The Dimensions of Place Meanings

Abstract

This article aims to give an overview of how place meanings are created and how they influence people’s sense of belonging. It should be noted that the current literature has various shortcomings which mostly result from the lack of interdisciplinary research. The studies in place attachment usually focus on personal sense of belonging leaving aside those extending over various scales – such as, for instance, national identity. Also, place meanings and identity are primarily discussed as the very personal phenomena. On the contrary, place making and shaping is usually seen through more structural viewpoint by claiming that places mainly change in result of political or economic processes. Nowadays, there are even claims that due to the influx of globalization place no more matters and similar processes will happen everywhere. This notion does not take into account the special character of every place and the fact that outside forces come together in different ways in every place. Authors suggest that these different perspectives need to be united in order to fully grasp the character of place making and place meanings. In current articles, authors have adopted the multi-disciplinary approach and understood the place as uniting different processes starting from deeply personal meaning creation and ending with changes happening in global scale.