Download Residential quality and the construction of social identity in rural

Fourth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies
1-3 July 2013 at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Session:
Residential quality and the construction of social identity in rural areas with population
decline
Session organisers:
Sabine Meier (Applied Research Professor, Hanze University of Applied Sciences,
Groningen)
Joke Terlaak Poot (PhD-researcher, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen)
Various perspectives have been developed by academic scholars to analyze the relationship between
residential quality and social identity (Easthope, 2004; Gieryn, 2000; Mallett, 2004). Constructing
social identity is closely related to attachment to 'home', which does have certain social, aesthetic and
physical qualities (Blunt and Dowling, 2006). Attachment to a particular dwelling and neighbourhood
has been regarded as crucial for the development of a person’s positive sense of self (Buttimer, 1980;
Dovey, 1985; Pratt, 1981; Savage et al., 2006).
From an environmental psychological perspective, attachment to particular qualities of dwelling
and neighbourhood is defined as a cognitive process, consisting of emotions and rational responses
referring to sociospatial experiences. It results in a range of different personal attitudes towards a place
(Cuba and Hummon, 1993; Proshansky et al., 1983). The environmental psychological perspective on
the correlation between residential quality and social identity has been developed further by other
social scholars like sociologists and human geographers. When people decide to move they consider if
the new place whether or not will fit their sense of self. The freedom to choose a particular residential
quality is dependent on people’s assets. According to Savage et al. (1992) property - which is often
regarded as synonym to a high residential quality-, is one of the three assets (besides cultural and
organizational assets) by which class formation is affected. Social groups attempt to preserve these
assets for future generations and convert one type of asset into another. As a result, residents aspire to
transforming their cultural assets into 'housing, so that the aesthetics of the middle-class residence
plays a major part in the exhibition of specific cultural taste and values' (Savage et al. 1992:94). Once
middle-class incomers had moved to their new home, they 'electively belong' to places by
distinguishing themselves from 'locals' who have historical attachments to the place (Savage et al.
2005; Savage 2010; Heins 2004; Gosnell 2011). However, both social groups share an interest in the
maintenance of a variety of qualities of the shared residential place.
In rural areas with population decline, the meaning of property and residential quality is changing.
Residents become confronted with the fact that they are not able to sell their property, when they want
to move. Besides, unoccupied houses provoke the decline of the house prices (on local level) and the
aesthetics of the residential space probably change from a 'decent and fitting image' towards an image
of decay. For the purpose of a more complete understanding of the relation between residential quality
and social identity in rural areas that are confronted with population decline, we are in search for
papers which deal in a broad sense with the following questions:
 How do spatial consequences of population decline (like vacancy and a disrupted
infrastructure) influence rural residential quality?
 How do population decline and demographic change inform everyday residential life?
 How do population decline and demographic change inform the 'feeling-at-home' experience
of residents?
 In what way do population decline and change threaten the idea of the so-called 'rural idyll' for
insiders and outsiders (Cloke 2003, Bell 2006)?
 How does the meaning of property change in areas with population decline and demographic
change?
Please send abstracts of approx. 300 words to Sabine ([email protected]) and Joke
([email protected]) before January 10th, 2013.
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