For the most part, academic literature neglects the psychological impact of public gardens and the landscape on human well-being. Literature about botanical gardening and urban landscape design provide the foundation of contemporary public gardening practices. Largely overlooked, however, is a discussion of the relevance of such gardens to visitors. Public gardens, however, can play an important role in fostering a sense of place in communities, in both historical and contemporary contexts. In this study, the impacts of such gardens are considered through Canadian experiences using perceptual lenses offered by diverse writers whose work can be found in bodies of literature related to history, geography, non-fiction, and poetry. Concepts such as ‘place-making’ which can foster ‘home-making’, for example, are intriguing and worthwhile areas of inquiry in understanding the role of public gardens in the urban landscape. This research explores the importance of ‘home’ in gardens. It also considers the importance of gardens to an individual’s internal (psychological) and external (social) home, particularly for those currently involved as volunteers at public gardens. The concept is related to stewardship and how being a steward of the garden home is key to being a steward of one’s internal home. The animating question here concerns the role that cultivated gardens might play in an individual’s connection to landscape. This topic is explored through an examination of volunteer programs (popularly known as Friends of the Garden programs) using grounded theory to explore the perceptions and perspectives of volunteers who work in three public gardens in Ottawa, Kitchener, and Toronto, Ontario. The subject of gardens and their interrelationship to people lends itself to an interdisciplinary methodological approach encompassing studies in landscape ecology, geography, history, planning, design, and psychology, among others. The qualitative methods approach used in this thesis involves an in-depth examination of secondary literature, as well as field work involving semi-structured interviews, and narrative methods. Further, this research explores the role these gardens play with respect to the unique Canadian sense of place and well-being found within urban public gardens. The findings of the research reveal differing perspectives of volunteers with respect to “sense-making” and the ways in which they engage with each other and with the urban public gardens where they work. In addition, the findings revealed the crucial role played by the volunteer as stewards of the garden. The volunteers see these gardens as sanctuaries and view their own role as serving the greater good of their communities for reasons that go beyond political and economic considerations; they are based on intrinsic sets of values. The research revealed that volunteers frequently possessed strong connections to childhood experiences spent in natural settings with their families. These experiences helped to stimulate a shared belief amongst gardeners that the very act of gardening is itself a valued and valuable “way of life”. Furthermore, volunteers are often retired and older; as such, they volunteer in the gardens as a way to contribute to the world to make it more beautiful and meaningful for others and to pass those gardens down to future generations. Gardens are seen as ways to re-create home from one’s childhood past; volunteers often link their present experience in the garden with a sense of connection and belonging in similar terms used to describe their home (as a country, a house, or a valued place). These findings demonstrate that there is a strong sense of place that is both acquired and fostered through engagement with urban public gardens. The findings also raise the possibility that public gardens play an important role in fostering sense of place in visitors. This, in turn, can contribute to a sense of home or belonging, and stewardship of communities and natural surroundings. This research contributes to an understanding of the role that public gardens play as valuable places that make important contributions to social and ecological well-being.

This thesis is based on seven weeks of fieldwork in Central Region and Western Region in Ghana and discusses how UNESCO listed forts and castles in the area shall be preserved and used today. Through in-depth interviews with important stakeholders and through observations at forts and castles the intention is to unveil what conflicts are present and also how heritage is being negotiated among these actors. A key issue is whether the sites shall be regarded as commodities or as public memorials. Working with the theoretical concepts of space, place and heritage and how these can be understood in the chosen context the thesis seeks to explain how different actors are able to transform the way these edifices are being used. The thesis’ contribution and what makes it relevant is especially how it illuminates that heritage is constantly being re-produced as a response to input from stakeholders. It also stresses the challenges in how to deal with heritage property in the contemporary planning context.

Flooding in the United States has been increasing over the past century due to changing hydrological conditions as well as increased human manipulation of the waterways. People continue to live in these high hazard areas, even with increasing risk levels. Flood hazard mitigation has increasingly become a primary goal of floodplain managers with buyouts, insurance, and other nonstructural approaches becoming more prevalent over the past two decades. Whole town relocations have become one flood mitigation option. This study explores which community factors affect a town's decision to relocate. Three study areas in the Midwestern U.S. were analyzed: Valmeyer, IL, Rhineland, MO, and Pattonsburg, MO. Each of these three towns underwent a buyout and town relocation after the flood of 1993. Data was gathered using personal interviews with community members, specifically elected officials and relocation committee members. Analysis of interview responses identified community sense of place as the primary factor influencing relocation decisions including leadership, cost, people, and landscape. Leadership included town incorporation, relocation decision and committees, handling of legal issues, and site selection criteria. Cost involved the relocation cost, post-disaster development and tourism, and the business community of the study areas. People included the town heritage, community type, and the various community organizations. Landscape includes the types of relocation completed, the speed of the relocation event, and the amount of pre-disaster planning. Maps created show the pre and post-relocation municipal boundary of the study sites in relation to the 500-year floodplain boundary.

