Senses of Place

Preface

This book, in a somewhat different form, first saw the light of day as a University of London PhD thesis. In preparing it for publication, I have made several amendments to it, particularly reducing its philosophical content which originally appeared as a separate chapter with long discussions on structuralism, structuration, realism, behaviouralism and humanism. It has been reduced as the empirical study informs mainly on the question of methodology. But as the work is predicated on the assumption that different methodologies may be used if they cohere in one integrated philosophical framework, some of this type of material has been incorporated mainly in a new introduction. The methodological emphasis has made return to the data-sets again and on this basis amend some of the presentations. I have also tried to take account of new developments since the work for the thesis was completed. This is a difficult, almost thankless task, as relevant publications appear monthly. As I write, I see reference to Andrew Sayer’s ‘Method in Social Science’ and Clyde Mitchell’s ‘Cities, Society and Social Perceptions’. Our inability to assimilate everything relevant is of course self-evident: we can only hope our own contributions remain of some use.

There were many people who have, both directly and indirectly, helped me organise, carry out and complete the thesis and book. Indirect assistance has been provided, usually unknowingly, by the human geographers and social scientists on whose I work have drawn. Even where I have been critical of their work, their endeavours have helped shape my thoughts and have made the disclosure of ideas and relationships that much more easy for me. I owe a greater debt, however, to those who have been of direct help to me. The Department of Geography freed some of its slender resources to allow part of this thesis to be produced in ‘work time’. The artwork was efficiently produced by Lynne Fraser. The majority of ‘resources’ was the time of Eileen Bruce. In this time and working in the evenings, she produced high quality draft and final manuscripts with great diligence and humour to very tight deadlines. Carol Gray took up the burden of the book and produced excellent camera-ready copy. I am also indebted to my thesis supervisor, Ron Jones, whose incisive criticism led to major changes in the content and structure of the thesis. In my view, those changes have greatly improved the final product, any errors in which are, of course, my sole responsibility. I would also like to thank Emrys Jones for his continual encouragement of my work. Anonymous referees for Silverbrook and other publishers enabled me to see more clearly certain opacities in the argument, which I have tried to correct. I am also indebted to Silverbrook Press for taking on this book in one of their first ventures in this field. Finally, I would like to thank my immediate family, Dorothy and David. My wife, in particular, understood and put up with my moods and preoccupations for too long a time. To her, I dedicate this work.

1. Introduction

This book is a modified version of a dissertation submitted for the degree of doctor of philosophy. That research had two major, interrelated aims, one being substantive, namely to identify the forms taken by sense of place and relate these forms to the totalities of people’s lives. The other was philosophical-methodological, namely to examine some of the relationships between theory, observation and explanation. The aims were interrelated in the sense of the philosophical-methodological emanating from the substantive. Problems of observation and explanation arose during the unfolding of the empirical question concerning the nature and significance of place. The major modification, however, concerns the input of philosophical material. It has been decided to reduce this content and emphasise rather the question of ‘how to’ or methodology. Specifically, the presentation is one of ‘how it was done’. Thus in detailing the types of sense of place identified in a small town in the English South Midlands, the wider appeal lies in the utilisation of different methods to discover these senses. It is, therefore, an attempt to ground empirically these different approaches to see how they inform on the problem under consideration. In some ways, the book then is an attempt to bridge the gap between theoretical and methodological work that seldom touches contemporary reality and empirical work that often takes its philosophical and methodological assumptions for granted. While there is no attempt to claim that this work is a unique attempt it was still thought that the explication of the methodological issues would be perhaps more important to other researchers than the philosophical ones.[1] This does not mean that these latter concerns are ignored. The conceptual input for the investigation on sense of place is included in its entirety. The broader context of philosophical ideas is treated when and where necessary. The full version is of course available.[2]

The origins of the work are many, but it is still easier to say what this research is not rather than what it is. It is not humanistic geography, although its primary focus – sense of place – was so derived. It is not a community study, although the findings of such studies are used to enrich the idea of a sense of place. It is not empiricist, although it uses the empirical-analytical methods of conventional science to obtain and (in part) to analyse data. It is not based on participant observation, although it emphasises the interpretation of observed activities and experience. And it is not phenomenological, although self-reflection is regarded as an essential element of any research which attempts to interpret the experiences and ideas of others.

