Thesis (doctoral)--Helsinki University of Technology, 2003. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 9, 2007). Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-256). Also issued in print.

Adaptation has increasingly come to be recognised as an urgent and necessary response to climate change. The ability of a system to carryout adaptation is dependent on its adaptive capacity. To date, the majority of research relating to adaptation has focused on the objective and material determinants of a system's capacity to adapt to severe and extreme weather impacts. Whereas the role that subjective factors, such as people's perceptions, beliefs and values play in that same process, has received comparatively less attention. Despite being a global phenomenon, climate change is being experienced and responded to in local places. More than just physical locations, places are often imbued with meaning by the people associated with them. This thesis argues that these meanings have implications for the ways in which people adapt, or fail to adapt, to climate change impacts. It uses the concept 'sense of place', as a means of capturing this place meaning and as a lens for exploring adaptive behaviours in three low-income urban communities in the Dominican Republic. In particular it examines the specific roles of residents' place attachment, dependence and identity in motivating and constraining adaptive behaviours. Based on qualitative research with ethnographic underpinnings, the thesis shows that the urban poor sense of place is shaped by interconnected relationships between residents and; their homes, the physical and social aspects of their communities and a range of non-community actors. These relationships are shaped by physical and social interactions with and within places, but also through the discursive construction of the locations and the inhabitants of them in public opinion. Residents continuously seek out ways to enhance their sense of place, at times as an improvement in the built environment as a means of preventing or ameliorating environmental threats and events. However, often it is enhancement, in an aesthetic sense, which is envisaged as being of equal and sometimes greater importance. Although aesthetic improvements sometimes have the resultant impact of enabling adaptation, this tends to be incidental, rather than purposeful. Despite the importance placed by the urban poor on their sense of place, these subjective determinants and adaptation in the urban environment, remain unrecognised as well as absent from local institutional and policy radars. Overall the research suggests the need for a more comprehensive approach to understanding adaptive capacities. It requires an approach which continues to measure the objective determinants but which also recognises the role of people's relationships to places in converting or failing to convert objective capacity into climate change action and in dictating the type activities that are valued and prioritised by urban poor residents themselves.

Over the last three decades, within the context of globalisation and intensified inter-urban competition, we have observed the growing use of market-centred strategy such as ‘marketing or branding places’. Despite the worsening of the economic situation since the 2008 global financial crisis, the overall trend of expansion of place marketing based on marketing science keeps going further in many cities in South Korea. Why does this phenomenon happen? How can we interpret it at this time? What does this mean for the cities and their residents? In order to answer these questions, this thesis attempts to understand the process of place marketing projects, and analyse how they were politically formed and what their actual effects were for residents. In addition, it develops a critical understanding of the evolution of urban place marketing projects from the political perspective in Gwangju, South Korea: the Gwangju Biennale, the Asian Culture Complex, the Dome Baseball Stadium, the Urban Folly, and the Gwangju Universiade 2015. Through a nation-wide Korean expert survey and a case study of Gwangju, this research shows that Korean place marketing shares common trends with Western cities as well as having some specifically Korean characteristics. In particular, it tries to reveal the evolving nature of Korean place marketing by employing a combination of multi-scalar and cultural politics approaches. The thesis concludes that some Korean cities such as Gwangju have moved toward neo-liberalisation by employing entrepreneurial strategies of place marketing.

In an increasingly globalized world, emphasis on attracting investment, talent and tourists has resulted in similar iconic urban landscapes in cities. This has increased concerns on the reduction or complete loss of local identity along urban waterfronts. This study aimed to develop a set of design guidelines that contribute to the establishment of local identity on urban waterfronts. The research focused on the history and current status of urban waterfront development, globalization impacts on urban landscape, notions of place identity and place making. It defined local identity as one type of place identity and explored the key aspects that foster local identity in waterfront development. A case study was conducted by analyzing these key aspects in a successful waterfront development. From a synthesis of the findings, a set of design guidelines was developed and then tested on an unsuccessful project; recommendations for future improvement were based on the developed guidelines.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2009. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-200).

