Evans et al.: A Place Meaning Scale
In A Place Meaning Scale for Rural Communities Undergoing Landscape Change, Nicole M. Evans (Natural Reserve System, UC-Santa Barbara), William P. Stewart (Recreation, Sport & Tourism, Illinois), and Carena van Riper (Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences, Illinois) developed a novel mixed-method research approach to study place meanings in two Midwestern counties undergoing landscape change at the rural-urban fringe.
Place (understood as space imbued with meaning) is a frame people often use “to make sense of their embeddedness in the world and to understand changes in their environment.” Essentially, the spirit of “place meaning” research is to appreciate the storied history and social context of relations between humans and their environment.
This research into “place meaning” was done in two phases:. First, the place meanings for two locations were developed qualitatively from interviews and focus groups held in Jasper County, Iowa, and Will County, Illinois. Second, a quantatative place meaning scale was developed based on the responses from the first phase. A household survey deploying this quantatative scale was used to verify initial place-meanings from the first phase interviews and to assess place meanings across a regional scale.
In this work, the authors found eight common place meanings throughout the two sample rural communities: (1) prairie conservation, (2) outdoor living, (3) agricultural pride, (4) small-town feel, (5) access to urban life, (6) tourism appeal, (7) family life, and (8) a caring community. Whereas place meanings are championed as appreciation of the idiosyncrasies of a locale, the development of a generic scale for regional place meaning may seem to contradict the essence of that place. But the authors emphasize the possibilities of deploying this novel research method—including with a more regional place-meaning focus—to assess how communities respond to wider landscape-level changes, including in other regions on the rural-urban fringe.
