependence and failing to reduce environmental impacts. This has led researchers to propose alternative approaches. One alternative approach, place-based education, integrates a specific location’s natural and social context into learning experiences. By deepening students’ connection to their surroundings, place-based environmental education aims to enhance students’ sense of interdependence with a place and their place attachment in cognitive and affective dimensions. While widely practiced, its effectiveness remains largely unevaluated, particularly in the East Asian context. The gap hinders the development of impactful pedagogical approaches for educators.Design/methodology/approachThe authors examine a river environmental education program located upstream of Taiwan’s capital, offering a valuable case study within the East Asian context. The program’s design is analyzed, and its impact on enhancing students’ place attachment is assessed through a pre- and post-survey approach.FindingsThe results indicate a substantial increase in students’ place attachment following program participation, particularly pronounced among children with limited prior experience with the river. Importantly, this increase is comparable to or exceeds those observed in similar studies from other regions.Originality/valueThe considerable increase in place attachment observed in this program demonstrates its effectiveness in fostering environmental connections, particularly among children with limited prior experience. The magnitude of the increase might be partially attributable to the interdependent orientation of Taiwanese culture. This suggests that place-based education might yield significant positive outcomes in other non-Western countries with strong interdependent cultural orientations.

Place attachment, wellbeing, and conservation in surf destination communities

Place attachment, wellbeing, and conservation in surf destination communities

Exploring the cohesive and social potential of a territorial ecomuseum in eastern sicily

ABSTRACT Thinking ethnographically with the work of Alberto Magnaghi, this paper explores the tensions and nuances of constructing ‘territory’ through the making of an ecomuseum in the Simeto River Valley in southern Italy. Conceptualised by Hugues de Varine and Henri Rivière, ecomuseums are community-based processes for reconstructing the material and immaterial signs of the past to revive a shared sense of heritage. Based on our engagement in a long-term action research process, interviews, focus groups, participation in itineraries and coordination activities, we trace how a group of actors involved in the Simeto Ecomuseum (SiEco) conceptualise different relationships to the territory and articulations of heritage to nurture futures in the Simeto Valley. We explore their diverse expressions of place attachment and political consciousness throughout this process. We suggest that ecomuseums can act as sites of social cohesion, if they generate a shared understanding and care of territory. However, this is complicated by diverse relationships to physical and cultural spaces, made visible in the ways boundaries are (re)made and unmade and in the difficulties of maintaining ongoing and inclusive collective processes over time. We call for the problematisation of the meanings and actions of ‘territory’, community and inclusion in the processes of cultural heritage-making.

Experiences of Losing and Re‐Establishing a ‘Sense of Place’: Insights From Forced Resettlement in Myanmar

ABSTRACTForced resettlement, the process of intentionally displacing and moving people from one location to another, increases impoverishment risks and creates severe and long‐lasting economic and psycho‐socio‐cultural impacts. While these impacts are well established, there is comparatively much less research about ‘loss of place’ after displacement when people are disconnected from a space or spaces that are meaningful to them. Therefore, this paper seeks to address this gap through empirical research on the experiences of residents who were displaced and relocated to an outer township in Yangon, Myanmar, 25 years after the resettlement event. The study examines what it means to lose a sense of place after forced resettlement, and how despite the disorientating impacts of displacement, individuals actively worked to re‐establish social and physical connections over time. The paper outlines how displaced residents developed and implemented strategies to re‐establish their sense of place and rebuild their community. It finds that multiple levels of strategies were developed—at individual, household, and community scales—to restore social connections and adapt to a new environment. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of place attachment and community rebuilding, particularly in contexts where displacement is driven by urban development, climate change, or state interventions.

‘Roots’ tourists' personal heritage experience: An extended cognitive-affective-conative model

The analytical framework of the cognitive-affective-conative (CAC) model was utilized in this study to explore the cognitive and emotional responses of tourists to the historical places they visit. This approach considers how tourists perceive their ancestral place, how much they care about it, and how likely they are to return or recommend it to others. The relationships among perceived existential authenticity, place attachment, and loyalty were empirically tested. Specifically, this study focused on how the sacredness that such tourists feel affects their behavior according to the CAC model. Roots tourists who visited the memorial garden in Shanxi Province, called Dahuaishu, answered a set of structured questions. The results revealed that the existential authenticity perceived by roots tourists significantly influenced their place attachment and loyalty. Roots tourists' sense of sacredness moderated the perceived existential authenticity of their place attachment relationship such that there was a stronger relationship for roots tourists with a higher sense of sacredness. Roots tourists’ sense of sacredness moderated place attachment in their loyalty relationship, such that there was a stronger relationship for roots tourists with a higher sense of sacredness. This study provides planning suggestions for the Dahuaishu Ancestor Memorial Garden. It is important for the marketing and development of roots tourist destinations to promote tourism by paying attention to the individual feelings of tourists, understanding the process of attachment formation of roots tourists, and enhancing their loyalty.