Its starting point is, however, sense of place. The academic significance of sense of place derives from two strands of geographical endeavour. Environmental perception studies have long been interested in the images and mental cognitive maps of individuals.[3] While the meanings of places to individuals have been recently examined from this perspective,[4] sense of place is perhaps more centrally addressed by the second related strand, humanistic geography.[5] Feelings and sentiments are seen as being inadequately treated in perception geography, which has been criticised for its positivistic assumptions.[6] The significance of what places mean to people and how people interpret place is therefore primarily derived from the humanistic tradition. Ley argues that in this tradition, sense of place is associated particularly with literary explanations which seek to identify the dominant meanings of a place as well as the quality of geographical experience.[7] But while interesting questions on the nature and significance of place and space are posed, they are not usually empirically grounded. The introspection of the researcher can tell part of the ‘story’ concerning sense of place, but it must also be derived from the population at large.[8] Further, place and the experience of place seem to be regarded as unrelated to the forces of which we are only dimly aware, but which significantly shape our lives (e.g. work, power, domination). Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that lip service is paid to such ‘structures’ and ‘constraints’.[9] Sense of place is therefore taken to mean more than the (positive or negative) ‘feel’ for a place or places which is based on the individual’s experiences of those places. It is also seen as being derived from the totality of an individual’s life. Place and sense of place are not regarded as independent phenomena divorced from this totality. They are fully implicated within it. ‘Life’ itself must not be just equated with experience, because there may be forces which affect and shape life (and with it, sense of place) and which are beyond immediate experience. To suggest that such forces may exist explicitly introduces the second aim of this research because the suggestion challenges one of the central tenets of positivistic science, namely that all phenomena are grounded in direct, immediate and accessible experience.

Sense of place thus derives from the humanistic perspective but this approach is seen as limited. Its limitations do not necessarily lead to its rejection as Relph has argued.[10] Rather, the view of Entrikin is accepted that humanism is a form of criticism with the potentially useful task of reaffirming the importance of studying meanings and values and making scientists aware of social and cultural factors in ‘objective’ research.[11] The criticism of N. Smith that humanism is merely an attitude is transformed from a rejection to a celebration of certain ‘humanistic’ principles.[12] Berger, writing of humanistic sociology, argues that it is opposed to the uncritical acceptance of the scientific method. It is not, however, against science but recognises the special demands placed upon scientific practice when it is applied to the human condition.[13] Humanistic sociology is

an uneasy, uncertain, hesitant thing, aware of its own precariousness, circumspect in its moral assertions.

Given such an attitude, its anthropocentrism should be seen as a strength and not a weakness.[14] It is precisely because of the nature of modern society with its domination by rationalistic, technocratic values that the importance (and even continued existence) of man requires constant re-affirmation. Because the label ‘humanism’ has become muddied by certain associations it does not mean that its principles should be thrown overboard. This then provides a way of using science and of looking at the world. It places a premium on understanding especially the interactions between people and their places.[15] Thus it ensures a critical approach to the application of the scientific method and a people-oriented perspective for the examination of the structures of capital, labour and everyday life.

Sense of place has also been conceived in relational terms, relative to the totality of life. While strictly speaking ‘sense of place’ is concerned with feelings about place and places, it seems to be related to ‘place-in-the-world’. In other words, where people live and what they think of it are but one dimension of everyday life. Sense of place should not be seen in isolation. There cannot be a segment of experience concerning place alone but place must be part of, related to and implicated in the totality of life. Such relationships between place and life should not only be thought of in statistical or empirical terms. Sense of place surely may not simply involve a relationship between observed phenomena (as a behavioural geographical study would see it). And despite Golledge’s spirited defence of behavioural approaches,[16] the criticisms of its under-emphasis of the social,[17] and its close association with spatial scientific-positivistic methods.[18] It may be a dialectical one in which the relations between phenomena are seen as part of a structured totality and in which there may exist forces, structures and mechanisms which could not be observed in a strictly empiricist sense.[19] In advanced capitalist society, it may be thought that such ‘forces’ would involve the objectification of life and the experiential attempt to mitigate these forces – the search for meaning, or identity. Thus, the dominant direction of life in a society of technocratic and bureaucratic structures and values would be towards a segmented, objectified existence which would manifest itself at the level of the individual. But the individual may attempt to negate the objectification by emphasising the self and the nature of the self: in other words, by establishing an identity.

