Environmental Psychology: Place Identity Essay

Environmental psychology and place identity, as a part of it, helps researchers to investigate and analyze unique qualities, features and individuality of a person from a certain geographical place. The aim of the research is to investigate the issue of place identity and illustrate this problem with real life examples and cases. In general, the tension between the common and the individual in identity formation holds the analytic solution to understanding the relationships between identity and place. Having opened the issue of differences, the research will explore the implications of differentiation.

Place and setting have a great impact on individual identity and individuality formation. Traditional identity envisions an “organic” society characterized by numerous distinctions of a moral, habitual, and authoritative variety. Identity relies on a setting that continually divides the society on the basis of a single indicator of certain characteristics. And ethical distinctions have no place in environmental theory. Identity and social traditionalism do not easily cohabit. What begins socially as the promise of a common vision of identity becomes a recipe for a failure of governance as divisions are exacerbated. The traditionalist identity is one that implicitly favors one society, and very nearly one race, over others. The individualist identity avoids the problems of race, gender, and class by resolving all issues into a matter of identity striving. Taken by itself, neither deals with the world as critics know it: a global society in which race, gender, religion, nationality, class, and culture are very real indeed, and in which the ethical superiority of one over another cannot be easily demonstrated. Identity analysis is consistent with the view that social knowledge takes place not through the exposure of divine truth, or of an absolute morality, but through the working out of dealings between individual promptings and social interactions (Sokolowski, 2000).

The phenomenological research will be used to analyze the problem of identity and its relation to place. In general, qualitative research designs in the social sciences stem from traditions in anthropology and sociology, where the philosophy emphasizes the basis of a study, the elaborate description of the “meaning” of phenomena for the people or culture under examination. Often in a qualitative design only one subject, one case, or one unit is the focus of investigation over an extended period of time. The phenomenological researcher “collects” the realities of the participants and the interpretations of their constructions. The first step, open description, is for the subject merely to describe directly his or her experience as completely as possible, extemporaneously, with no consideration of cause or origin. Even though phenomenology is private and holistic, it can be defended as not antiscience. It is this inability to abstract that forms the existential nature of psychology. That is, general laws and theories cannot be applied to a specific individual in a unique set of circumstances (Sokolowski, 2000). Others, however, argue that emerging sets of themes from many subjects may, in fact, form the essence of a generalization applicable to those in similar states of life. In this example, the subjects are allowed to discuss humor freely and in their own words, while they alone structure their responses. In the analysis, the transcription is carefully reviewed while attempting to maintain maximum openness. Following the first reading of the responses, the central meaning units expressed by the subjects are explicated. Then they are related to the whole to get at their central themes, their essence. One method of enhancing validity that crosses many other methods is triangulation. Triangulation is the combination of several data collection methods or data sources in the same design (Bechtel and Churchman 2009).

Landscapes and different geographical places have a great impact on cultural identity and uniqueness of people. In their essays, D. W. Meinig, O. Chavez, Ch. Lummis and S. Cormier portray the uniqueness of the Southern lands and how they shape the national identity of native populations. They admit that to understand the changing American landscape is to understand it aesthetically. An aesthetic interpretation of the landscape is not peripheral but central to understanding the physical transformation of post-industrial society. The failure to understand, acknowledge, and explain the fundamental significance of rapid and dramatic change, in both private and public physical spaces, has been a failure to interpret such change aesthetically (Sokolowski, 2000).

According to the theorists, there is a structure to this learning transaction. We cannot be false to our individual talents and find a true identity. Nor can critics assert a wholly idiosyncratic identity and expect that it will be ratified as a form of competence by the community. Similarly, experience teaches us that the failure of mutuality is debilitating, just as the sustenance of it is rewarding. The assertion of a version of our place in the world that has us, or our group, in some status of exclusive privilege is bound to be undone in the test of human interaction. The interesting question is how we can translate this sort of learning to the level of a political process that will yield sensible policies that support human development. Were we to engage in this kind of social epistemology, there would predictably be limits placed on the role of entrenched power in favor of deliberation and open procedures. There would be support for the widest possible expression of views and the clearest possible accountability for public policy decisions. There is no absolute truth in identity analysis, but there are powerful probabilities that need to be allowed to rise to the surface of social consciousness. Given the protections for individual rights of dissent, there would also be the presumption that in decisions affecting the whole community, what the larger portion of the community has agreed to should hold for all rather than the views of a lesser portion of the community. By this test, private centers of power would be required to give way to public forms of decision making in community decisions (Burgess, 1994).

