Te Awa Tupua
Posted: September 12, 2012 Filed under: News | Tags: belonging, community and place, genius loci, place, place meaning, spirit of place, sustainable development 1 CommentNews of an astonishing agreement that recognises the status of a river in New Zealand as Te Awa Tupua, i.e. “an integrated, living whole”. New Zealand’s Minister for Treaty for Waitangi Negotiations, Christopher Finlayson stated:
Under the settlement, the river is regarded as a protected entity, under an arrangement in which representatives from both the iwi and the national government will serve as legal custodians towards the Whanganui’s best interests.
Adding:
Whanganui iwi also recognise the value others place on the river and wanted to ensure that all stakeholders and the river community as a whole are actively engaged in developing the long-term future of the river and ensuring its wellbeing.
The Whanganui River on the North Island of New Zealand
Immigrant home gardens and socialising future generations
Posted: January 27, 2012 Filed under: Reflections, Research | Tags: belonging, gardens, immigration, place, place attachment, sense of place 2 CommentsAs an English immigrant to this Mediterranean metropolis, whose “garden” consists of a few plastic and earthenware pots on a small balcony in view of a dozen similar balconies, I found myself relating to this research article whilst at the same time envying its subjects, i.e. immigrants who have private gardens in which to develop a sense of place that blends “the old place back home” with their new environment.
It’s not that I haven’t had space to enact similar practices to those described by the researcher. Last summer a heavily-scented pink rose bloomed for a few days on this humble balcony, and in a private moment I dedicated it to my late grandmother–she would call me wherever I was living in the world, and this was my way of imaginatively, perhaps even spiritually, reviving that connection.
Better people and places amid the post-riot cacophony
Posted: August 16, 2011 Filed under: News, Reflections | Tags: belonging, place identity, politics of place, sense of place Leave a commentI have taken my first plunge into blogging here close on the heels of rioting in urban England. Many of the first televised reactions with those affected first and first-hand—the non-rioting residents of some London neighbourhoods—revealed the shocks to many people’s sense of place, particularly in terms of their identifying with the place they live in. One black woman’s plaintive response sticks in my mind: “…but this is England”, as if this kind of thing doesn’t and shouldn’t happen in her place, her home, her England. Issues of belonging lie beneath the surface of what has happened too—“this is our community, and we have come here to get it back on its feet again”.
Sense Our Way 