Carving spaces of hospitality: Place attachment among migrant and non-migrant residents in a rural town undergoing rapid demographic change

This article explores the complex and evolving nature of place attachment in the rural Lincolnshire town of Boston, a new immigration destination. Drawing on 28 semi-structured interviews with residents, it examines the ways in which migrant and non-migrant communities make Boston their home, how they react to change and disruption, navigate (in)hospitable encounters and narrate their belonging in the town post the EU referendum, which saw residents overwhelmingly voting against EU membership. The findings show that in the face of place alteration and turbulence, both migrant and non-migrant residents demonstrate a nuanced and differentiated form of commitment to place and, despite intractable systemic challenges, actively work to bring communities together and reframe negative place narratives. Community leadership emerges as integral to the collective effort of creating spaces of hospitality. For migrant and non-migrant communities, place attachment is a dynamic and fluid process, shaped and constantly reshaped by socio-economic and political factors, media discourses and experiences of hospitality/hostility. It is an embodied and emotional process that involves individual and collective discursive efforts to reframe dominant narratives, material and social ways of connecting as well as pragmatic ways of distancing.

CEO Locality and Employment Stickiness

AbstractWe explore whether CEOs’ hometown identity involves labour adjustment decisions. We document that local CEOs, with their hometown ties, reduce employment to a lesser degree following sales downturns than nonlocal CEOs. This finding suggests that local CEOs’ strong local attachments motivate them to prioritise employee interests and build good reputations, which create private benefits or reserve future career paths in their hometowns. Our findings are more pronounced in areas where local connections are highly valued, thus supporting our argument. We further find that the retention efforts of local CEOs are related to low future performance. We extend the cost stickiness literature by documenting that CEOs’ place attachment influences resource adjustment decisions, particularly regarding labour, which eventually influences subsequent performance.

Population displacement after earthquakes: benchmarking predictions based on housing damage

In the aftermath of an earthquake, the number of residents whose housing was destroyed is often used to approximate the number of people displaced (i.e., rendered homeless) after the event. While this metric can provide rapid situational awareness regarding potential long-term housing needs, more recent research highlights the importance of additional factors beyond housing damage within the scope of household displacement and return (e.g., utility disruption, tenure, place attachment). This study benchmarks population displacement estimates using this simplified conventional approach (i.e., only considering housing destruction) through three scenario models for recent earthquakes in Haiti, Japan, and Nepal. These model predictions are compared with officially reported values and alternate mobile location data-based estimates from the literature. The results highlight the promise of scenario models to realistically estimate population displacement and potential long-term housing needs after earthquakes, but also highlight a large range of uncertainty in the predicted values. Furthermore, purely basing displacement estimates on housing damage offers no view on how the displaced population counts vary with time as compared to more comprehensive models that include other factors influencing population return or alternative approaches, such as using mobile location data.

From Technology Acceptance to Platform Attachment: Hospitality Training in Metaverse

ABSTRACT Evolving from augmented and virtual reality environments, the metaverse offers unique immersion, presence, interaction, and persistence, setting it apart from other online platforms. This study employs an experimental design to test a model examining how technology acceptance and platform attachment, driven by situatedness in the metaverse, impact learning in hospitality education. We propose a framework combining technology acceptance with place attachment theory to explore the metaverse’s role in hospitality training. Statistical analysis reveals a significant positive correlation between technology acceptance and platform attachment (β = 0.399, p < .001), which in turn positively influences mental model change (β = 0.758, p < .001). These findings highlight the metaverse’s transformative potential in hospitality education by influencing cognitive frameworks, specifically mental model changes, and enhancing task performance during virtual training. The study also identifies the mediating role of platform attachment in shaping user experiences, providing a theoretical basis for understanding the metaverse’s impact and practical insights for improving hospitality training.

Rethinking stimulus-organism-response theory for residents’ behaviour in tourism

ABSTRACT This paper critically examines the application of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) theory in tourism research, addressing essential critiques and proposing avenues for theoretical refinement. The current study synthesizes existing literature to explore residents’ behaviour in tourism contexts. This work seeks to determine how residents’ place attachment influences their emotional connection with tourists (measured by the New Emotional Solidarity Scale abbreviated as NESS) and how NESS impacts their facilitations (active and passive), ultimately predicts support for tourism development through using S-O-R. The research involved 450 residents of Sivas, Turkey, and was conducted using random sampling. Notably, nine out of the ten proposed hypotheses were supported. Results indicated that place dependence and place identity were linked to NESS factors (communality and fairness), except for the insignificant relationship between place dependence and communality. Furthermore, NESS factors significantly determined facilitation factors that were ultimately significant predictors of support for tourism. This work contributes to the theoretical synthesis and practical insights for destination management and policy interventions in tourism. It also advances the understanding of residents’ behaviour and informs evidence-based decision-making in the tourism industry.