The example of Meinig depicts a unique identity of the region both geographically and culturally. Meinig explains the origin of the term southwest and its relations to other regions. Southwest is an “ethnocentric” term referring to the land inhabited by Hispano-Americans (3). Meinig underlines that without an aesthetic interpretation, history, demographics, sociology, and architecture offer merely discrete, patternless, and essentially incomplete and unsatisfying explanations of the transition from farm, to factory, to shopping mall, and beyond. To grasp fully the dynamics of the changing Southwest landscape is to identify and ultimately understand an emerging twenty-first-century American aesthetic. While being neither as benign as the agrarian nor as de facto as the industrial, the New Southwest Landscape will be the first synthetic environment in history whose aesthetics will systematically anesthetize those who call it home. We cannot afford to misinterpret the portents of things to come (Sokolowski, 2000). D. W. Meinig describes that the reconstruction of the environmental site does so far as to include new landscaping outside the walls, as well as inside. New vineyards are laid along the contours to accentuate the form of the walls. New paving is laid around the courtyard; the white plastered walls of the castle buildings make it seem more like a piazza than a fortification. Although the walls are extensively reconstructed to appear original, in some places, such as the new terrace and the elevator motor-room, the new fabric is differentiated by material and geometry. The new elements are the new doors—black steel rectangles which do not follow exactly the shape of their openings; here respect and confrontation are most evident (Bechtel and Churchman 2009).

In the research, The Chicano Homeland O. Chavez portrays links between unique place and identity of this ethnic group. Chavez analyses the importance of Anglo-Americans and their perception of the Southwest. The main difference was that Anglo-Americans viewed Southwest as a frontier while Chicanos perceived this place as a “lost homeland11… the conquered northern half of the Mexican nation” (11). Similar to other writers, Lummis calls this region “wonderland… with insight and understanding” (9). To understand how and why the American landscape is changing it is necessary to understand how and why the national groups have become a nation of suburban mishmash. The suburbs encircle historic city centers. They sweep outward into what is left of the countryside. They are dominated by shopping malls-the contemporary commercial equivalent of the medieval castle–that impose an economic and cultural hegemony on the immediate neighborhood. In contrast to other writers, Lummis writes about the history of the region and its historical development. He describes the Fred Harvey Company and importance of their lectures about the Pueblo Indians. Lummis writes: “the most vital sociologic and educational enterprise ever launched in this country” (8-9). Aesthetics are no longer meaningful as a disinterested sense of the beautiful independent of considerations of utility. Serious and significant change has redefined the character of American life with implications for all post-industrial consumer societies. However, we seem unaware of the meaning of what has transpired (Kopec, 2006). There are moments in history that divide eras–moments that serve to direct our attention, to inform us of a fundamental shift in collective perception, in professed values. The emergence of the landscape is just such a moment, whose significance, for the most part, has escaped the attention of sociologist, historian, and architectural critic alike (Moore and Pynes, 2001).

In contrast to other writers, Cormier underlines that at the beginning of the new millennium thousands of acres of countryside adjacent to existing cities were transformed into residential and commercial developments, the social, environmental, and aesthetic costs of which we have only begun to appreciate. The emergence of the new landscape has been one of the most far-reaching social transformations in history, carried out almost invisibly and without public understanding. The market has created the kind of housing, employment, and consumption choices acceptable to the majority of the public. However, as is usually the case, the public does not know the actual cost of the accompanying social, environmental, and aesthetic impacts. It is possible to say that so little of our historic landscape remains that it is difficult to appreciate our present aesthetic deprivation, having few opportunities for comparison. The emergence of the New American Landscape has been a lesson in the failure of our political system to identify and deal with significant social, cultural, and environmental problems (Moore and Pynes, 2001).