This thesis examines how changes to rural places and landscapes are experienced by residents and incorporated into place attachments and identities over time. It does so through exploring findings from seventy-eight qualitative, ‘emplaced’, oral history interviews in three English villages: Mullion (Cornwall); Askam and Ireleth (Cumbria); and Martham (Norfolk). These villages are located near to at least one existing windfarm, which – as an example of rural change - provides a common focus for the research. The research is informed by a ‘middle-ground’ theoretical approach that considers discursive and experiential aspects of people-environment relationships and pays particular attention to how engagements with the past are enrolled in shaping experiences of landscape, place and change. Attitudes towards rural place-change are identified as being shaped by four complex, relational facets, viz: i) discursive interpretations of rural place, (post)nature and temporality; ii) experiential factors; iii) assessments of utility; and iv) local contexts. The thesis draws these together into a conceptual framework that helps guide analyses of place-change experiences. The framework’s value is demonstrated through applying it to the example of windfarms. The results reveal perceptions to be complex and multifarious but suggest that changes can be incorporated into place attachments and identities so long as highly-valued place assets are not harmed. The research makes a valuable contribution to geography by enhancing understandings about everyday rural lives and experiences; and revealing parallels between academic and lay discourses about landscape, ‘nature’ and place-temporality. It also adds to the considerable literature on perceptions of renewable energy by providing insights into attitudes towards windfarms at the post-construction, rather than proposal, stage.

Contemporarily, the hosting of mega-events (MEs) is one of several strategies used by cities and governments to bring about improvements in a place s image and recognition. While London, host of the 2012 Olympic Games, is already considered to be a leading global city (e.g. Anholt & GfK Roper, 2011), the potential image benefits to be accrued from hosting the Games may in fact impact more upon internal, domestic perceptions rather than on external, international perceptions (Anholt, Oon, Masure et al., 2008). A key objective, therefore, for those involved in the development and delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games is to further enhance the image of the city (both domestically and internationally) and to minimise the risk of negative image formation (DCMS, 2008). However, image, in the context of MEs, is not an easy component to control, as previous Olympic Games have demonstrated (Shoval, 2002; Smith, 2005). The main purpose of this critical-realism-informed project, underpinned by theoretical-methodological social representation theory (SRT) (Moscovici, 1961, 1984), was to evaluate the domestic image impact of hosting the 2012 Olympics, pre- and post- Games, for the city of London. Based then on social representation theory, and a combination of abductive and retroductive research strategies, a survey was carried out among British citizens to identify their opinions concerning London as a city (or place brand), the Olympics as a ME, and the 2012 Games as a one-off event. Exponential non-discriminative snowball sampling was used to recruit participants (UK citizens, pre-event, n=561, post-event n=215) who completed a mixed-methods questionnaire both before and after the 2012 Olympics were held. The main part of this questionnaire was comprised of randomised free word-association tasks (qualitative) using London, the Olympics and 2012 London Olympics as inductor terms; i.e., Please give the first 10 words that come to mind when you hear the term . Data analysis involved collating the responses of the free word-association tasks into semantic word clusters, with one word (or phrase) representing each theme be that an object, emotion, an opinion, etc. Only words or phrases cited by 15% of participants were used to construct the image of each entity. The next level of analysis involved producing a similarity index and subsequent dendrogram, based on Kendal s correlation coefficient, that established the strength of the connections between the various elements of each social representation. The content and the structure of these pre- and post-event social representations were analysed and then compared to determine whether a.) hosting the 2012 Olympic Games represents an appropriate strategy to develop the city s domestic brand; b.) a co-branding process occurred, expressed by an image transfer, from the event to the place, or vice-versa; and c.) the major differences between the images generated by those living closest to London, compared to those living elsewhere in the UK. While London s overall image does not go through any significant changes pre-to-post event, the results of this study corroborate the value of sporting events in place branding strategies from a domestic perspective, but highlights some limitations, such as the exacerbation of London s pre-existing negative associations. In terms of co-branding, the results do not reveal a co-branding process to have occurred between London and the overall image of the Olympics, but there is some movement of elements from London to the 2012 event (related mainly to pre-Games anticipation) and between the 2012 event and the overall Olympics (related to the latter s unique defining associations). Finally, in terms of the differences between the images generated by those living closest to London, compared to those living elsewhere in the UK, there is a difference which appears to have been facilitated, at least in part, by a 2012-effect, with the event seemingly contributing to London being perceived as generally busier, more expensive and more congested by those living closest to the city, but more vibrant and more multicultural by those living elsewhere in the UK.