Master of Arts / Department of Geography / Kevin Blake / Place-defining novelists convey regional imagery and regional sense of place to a wide audience, thus shaping popular perceptions of regions. Peter Mayle and Pierre Magnan are the most recent place-defining novelists of Provence, France. This research compares each author’s regional imagery and sense of place to understand what it means for each author to be in Provence. Place-name mapping geographically frames each authors’ regional imagery and sense of place. Qualitative coding and close readings of selected texts for each author identify sets of regional imagery, including nature and culture imagery, which help develop a sense of place for Provence. The subjectivities of qualitative coding analysis is addressed through personal narratives which acknowledges the researcher’s positionality vis-à-vis Provence. Mayle’s nature imagery emphasizes remote, rough topography and bright sunny skies, which presents the natural landscape as benevolent and therapeutic. Magnan’s nature imagery emphasizes rough topography, rivers, winds, and storms, which presents the natural landscape as powerful, indifferent or malevolent towards human affairs, and imbued with a sense of deep time and an enigmatic quality. Mayle’s culture imagery emphasizes healthy, traditional agrarian lifeways; vibrant village life and social connectedness; a positive and prominent tourist industry; and a food culture which permeates Provençal identity. Magnan’s culture imagery emphasizes the harsh realities of agrarian lifestyles; insular and mistrusting villages; hard and frugal villagers; historical continuity; and references to ruined or abandoned landscapes and cultural loss. Mayle’s sense of place defines Provence as a region defined as idyllic, most strongly developed by his culture imagery which emphasizes idealized agrarian lifeways and Provence’s food culture. This idyll is deepened with the positive associations with Provence’s tourist industry. Magnan’s sense of place defines Provence as a region defined by a melancholic sublime. His powerful, enigmatic nature imagery is the strongest shaping force behind developing Provence’s sublime qualities. Provence’s melancholic quality is linked to Magnan’s nature imagery’s enigmatic characteristics, which invite contemplation, and his culture imagery associated with ruins and cultural loss, which offers further invitation to contemplation and conveys a sense of grief.

This thesis explores the use of sound recordings in the revitalisation of two minority languages – the Ainu (Japan) and the West Frisian (the Netherlands). Over the last few decades, a growing concern about linguistic diversity in the world has led to an increasing awareness of minority languages, which are endangered by loss. The concept of language revitalisation calls for work which will affect the vitality of these languages. The nature of these revitalisation efforts is inscribed into place-related processes and the interpretations of the relationships between language speakers and the place they live in. Sound recordings can afford language revitalisation with the restoration of sounds of languages. This thesis argues that the heart of language revitalisation lies in the re-sounding of place attachment and sense of place. The selection of the two language cases studies, which allow for the multi-faceted use of sound recordings to be revealed and understood, constitutes an important part in the search for an understanding of these interconnections. Based on these two language case studies, which contrast in degrees of language endangerment, this research analyses how and why sound recordings engage in the processes of language revitalisation. Qualitative methods of research, encompassing forty one semi-structured and episodic interviews conducted in Japan and the Netherlands along with observations and secondary data analysis, were used in this study. The comparative approach revealed similarities and differences in the revitalisation of the Ainu and West Frisian languages and the practices of using sound recordings. Importantly, this thesis demonstrates that the significance of sound recordings arise from their capability of creating aural experience of the language, which empowers both processes of language revitalisation with the restoration of place attachment and sense of place. This finding represents a key contribution to the research of linguistic and geographical knowledge about the revitalisation of endangered languages, the role of technology in language revitalisation and to the debate on saving linguistic and cultural diversity in the world.

Master of Arts / Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work / Laszlo Kulcsar / Commercial trucking by its nature is a transient occupation, and those involved with commercial trucking can find themselves on the road and away from their homes for extended periods of time. Given the occupation’s transitory nature, why have some commercial drivers chosen to call rural America home when any place near a highway should suffice? Through the use of semi-structured interviews, this thesis attempts to explore whether rural truck drivers have any historical or geographical ties to the rural areas that they have chosen to live in. Using qualitative interview approach this thesis endeavored to find whether there are connections to the loss of agricultural or rural manufacturing jobs in a rural driver’s community and their decision to enter the occupation of trucking. In this way this thesis has attempted to discern to what extent structural changes in the rural economy over the last 40 years, may have played a role in a person’s decision to enter the occupation of trucking. This thesis has also attempted to elicit a phenomenological understanding of how they rural truck drivers understand themselves in relation to the larger American society through the work they perform.

Ringsberg-Kristineberg is an area that contains a great cultural history dating back to the 18th century. In this area the city of Växjö is hoping to develop a “cultural and creative centre”. To achieve this they have used a planning method called cultural planning, this method uses for example a place’s culture and heritage as a guide in the search for what makes a certain place unique. The project in Ringsberg-Kristineberg made me interested in finding out which cultural heritages that were included and excluded in the future “cultural and creative centre”. I found three documents that contained the planning process of the project in Ringsberg-Kristineberg which I used as a material for a quantitative content analysis and qualitative textual analysis. The aim in this study is to examine which cultural heritage has been included and excluded in the accompanying documentation of the cultural planning-process in Ringsberg-Kristineberg. This was done by answering the following questions: (1) What does the inclusion / exclusion of cultural heritage look like in the accompanying documentation of the cultural planning method? (2) Seen from a timeline perspective; does it differ what has been included / excluded if one compares the accompanying documentation?The result shows that the first and the third of three documents show the exact same result regarding what has been included and excluded. The second document differs, it includes less heritages compared to the other two documents. Some of the included heritages are cultivation and planting, the brewery industry, the old prison and the old school town.

