Becoming Attached to Places: Cognitive Realities & Meanings Nick Sanyal, Ed Krumpe and Bill McLaughlin Department of Conservation Social Sciences Few People Understand Natural Resources 80% of all Americans live in urban areas. Most see the landscape through their windshield. They experience landscape via recreation or as a backdrop. 2 The scenic quality of a place is important to people Both as intimate landscapes BUT--People attach more than importance to scenery-- they attach meaning And as distant backdrops 3 4 Sense of Place/Place Attachment Key Elements of Place Used to characterize the complex connections people have with the environments they encounter. The complexity of these connections makes it difficult to uniformly define and measure these sentiments over time and space. Research strongly suggests that places are much more than merely the physical backdrop for human action. Social and Political 5 6 1
Key Elements of Place Key Elements of Place Social and Political Biophysical Attributes and Social and Political Biophysical Attributes and 7 Social & Cultural Meanings & cognitions 8 Key Elements of Place Defining Place Social and Political Biophysical Attributes and PLACE Place is space imbued with meaning. Meanings encompass values both utilitarian aspects such as shelter, fiber, access, timber, etc., Social & Cultural Meanings & Cognitions 9 10 Defining Place and appreciative aspects, such as beauty, peace, way of life, spirituality, etc. Defining Place These meanings are connected to specific places, and are not generalizable across space, populations, or over time. Places thus exist in a meaning-filled spatial and temporal context. 11 12 2
Defining Place Place is a social-psychological concept that operates at the individual level and at the group/community/society/cultural levels. Six views of place 1. Cognitive Representations of the Natural Environment (1981) 2. Recreation Experience Preferences dispersed and Wilderness recreation (1979-82) 3. Idaho Big Game Hunters (1985) 4. Idaho Anglers (1992) 5. Priest Lake Ecosystem Studies (1994-98) 6. Grand Teton NP (2000-01) 13 14 Place independence Prior to the mid 1970 s place was seen simply as a backdrop for outdoor activity. The number of activity occasions was used to measure value. Activities could take place anywhere place independence. 15 Recreation Experience Preferences Recognizing that recreation behavior is a motivated response to real needs led behavioral scientists to recognize that we recreate to satisfy a variety of needs social, physical, emotional, cognitive, psychological, manifest as preferences to engage in preferred activities, in preferred settings, to realize preferred psychological and social outcomes. 16 Recreation Experience Preferences In very general terms outdoor recreation could, among other things, is seen as an escape from and/or an escape to. The importance of motivational domains such as nostalgia for place, familiarity with place, proximity, novelty of place, and discovery, shows how place both attracts and retains people, and empowers them. Place as a motivator In a study of Wilderness users in the Eagle Cap, we found that the desire to learn about the place, discover new things, and explore nature were all strongly correlated with introspection and with overnight Wilderness use. These people were also more likely to have been long-time users of the area. 17 18 3
Place as investment Among Idaho big game hunters those who hunt in places special to them and/or places that they have been hunting in for a long time were more likely to use multiple hunting strategies. Place attachment for them empowered them to invest more time and to adapt their hunting behaviors to the place. Not surprisingly, these hunters were less successful at harvesting, but they reported higher satisfaction levels with hunting. 19 Place as facilitator of activity persistence In a study of Idaho anglers, place related to the motivations to: be able to fish close to home; fish an area I know well; fish an area I have fond memories of; fish an area I can learn about; and where I am able to think about my personal values All were strongly related to anglers remaining active in sport fishing. 20 Place as outcome an area I know well; personal values fond memories Inactive males Inactive females Active males Active females Most researchers agree that Sense of Place reflects a cognitive state, while Place Attachment is a reflection of the emotive state. People with a strong cognitive tie to a place also seem to be less resistant to -- more understanding or accepting of-- change. close to home 21 area I can learn about 22 Place and cognition We store in long-term memory prototypes of landscapes/places. What we believe and how we feel about a place, and ultimately the memories we attach, vary substantially across individuals. Cognition and Emotion at Priest Lake 37% because it was a family tradition 26% because there are not many people using the basin 24% traveling to meet other people who were in the basin 23% because there were no other similar places in the region 23 4
What s special about Priest Lake Basin? Beauty, pristine, wilderness - 36% Tradition 35% Grew up here 34% Long term Cabin owner 25% Attachment to the PLB 82% would miss the PLB considerably if they could no longer visit here. People who felt the basin was unique, or who had a family tradition of use were most attached. First time visitors and road-based recreationists have the least attachment to the basin. 25 26 PLB is a tradition Family and community traditions are strong among the visitors. Visitors support traditional forms of recreation. They dislike new (noisy) forms of recreation. Short-term residents more attached to physical setting, while old-timers are attached to social networks. Oldtimers Time=place & face discrimination 27 New arrivals Macro Landscape; people in general Discrete individual sites or people 28 The importance of place Understanding how and why people define appropriate behavioral reactions to place is key for natural resource managers. Places claim people we become where we live and play. Resource conflict is increasingly a battle between different meanings of place rather than between differing uses. 29 Meanings provide normative direction for management A focus on place moves beyond the narrow confines of economics it acknowledges the multiple relationships people have with place; relationships that encompass livelihood and economics, and values, symbols, emotions, history, and identity. Place research also encourages planning that is site specific and attends to local social and ecological contexts. 30 5
3 Propositions to help understand meaning The presence of multiple meanings should alert us to the possibility that a particular landscape may be contested terrain. Place meanings and images are highly personalized, actively contested components of cultural battles that are waged, in part, on a symbolic level. Place is becoming increasingly politicized. Proposition 1 Our perceptions and evaluations of our environments are expressions of place-based identity 31 32 Proposition 2 People perceive and evaluate environments as discrete places rather than simply an assemblage of individual biophysical landscape attributes. Our evaluations of places are influenced by who we are... and by our own experiences of places. Proposition 3 33 34 What does it mean to love a place?* 1. To want to be near it, physically. 2. To want to know everything about it--its story, its moods, what it looks like by moonlight. What does it mean to love a place? * Thanks to Kathleen Dean Moore The Pine Island Paradox (2004-Milkweed Editions). 35 36 6
What does it mean to love a place? 3. To rejoice in the fact of it. What does it mean to love a place? 4. To protect it-fiercely, mindlessly, futilely, and maybe tragically, but to be helpless to do otherwise. 37 38 What does it mean to love a place? 5. To want to be joined with it, taken in by it, lost in it. 6. To fear its loss, and grieve for its injuries. 39 40 7. To be transformed in its presence-lifted, lighter on your feet, transparent, open to everything beautiful and new. 8. To want the best for it.... 41 42 7
9. Desperately! 10. To accept moral responsibility for its well-being! 43 44 If you feel all of these emotions for your special place, then you really do have a sense of place! The End 45 46 8