Preventing the environmental impacts of economic growth is an important goal in today’s marketplace. This concern for a sustainable future incentivises marketing based around sustainability. The food and beverage industry had its fair share of criticism as its production uses more natural resources than most industries. One industry that has been ahead of other food processors in adopting environmental practices is the wine industry. The close relationship between wine and places is undisputable and so strong that people frequently visit places of wine production in the form of wine tourism contributing significantly to regional economies. For wine to be associated with sustainability, regional stakeholders would be required to represent similar values. The branding of places is far more intricate than branding of products and needs the support of those stakeholders involved. Such support is often discussed as a shared place identity. Only limited previous research has addressed whether the communication of sustainability enhances business performance. No research to date has empirically tested whether a shared stakeholder identity influences the relationship between sustainability branding and business success. To close this gap, a sequential mixed methods procedure was specified using quantitative questionnaires with 420 subjects and 20 qualitative interviews. A model with consequences of sustainability branding and a shared place identity was established using extant research. Mostly existing scales were adapted to fit this research context and tested with a structural modelling approach among Australian and German wineries. It was found that practicing and communicating sustainability significantly influences performance on an individual winery and regional destination level. Furthermore, a shared place identity has been established as a critical success factor in the relationship between sustainability branding and place performance. Both theoretical and practical implications can be drawn from this research. The results have provided empirical evidence on the direct relationship between sustainability and performance, in addition to the moderating role of a shared place identity. These findings extend the tourism literature which states that businesses practicing sustainably, enhance their own performance as well as the overall regional performance. It also extends stakeholder theory by establishing that a shared place identity strengthens this relationship even further, highlighting the need for regional management to initiate a shared sense of identification. Practically, regional managers who are eager to enhance economic performance should be actively involved in developing relationships between the individual wineries and the regional management in order to foster a shared place identity. Furthermore, it is of major importance to establish positive attitudes toward sustainability among winery owners. This can be done by building the confidence of winery owners by offering infrastructures for learning and support about sustainability.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This paper proposes using the complementarity of text and writing an ethnographic photoethnographic do some reading about the displacement of the subjects in the urban towns of Uruguaiana (BRA) and Paso de los Libres (ARG), Deliverance (BRA) and Rivera (URU). When people move on space planning, move with them cultural and material goods, ways of thinking and seeing the world. These guys crossing the bridge or take the line with them all their references to the world allowing that culture can be seen as a make, which can be produced and reproduced. In these various shifts for a diversity of views on the border, so try to understand how individuals who live in or are just passing through it, move in this space, how they relate from territorial marks, discussing the concepts of anthropological place and no place proposed by Marc Augé (1994). To present and describe the seizures made from the resort to fieldwork as photoethnographic founding of this research methodology, and this study included in discussions of audiovisual anthropology. / Este trabalho se propõe por meio da complementaridade entre texto etnográfico escrito e uma fotoetnografia realizar uma leitura sobre os deslocamentos dos sujeitos no espaço urbano, nas cidades de Uruguaiana (BRA) e Paso de Los Libres (ARG), Livramento (BRA) e Rivera (URU). Ao se moverem pessoas sobre o espaço territorial, se movem com elas bens culturais e materiais, modos de pensar e ver o mundo. Esses sujeitos que atravessam a ponte ou a linha levam com eles todas as suas referências de mundo permitindo que a cultura possa ser vista enquanto um fazer, possível de ser produzido e reproduzido. Nestes diferentes deslocamentos há uma diversidade de olhares sobre a fronteira, por isso procuro entender como os sujeitos que moram na região ou que estão somente de passagem por ela, se movem neste espaço, como se relacionam a partir dos marcos territoriais, discutindo os conceitos de lugar antropológico e não-lugar propostos por Marc Augé (1994). Para apresentar e descrever as apreensões realizadas a partir do trabalho de campo recorro à fotoetnografia como metodologia fundante desta pesquisa, estando este estudo inserido nas discussões da antropologia audiovisual.

«Place» is a word that have many applications and meanings in the daily talking. This has given way to different conceptual interpretations that may confuse to some geographers, especially those too close to social sciences. There are already some anthropological opinions in the sense that in opposition to places that reflect some identity to their users, there are the «non-places»; that is sites where people may transit without any feeling of their existence. Such are the cases of modern shopping centers, express highways, airports, etc.The argument in this paper is that those sites are in some way stable in time and their permanence makes them part of a local landscape. In this sense, these artifacts become part of the landscape and are adopted by local people as part of their goods that develop some identity feelings alike the ones for places. This is shown when comparing with other places that have some similar spatial arrangements. / El termino «lugar»; se viene utilizando de varias maneras en el uso cotidiano y ultimamente están apareciendo algunas apreciaciones conceptuales que pueden confundir a algunos geografos. Ya hay opiniones antropologicas que hacen referencia a los ≪no lugares≫ es decir eventos que se encuentran en el espacio pero que no despiertan ningun apego o sentimientos de identidad, como son los modernos centros comerciales, supercarreteras, aeropuertos, etcetera.El argumento de este articulo es que a pesar de que esos eventos puedan pasar sin interés para los visitantes, son cuerpos reales y permanentes que ocupan espacios geograficos, es decir ocupan un lugar. Por lo tanto despiertan sentimientos de identidad para la gente que vive cerca de ellos y son motivo de recuerdos cuando se comparan con otros lugares.