Changing Senses of Place: Navigating Global Challenges

Global challenges ranging from climate change and ecological regime shifts to refugee crises and post-national territorial claims are rapidly moving ecosystem thresholds and altering the social fabric of societies worldwide. This book addresses the vital question of how to navigate the contested forces of stability and change in a world shaped by multiple interconnected global challenges. It proposes that senses of place is a vital concept for supporting individual and social processes for navigating these contested forces and encourages scholars to rethink how to theorise and conceptualise changes in senses of place in the face of global challenges. It also makes the case that our concepts of sense of place need to be revisited, given that our experiences of place are changing. This book is essential reading for those seeking a new understanding of the multiple and shifting experiences of place.

Christopher M. Raymond is Professor in Sustainability Science, Sustainability Transformations and Ecosystem Services at the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences and Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, Finland. He serves as Coordinating Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Values Assessment. He has published extensively on the multiple values of nature.

Lynne C. Manzo is an environmental psychologist and Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. Her research focuses on place attachment, displacement, social justice and the politics of place.

Daniel R. Williams is Research Social Scientist at the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado, USA. He has published extensively on place-based conservation, adaptive governance of landscape change and the science of practice in wildfire and climate adaptation.

Andrés Di Masso is Associate Professor at the Departmental Section of Social Psychology, University of Barcelona, Spain. His work focuses on place-discourse, power and the everyday politics of people-place relations. He has contributed innovative theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches to place attachment, sense of place and place identity. He leads an international network on social change (GRICS).

Timo von Wirth is Assistant Professor at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences and the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions, Netherlands. His work addresses the dynamics and contestations of places in transformation. He has published extensively on the role of place in sustainability transitions, on the relationship of place attachment and urban change, and on the advancement of measuring the quality of life in urban contexts.