This phenomenological study contributes to scholarship on the geographies of higher education by examining the importance of “place” for the design and planning of college campuses. In particular, the study explores the lifeworlds of two community college campuses in British Columbia, Canada, comparing the “sense of place” at an urban campus in the lower mainland of British Columbia with a rural campus on Vancouver Island. In contrast to conventional treatments of the campus as absolute space, this dissertation considers how higher education campuses serve as places of meaning to those who use them. Using a combination of natural walk-along interviews and mental mapping methods with 23 participants, the findings from this study support Seamon’s (2013) contention that places – in this case, college campuses – are interanimations of people and their physical environments where meanings and a sense of place are created through the practices of daily routines. Participant responses also suggest that a sense of belonging to community, with its concomitant academic benefits, is advanced by encouraging a feeling of “at-homeness” on campus. These findings put into question the reliance of conventional campus design and planning approaches on the visual impact of the built environment to create a sense of place. Instead, building from Gehl (2011), they highlight how design and planning efforts that support the gathering of people and their routine use of campus spaces can foster the “place-ballets” that make vibrant and distinctive places. In generating spontaneous interpersonal encounters, place-ballet also sets the conditions understood to support the creation of new knowledge. To advance the notion of place-ballet, the study concludes by offering the neighbourhood as a model for campus design and planning that both connects home to community and encourages citizen engagement. / Graduate

This thesis aims to discover, understand and appreciate the history of New Port Richey. New Port Richey's growth was affected by many of the same social changes taking place all over Florida, most notably the coming of the railroad, the popularity of the automobile, and the land boom of the 1920s. Post-World War II prosperity, pest control, air conditioning, and interstate highways attracted people to this city nicknamed the "Gateway to Tropical Florida." Unique to this area was the Legend of Chasco, an invented tradition to draw tourists and new residents to the area, and the beautiful Pithlachascotee River meandering through the heart of town as it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico. New Port Richey hoped to become the "Hollywood of the South." What remains distinctive about New Port Richey today? What are its special features and characteristics that separate it from hundreds of other locales in the Tampa Bay metropolis? My methodology is simple; I will analyze and evaluate information gathered from available primary and secondary sources: Interviews, observations, newspapers, books, articles and government documents. Chapter one analyzes the invented tradition of Chasco, which is a part of the history and heritage of this community. New Port Richey wished to cash in on the land boom of the 1920s. Having little history of its own, the invented tradition of Chasco was born, first celebrated in 1922; it is still celebrated today. Chapters two and three chronicle the history, as well as the tales of New Port Richey, from its first inhabitants and pioneer settlers to present-day New Port Richey. Chapter four introduces the land known as the Starkey Wilderness Park and Preserve, a supplier of West Pasco's freshwater supply, which lies just east of the city. Starkey donated several thousand acres to the Southwest Florida Water Management District for his dream of permanently protecting the land and its resources for future generations. Uncontrolled growth and development has eliminated evidence of New Port Richey being the "Gateway to Tropical Florida." Land and water conservation needs to be a top priority. New Port Richey, no longer has that "special something."

What happens to man’s place when non-human nature – man’s environment – is under threat? Norwegian author Maja Lunde explores this in the four novels that make up the “climate quartet,” Bienes historie (2015), Blå (2017), Przewalskis hest (2019) and Drømmen om et tre (2022), in which she discusses various climate issues. This master’s thesis investigates how Lunde establishes the significance of place and the meaning of nature as a place in her climate quartet, with an emphasis on the dystopian portrayal of place and the relationship between the human and the non-human. The analysis employs a thematic close reading approach, using ecocriticism as a general theoretical framework. In particular, the works of scholars Ursula K. Heise, Doreen Massey, and Antonia Mehnert on the meaning of place contribute to this study’s analytical framework, which includes concepts such as sense of place, de- and reterritorialization, riskscape, non-places, the global and the local. The study also draws on Sigmund Freud’s and Martin Heidegger’s concepts of the Uncanny. The thesis shows that in Lunde’s climate fiction, place is a prominent actor because it threatens the characters' existence and can be perceived as a catalyst for the stories’ events. The characters’ identity as nomads who traverse the world as a global riskscape is a key theme. The fictional world is characterized by emptiness, which can be perceived as a result of deterritorialization. The emptiness in some places leads to the concept of the Uncanny in both the dystopian future perspective, where the climate-changed world is depicted as an uncanny place, and in the past and present perspectives, where nature is often depicted as an uncanny quasi-object. The characters’ awareness of nature as an ambivalence is particularly significant. The analysis of Lunde’s use of place and the meaning of nature as a place provides a nuanced exploration of the complex relationship between humans and their environment.