This is not to suggest a psychologistic or crudely ‘individualistic’ explanation of why people’s lives are shaped the ways in which they are. The mechanisms that shape existence and experience are irreducible to the individual level but are manifested at it. Sense of place may be one small dimension of this manifestation but one which may demonstrate the insoluble nature of the relationships between the conduct of life, and the forms and structures it produces and those which produce it. In this respect, the notion that reality is a social construction which acts back on its subjects, sometimes in unseen and taken-for-granted ways is relevant.[20] In relation to place, Ley argues that place is a negotiated reality, a social construction by a purposeful set of actors. But the relationship is mutual, for places in turn develop and reinforce the identity of the social group that claims them.[21] Such a view will be seen as important in the interpretation of the meaning of place in this study. Also important is the notion of structuration.[22] While at times Giddens’ development of his theoretical system borders on what Mills called grand theorising, structuration is an attempt to conjoin voluntarism and structuralist determinism.[23] More accurately, it is an attempt to demonstrate the untenability of the antithesis between determinism and voluntarism. In essence, the theory of structuration involves the concept of duality of structure. In other words, social life exhibits a basic recursiveness. It expresses the mutual dependence of structure and agency.[24] Structure refers to rules and resources, organised as properties of social systems, which in themselves consist of reproduced relations between individuals or groups, organised as regular social practices. Agency refers to a continuous flow of conduct, involving actual or contemplated causal interventions in the process of living. In short, agency is the essence of experience and everyday life. The duality of structure refers to the fact that the social properties of social systems are both the medium and outcome of the practices that constitute those systems.[25] In this study, sense of place is seen as part of identity and as a manifestation of agency, and its significance lies in the interdependence of agency and structure. Individuals cannot alter structures themselves. Society and its structures are produced and reproduced by recurrent individual and joint practices and ideas. The practices shape and are shaped by structures. This argument in well summarised by Bhaskar

…people do not create society for it always pre-exists them and is a necessary condition for their activity. Rather, society must be regarded as an ensemble of structures, practices and conventions which individuals reproduce or transform, but which would not exist unless they did so. Society does not exist independently of human activity (the error or reificiation). But it is not the product of it (the error of voluntarism).[26]

Sense of place is, therefore, not merely a phenomenon that exists in the minds of individuals but one that develops from and becomes part of everyday life and experience. Sense of place – an element of experience – cannot, therefore, simply be explained in terms of itself. Experience, everyday life, is not seen as an adequate basis for the construction of knowledge. The existence and important of structures, mechanisms and forces beyond immediate observation must be accepted.

The acceptance of such a view means that to examine the links between place, identity and material existence dialectically and empirically requires that the a priori model or theory constructed by the researcher must not only posit logical relationships between observed phenomena but must also suggest the bases on which the links are established. As in all hypothesis construction and formulation, the researcher suggests that he ‘knows’ what he is looking for. But there is more to it than deciding to observe specific phenomena, e.g. attitudes to significance of place. It also involves positing the mechanisms and conditions which shape and influence the forms which the observed phenomena take. This task is carried out in chapter 4. In this case, it has been suggested that the search for identity and material existence/objectification do the shaping. It will be noted that these ‘mechanisms’ are not necessarily directly observable. In positing such mechanisms, it may be thought that the book ‘telegraphs’ its conclusions or that its empirical content cannot sustain its conceptualisation. These views must be rejected. The mechanisms and relationships are assumed to exist but that existence must be empirically justified. It is not taken as given. Observation may be theory-dependent, but any set of ideas must be testable and tested, i.e. subject to empirical confirmation or denial. The research, in fact, borrows a notion from the realist perspective of science. Realism posits that scientific explanations must disclose causal mechanisms which may be beyond observation. Such a view places great importance on theory, allowing theoretical statements tomake ontological commitments.[27] Observation becomes a theory-laden enterprise. This means that the bases of observation, i.e. description and conceptualisation, ‘ must themselves be evaluated. Such evaluation has been traditionally neglected because scientific testing has usually meant the assessment of theory-neutral statements about empirical objects.[28] But the evaluation of the bases of observation is important not only because of the importance of theory, but also because decisive evidence cannot be found in the social sciences.[29] The dominance of empiricist interpretations results in a false view of the decisiveness of certain types of evidence. Specifically, it is the dominance of such rules of procedure that lead to such a conclusion. As Phillips puts it: …we do not consult what a proposition proposes, we consult the rules used to decide if what the proposition proposes is warranted.[30] In this research, the necessary relationship between empirical event and concept is dependent on the internal consistency of argument and theoretical coherence. It is also dependent on the honesty and integrity, the moral character, of the researcher.[31] Because of the importance of this character and the need to investigate the bases of observation is a theory-dependent exercise, the author’s own sense of place is presented. Indeed, the validity and verification of any case study is contingent on exposing the role and nature of its investigator,[32] a task interestingly carried out for example, by Buttimer with her explicit discussion of her life and values and by Symanski more explicitly in his tales of riding the rails.[33]