D. W. Meinig, O. Chcvez and Ch. Lummis explains that nature and natural landscapes are infinitely varied. There are few natural landscapes that do not possess unique and inherent beauty. People should therefore not discount the aesthetic qualities of a natural landscape, such as a cornfield or swamp, because it does not meet some aesthetic test of spectacle and grandeur. Almost all natural landscapes possess aesthetic qualities sorely missing from the man-made environment, and they are by virtue of that reality alone worthy of our recognition. More difficult by far is discovering an American landscape that combines both the natural and the man made in such a way as to create a totality that is aesthetically compelling. The resulting tableau is usually pleasing but often artificial, even contrived. It is as if such a felicitous combination of civilization and nature could only occur in the highly rarefied, if not stylized, confines of a stage-managed environment. Urbanization processes have changed traditional landscapes and identity. A modern man differs greatly from 19^th century Chicano or Hispano-Americans. The suburbanization of America has not been solely a result of simple economic growth. Neither is it entirely a function of race and social factors. Rather, suburbanization encompasses an aesthetic appeal that emerged in the demise of the ideal of the city. America has become suburbanized because the idea and the ideal of the city failed, broke down, to be replaced by the idea and the ideal of the suburb. The contemporary and future American landscape can only be fully understood within the context of changing notions of individual and collective identity (Kopec, 2006).

Two personal interviews were conducted for this research study. Their results allow us to say that a capital is not a mere material entity; it is also necessarily an emblem, a fountain of meaning which gives authority to a given power for both subjects, Alice Willis and Tom Gainers. These respondents underline that depending on the degree of this centralness in various fields, its semantic atmosphere stretches to more or less distant horizons. Its vectors are identity symbols of diverse kinds. A determining question is whether these symbols transcend, or not, the limits of a given ethnic or national community. Alice Willis states that the centralness, for her, is notably sustained by the diffusion of the English language throughout the world. In some places, language, and related spheres like literature, theatre etc. is but one semantic system among those which are at work in the making of the centrality of a capital. Architecture, or more generally said spatial organization, is at least as powerful a semantic tool in that respect (Chcvez, 2001).

In the places under analysis, the relation to its site and the appearance of a house are in marked contrast to the surrounding suburban development. The house is a concrete box with one open end, organized along a curved retaining wall which distorts the open end and extends out to form the side of a pergola. The curved retaining wall, running along the contours, represents and includes the landscape, in contrast to the rectilinear geometry of the house and pergola. The staircase runs through a three-storey-high light-filled void along this retaining wall (the entrance is at basement level), lit from above by a long window which re-establishes the horizon in the space—literally so, as the window is level with the side of the hill, The house has a material presence, but it is not dominated by its building; there is no distinction between columns and walls—all surfaces, except the floor in red, are in rendered concrete (Kopec, 2006). Tom Gainers underlines that rare and unusual is such a communion indeed between workers and students joined together in this common Endeavour, because it indicates no hierarchy of knowledge or authority. The ‘wise’, the ‘plain’ and the ‘innocent’ seemingly share those unequalled experiences on a strictly equal basis. The construction site actually reproduces a platonic society in miniature where conflicts have been completely removed. Place and identity becomes the uncontested guide to knowledge and truth to which he arrives in an oblique, tortuous manner by constant trial and error (Bechtel and Churchman 2009).