A systematic literature review on the psychogeography element in poetry writing

ABSTRACT Poetry uses rhythm and language to express emotions and convey meanings clearly and creatively. Poetry has developed different structures, techniques, and trends over time, reflecting cultural, social, and political changes. The aim of this study is to conduct a comprehensive examination and analysis of poetry writing within the framework of psychogeography. The current study employed many research methodologies, and the review was conducted according to the established standard, specifically the PRISMA statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). This study utilised Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus as the primary databases to search for the articles that were required. By employing content analysis, this study may be categorised into five themes were developed, which were: (a) places, (b) spaces, (c) place attachment, (d) dérive, and, (e) flâneur. This conclusion shows that several academics have not fully applied psychogeography to local poetry from psychological and geographical perspectives.

Affection and Responsibility: Driving Mechanism of Local Tourism Employment of Farmers in Ethnic Villages

In tourism employment, the participation of farmers is closely linked to the development of ethnic villages. Existing literature often overlooks the role of farmers’ non-economic rationality factors in their employment behavior. This study investigated the mechanism of farmers’ livelihood capital, place attachment, and family care on their local tourism employment behavior. The research found: First, livelihood capital facilitates farmers’ participation in local tourism employment, with place attachment mediating the correlation between livelihood capital and participation of farmers in local tourism employment, and family care positively moderating their participation in local tourism employment. Second, three distinct configurations drive farmers’ participation in local tourism employment. Third, complementary and substitution effects exist between livelihood capitals. Fourth, place attachment and family care demonstrate a masking effect. The government should actively maintain farmers’ place attachment, address farmers’ family care difficulties, guide farmers to utilize the substitution and complementary influences of livelihood capital and select appropriate paths to promote farmers’ participation in local tourism employment.

Understanding Short and Long Mobilities Together: Place Attachment and Community Dynamics in Mouraria, Lisbon

Understanding Short and Long Mobilities Together: Place Attachment and Community Dynamics in Mouraria, Lisbon

What matters most to the perception of community resilience in Romania?

We aim to measure and explain the perception of community resilience in Romania. We use survey data from a country-representative sample of 1500 respondents. We rely on factor-based partial least squares path modeling to measure five reflective latent constructs from a CCRAM-type questionnaire. We use these constructs to extract a second-order formative latent construct representing an overall measure of community resilience. Next, we use three sub-dimensions of family resilience, along with individual resilience and several control variables to explain community resilience. Among the five sub-dimensions of the overall measure of community resilience, social trust exerts the highest contribution, followed by place attachment. The predictors of community resilience with the largest effect sizes are the three sub-dimensions of family resilience. The policies geared towards increasing community resilience might not be able to address the most important factors, at least in the case of Romania, because they pertain to informal group interaction, and lie outside the reach of formal administrative authority.

The border in common: The Janus-faced place attachment of cross-border regions

For several decades, cross-border areas have been the setting for the successive deployment of various cross-border cooperation and integration mechanisms. These mechanisms aim primarily to facilitate mobility and interaction between actors through cross-border cooperation projects designed to create institutional cross-border areas. The current article takes an approach centred on attachment to places with the aim of determining whether cross-border areas make sense for their inhabitants. The analyses are based on a cross-sectional survey of 3,200 inhabitants of three institutional cross-border areas: Greater Geneva, the Basque Eurocity and the Eurometropolis of Lille Kortrijk Tournai. The methodology introduces into the field of border studies the technique of structural equation models for the measurement of place attachment using different explanatory variables. Several original results are found. First, place attachment is composed of both the sense of belonging to a country and the residential location of the members ego’s (the respondent) personal network. Second, two notable forms of attachment have an ambivalent relationship within the institutional cross-border areas: attachment to the border region of residence and attachment to the neighbouring border region. Specifically, the estimated attachment to the neighbouring border region favours the declared attachment to the institutional cross-border area. Subsequently, the estimated attachment to either border region also helps explain the choice of location for regular activities. Finally, the reported attachment to the institutional cross-border area is dependent on the individual’s social position. These results open up new perspectives on European integration policies that could rely more strongly on attachment to strengthen social cohesion in institutional cross-border areas.

