Sustaining local senses of place in a global world: Some critical reflections

Background/Question/Methods

In the fields of ecology and the environment, globalization and even enlightenment-inspired Western science are sometimes portrayed as threats to local sense of place. Moreover, understanding and valuing local senses of place are commonly seen as critical factors in becoming more responsible stewards of the places we call home and of the planet. For some, sense of place implies an environmental ethic that fosters a more sustainable relationship to nature. However, human geographers have, for the most part, rejected such idealized and perhaps romanticized views of places in favor of understanding places as unbounded, plural, and continuously contested multi-scalar social-spatial constructs. Accordingly, sense of place is not limited to local knowledge or cultural practices and values, but also reflects differences in the distribution and organization of political power within and among places and at different scales. While it is indeed important to recognize how environmental policies affect local sense of place, the ecological or social value of sustaining any particular local sense of place remains an open question.

Results/Conclusions  

This paper identifies three critical points to clarify the character and value of local sense of place in global sustainability. First, globalization may be as likely to invigorate local sense of place as it is to dilute it. As globalization homogenizes and alienates people from local distinctiveness, people often turn to the distinctiveness of their locale to reaffirm their sense of belongingness and counter what they take to be the negative impacts of globalization. Second, the paper draws from human geography to critically examine the often assumed advantages of local senses of place as moral guides to relationships with nature (local senses of place can be both unjust and unsustainable). Three, the paper argues that in a world of plurality and difference sustainability involves the difficult task of balancing three ways places are constituted, interact, and vary with scale: as ethnos (parochial attachments to shared meanings and practices); as demos (open and pliable cosmopolitan ideals supportive of a common humanity); and as bios (citizens and stewards of social-ecological systems). The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for more adaptive, sustainable governance of social-ecological systems at multiple scales.