In modern city, each house (built to maximize solar power) is built on a small lot in clusters of eight with a common area adjacent. A larger communally owned open area, which houses a community centre and swimming pool, is accessible by footpaths within an open space system that links all the houses. The open space is used to collect rainwater via a system of small dams and allow it to percolate back into the underlying aquifer and for children’s play. There is a common orchard and vineyard and community garden plots or allotments which can be used free of charge. The project comprises the renewal of pedestrian and highway areas including the river walkway and lookout/sitting areas adjacent to the dock; the incorporation of an under-utilized neighborhood park on the site of a chapel destroyed by bombs during the Second World War; and the creation of a seating area outside the Waterman’s Arms public house. All areas are accessible to the disabled by the incorporation of ramps into the scheme. Flood defense levels had to be maintained, as did access to the river via the public slipway (Bechtel and Churchman 2009).

Visual surveys of the site and its environs str carried out and initial responses and reactions to the problems, possibilities and potentials of the site documented. The plan draws together the physical, cultural and spiritual history of the site. However, at the same time it creates a contemporary context for daily use and enjoyment by local people, visitors and tourists alike. The plan also reconnects the disparate elements into a cohesive whole, and attempts to create a work of landscape art that has meaning (Kopec, 2006). Two public consultation meetings are held: the first to present sketch ideas and gauge public reaction; the second to present developed designs and to seek public approval and comment, which is largely favorable. Issues that pit choice against tradition become the fault lines of modern conservative politics: abortion, school prayer, censorship of pornography, the environment, and approaches to internationalism. All these issues divide the right internally, as well as differentiating right from left (Sokolowski 2000; Lummis, 2001).

In sum, the research shows that dealing in distinct pieces rather than holes, they have become victims of their own overly focused, narrowly parochial perception. The aesthetic heritage of America is too important to be left in the hands of the usual architectural critics, urban planners, and environmental activists. Since ancient time, geographical places have reflected and shaped the national identity of the ethnic populations inhabited southwest. To travel across America, to live in much of the nation, is to experience a landscape that is truly indivisible. Whatever we choose to call it, its commonalities often surpass its differences. Both the city and its suburbs seem to exhibit a moral malaise. The metaphor of sickness and ill health is routinely employed to characterize the pathology by which urban and suburban America is debilitated. In recognition of increased international relations and cultural links with countries in the African region, a cultural policy has recently been put in place. At last there is a cultural strategy that endorses the value of acquiring and maintaining competencies in the black identity and culture. This approach serves to make racial differences a valued option of cross-cultural adaptation and increase African-American motivation to learn and accept their cultural values. Many people unavoidably experience varying degrees of acculturative stress. Though, the large numbers of recent ethnic populations who have arrived in times of economic recession face particular problems. Those regarded as elites in their local communities because of their qualifications and successes are faced with multiple losses in the initial period of rebuilding their careers in society. For many people- families the challenges of cultural adaptation have been compounded by bad employment prospects during the whole life.

References

Bechtel, R. B., Churchman, A. (2009). Handbook of Environmental Psychology. Wiley.

Burgess, R.G. (1994). In the Field: An Introduction to Field Research, London: Allen and Unwin.

Chcvez, O. (2001). The Chicano Homeland. in Melendez, A. G., Young, J., Moore, P., Pynes, P. Multicultural Southwest- A Reader. University of Arizona Press.

Cormier, S. (2001). “You Don’t Know Cows Like I Do”: Twentieth-Century New Mexico Ranch Culture. in Melendez, A. G., Young, J., Moore, P., Pynes, P. Multicultural Southwest- A Reader. University of Arizona Press.

Gainers. Tom. (2009). Personal Interview. Human Resource Manager in Dell. 20 April.

Lummis, Ch. (2001). The Golden Key to Wonderland. in Melendez, A. G., Young, J., Moore, P., Pynes, P. Multicultural Southwest- A Reader. University of Arizona Press.

Kopec, D. (2006). Environmental Psychology for Design. Fairchild Pubns.

Meinig, D. W. (2001). The Southwest: A Definition. in Melendez, A. G., Young, J., Moore, P., Pynes, P. (2001). Multicultural Southwest- A Reader. University of Arizona Press.

Sokolowski, R. (2000).Introduction to Phenomenology. Cambridge University Press.

Willis. A. (2009). Personal Interview. Supervisor in Tooco Supermarket. 20 April.