To obtain the forms which sense of place takes and to suggest the relationships between these forms and the ‘mechanisms’, three interrelated methods are employed. One of these is self-reflection and the material so derived is regarded as just as valid empirical material as that obtained from other approaches. Although the research tries to avoid being empiricist, the analytical methods of conventional science, the second methodology, are used to gather and analyse information. Positivism does not have a monopoly of such methods, and they have been recently vigorously defended from an interpretative viewpoint by Marsh.[34]

The information gained by using such methods is seen as crucial not only in presenting a picture of a place but also in providing a data base for other methodological exercises. While it must be noted that the interpretative methodologies – the third type – utilise additional evidence, the book must be regarded as an investigation of an empirical problem on which different methods throw different lights. This is not to suggest that all methods are equally illuminating. ‘Critical interpretation’ is seen as the most illuminating method but it does utilise material from the ‘empiricist’ analysis. The mutually supportive nature of fieldwork, i.e. the use of conversation and unstructured qualitative methods and survey methods has been demonstrated by Sieber,[35] while Trow has suggested that no single techniques can claim a monopoly on the plausibility of inference.[36] While the adoption of three methodologies is grounded in philosophical argument (Chapter 3), it can also therefore be supported by sociological approaches. Schatzman and Strauss argue that the researcher is concerned with strategies that yield meaningful and value data.[37] Different but integrated data-sets allow the problem to be examined from different perspectives.[38] Multiple strategies, as Burgess terms them, can provide flexibility, cross-validation of data and theoretical relevance.[39] Thus, for example, the author’s own sense of place must be interpretable in terms of the conceptions used to interpret those of others.

What follows is an investigation of the forms that sense of place may take and an attempt to relate these forms to the totality of individual lives. The book takes the following form: chapter 2 presents an autobiographical beginning with no attempt to interpret or relate that autobiography to the other data. It is provided to present postulates which can be used to inform and validate other data. Chapter 3 examines its greater detail than in this chapter the methodologies used and the bases for using them. Chapter 4 presents the conceptual framework by which the empirical material is interpreted. Chapter 5 is an account of the survey analysis using structured questionnaires, while Chapter 6 details the ideal typical constructions of senses of place and the attempt to relate these constructions to the idea that sense of place is inextricably linked to identity and material existence. Despite the prominence given to methodological discussion and conceptual detail, the study is primarily empirical.

Your planet is very beautiful (the little prince) said. Has it any oceans? I couldn’t tell you, said the geographer… And towns, and rivers, and deserts? I couldn’t tell you that either. But you are a geographer! Exactly, the geographer said. But I am not an explorer… It is not the geographer who goes out to count towns, the rivers… and the deserts. The geographer is much too important to go loafing about. He does not leave his desk. But he receives the explorer in his study, He asks them (sic) questions, and he notes down what they recall of their travels. And if the recollections of any one of them seem interesting to him, the geographer orders an inquiry into that explorer’s moral character.[40]

We must, therefore, engage, explore and speak to the ‘real world’. Without that,