Advocating a place-space duality for an accounting research agenda

PurposeThe paper proposes a place-space duality, rather than a dualism, for accounting research.Design/methodology/approachThe discussion is informed by the literature in human geography, which, while developing the concept of space, has made an important distinction between abstract space and place as a site of experiential learning and memory.FindingsThe lack of a concept of place is a serious omission in the accounting literature and perpetuates an abstract sense of space, which can restrict the scope of accounting research.Research limitations/implicationsThe paper calls for further research to study accounting in place and to explore both the collective and individual senses of place, as well as conscious and unconscious place associations. We recognise that there is limited prior accounting research on this topic and that there are challenges in conducting such interdisciplinary research, especially as there is a lack of common ground between research in human geography and accounting and little integration of the two literatures.Practical implicationsThe paper proposes an accounting research agenda based on a place-space duality, which reflects the strength of people-place relationships, including place identities, place attachment and place dependence.Originality/valueThe paper provides a critique of the conceptualisation of space in accounting research, identifies place-space as a duality (rather than a dualism) and suggests a novel distinction between studying accounting in context and in place.

Impact of coastal erosion and landscape changes on place attachment and the sense of belongingness: a case study in Oluvil, Sri Lanka

Oluvil is a coastal village on the east coast of Sri Lanka with significant resources of fisheries and agricultural lands. The coastal community of Oluvil has a strong socio-cultural and economic attachment to its natural landscape. The community relies heavily on fishing and agriculture for their economic activities, with the vast coastal lands and rich marine resources providing the main source of livelihood. The haphazard development of the fishery and commercial harbour in 2008 resulted in coastal erosion and related landscape changes. This highly impacted the sensitive coastal belt in the region, resulting in many environmental and social issues. This paper investigates the social impact associated with the related negative environmental changes. The research revealed a significant negative impact on income, livelihood, resources and property due to severe coastal erosion. These economic impacts and landscape changes negatively influenced the cultural identity, social dynamics, social structure and interactions, resulting in the loss of place attachment and the sense of belongingness.

How policy satisfaction affects residents’ low-carbon behavior: the mediating role of place attachment

ABSTRACT Policy interventions can effectively promote the public’s low-carbon behaviors (LCBs), provided the public already understands and perceives the policy. The extent to which the public gets to know the policy is easily overlooked in relevant studies. Based on a survey conducted in Hangzhou, China, this paper compares the residents’ satisfaction with the policies promoting LCBs. Furthermore, the impact of different levels of policy satisfaction on the willingness to engage in LCBs with place attachment as a mediator is also investigated. The results show that respondents’ policy satisfaction is moderately high, with female respondents (3.479) slightly higher than males (3.430). The policy satisfaction, from high to low, is administrative regulations (3.515), technical interventions (3.463), information tools (3.457), and economic incentives (3.384). Policy satisfaction has a significant effect on willingness to engage in LCBs and place attachment, and place attachment has a positive effect on willingness to engage in LCBs. Place attachment plays a partial mediating role in the influence path of policy satisfaction on the willingness of LCBs. The study provides insights for policymakers on enhancing policy dissemination and engagement, particularly in the context of gender differences, and offers a comprehensive view of the dynamics driving sustainable behavior change in urban China.

Pro-Environmental Behavior of Tourists in Ecotourism Scenic Spots: The Promoting Role of Tourist Experience Quality in Place Attachment

Pro-Environmental Behavior of Tourists in Ecotourism Scenic Spots: The Promoting Role of Tourist Experience Quality in Place Attachment

Beyond Permanent Residences: Measuring Place Attachment in Tempo-Local Housing Arrangements

Current societal shifts, including increased mobility, advances in information technologies, and diverse lifestyles, are driving postmodern housing arrangements that prioritize mobility and flexibility. The traditional view of housing as fixed and stable is evolving to encompass temporary forms, including multi-locality, which are often underestimated due to measurement challenges. Recognizing and integrating the potential of transient populations into urban societies is crucial to enhancing community cohesion and reducing social fragmentation. Therefore, the development of rootedness, emotional connection, and spatial identity should be analyzed in the context of temporary housing practices. Data collected through a representative survey in two major German urban regions in 2023 enable the validation of a four-dimensional place attachment scale, which includes the dimensions of place identity, place dependence, ambient bonding, and social bonding. Each dimension includes distinct elements of place-making constructions. The classification of four tempo-local housing types serves as the foundation for measuring how the temporal and spatial structure of housing arrangements influences emotional attachment to one’s place of residence. Interestingly, spatial mobility, when paired with temporal stability in each location, can cultivate deep connections, revealing an often-overlooked potential within this group. The results emphasize the significance of incorporating spatio-temporal dimensions of housing to foster inclusive, comprehensive, and diverse urban development.