HERITAGE
LEADERSHIP*
Sense of Place:
Toward Belonging, Empathy, and Common Ground
Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota): The Mirror Shield Project. In 2016, Water Protectors at Oceti Sakowin camp near Standing Rock, North Dakota, held up "mirror shields,” acting on the hope that police officers would see their humanity reflected in the mirrors. Cannupa Hanska Luger produces artwork that centers environmental justice and Indigenous political issues. Photo by Scott Olson.
Thank you to our contributing authors: Theresa Coble, Amanda Berlinski, Pamela Blair-Bruce,
Christina Cid, Carol Fitzsimmons, Delia Lister, and Heather Waterman
*The posture of a heritage leader is one of cultural humility, a readiness to rebalance power dynamics, and reciprocity.
Theresa:
As doctoral students and faculty mentors in the University of Missouri - St. Louis’s heritage leadership cohort, we’ve thought long and hard about sense of place. Through this article, we hope to bring awareness to the importance of place, provide tools to help us reflect on our experiences of place, and illustrate how we can engage the layers of meanings that places represent.
Place forms a backdrop to all our experiences in the world. I believe that places have power. They hold sway over our lives, memories, and imagination. We’re in an age of nostalgia, and place factors prominently in how we think about the past. Our sense of place influences what from our past we long for. The fact that our sense of place can be tethered to reality (through place experience) or untethered from reality (through our vivid but sometimes distorted memory or imagination) lends to its enduring power. If interpreters were to engage place with curiosity, respect, and a readiness to decenter their habitual responses, their interpretive work could become more richly contextualized.
Delia:
Theresa, on the "About NAI" webpage, there’s the “I am an Interpreter” video that explores the question “What is interpretation?” Below that, NAI shares its definition of interpretation. That’s also where NAI says: “If you help visitors learn about a place that’s important to you, you’re an interpreter!” NAI tightly couples place and interpretation!
Christina:
People may define sense of place in terms of what happened in a place or what’s currently happening there. But to deepen one’s sense of place, we need to consider: what are the meanings that people ascribe to a place, who ascribes which meanings, how have those meanings changed over time, and why did the meanings change?
Theresa:
The process you just described, Christina, could be framed as learning how to see. In our discussions, we’ve emphasized that “seeing” isn’t limited to visual perception. It’s really about the relationships and connections we create in our mind’s eye. When I was at the University of Minnesota, David Pitt was legendary on campus. He and his colleague, Daniel Nadenicek, introduced an issue of the Landscape Journal by saying:
Design professors frequently advise their students to learn how to see…First-year landscape architecture students are often asked to read Donald Meinig’s “The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene” (1979) in which he discusses the differing lenses people bring to landscape interpretation [and] urges caution about personal biases…
From these and other experiences, landscape architecture students quickly become aware of the multiple definitions and metaphorical uses of the word see. It variously means to perceive with one’s eyes; to understand; to visualize; to empathize with another’s perspective; and to imagine (create a mental image of) a future reality. (Italics added)
Carol:
Landscape architects tell us that seeing goes beyond just perceiving things with one’s eyes. In fact, seeing things is more about understanding, empathizing, and imagining a future reality. That’s something that anyone can pursue!
Seeing Multiple Points of View
- To perceive with one’s eyes
- To understand
Theresa: I wasn’t a landscape architect student at the University of Minnesota, but I did read Meinig’s "The Beholding Eye" essay. And I’ve assigned that reading to students too! In that linked PDF, pay particular attention to Section 1.4 and pages 10-21. Meinig makes a key point when he states that “any landscape is composed not only of what lies before our eyes, but also what lies within our heads.”
Heather:
Good point. We bring an observer bias to what we see, and each of us selectively focuses on different elements in a scene. As a result, we may draw different conclusions about what it means. I teach high school physics. When I have students work in groups to explore a phenomenon, I welcome different perspectives and different explanations. Some students self-censor because they’ve learned there’s only one right answer. But I’m always delighted to learn how different people see the same thing.
Pamela:
Meinig suggests that there are many lenses through which one might view a landscape, but he walks us through ten possible ways of viewing a scene. He suggests that we can view landscape as: nature, habitat, artifact, system, problem, wealth, ideology, history, place, and aesthetic. Let’s apply this approach. Let’s look at the following image, of a rural landscape in Washington State, through all of the lenses that Meinig listed. Are other lenses needed?
This photograph of a rural landscape in Washington State is part of the Library of Congress’s Carol M. Highsmith archive. Photo by Library of Congress’s Carol M. Highsmith archive.
Amanda:
As a visual artist and scientist, I see the aesthetic interplay of light and shadow in this image of the rural landscape. There are angles in the picture that direct your line of sight along the slopes and ravines, and the grain elevators are visually prominent. I see cultivated crops in the background; but there may be native or non-native species in the foreground growing in the fields. I am aware of the ecological implications of monocropping systems, the history of rural electrification in the U.S., and how corporations generate wealth through energy supply and the application of modern agricultural products. It’s landscapes like this that contribute to the idea of rugged individualism that influences some people’s idea of what it means to be an American. I think most viewers would see “evidence of care” in this scene—and that’s a cue for what makes a place attractive in a U.S. cultural context.
I can check all of Meinig’s boxes with this scene, but central to my awareness is a consideration of the land’s first inhabitants. As the daughter of a proud Native American man, I understand that Indigenous people, their history, and their active management of the land is an integral part of the land itself.
Carol:
I’ve been thinking about the interconnectedness of place, including the interdisciplinary notion of it. Geographers focus on place, but writers, sociologists, ecologists, activists, and even health care providers think about place as central to their work. Among interpreters, place may be an underutilized lens for examining difficult history or even exploring where we feel a sense of belonging and where we don’t.
Amanda:
Yes, and we read articles on this topic, including "Languages of Place and Discourses of Power" by Patricia A. Stokowski. In this article, and in others, researchers acknowledge that places create bonds between people. I think we could elevate the human aspect of place. And that’s not just people relating to each other; rather, it’s people relating to each other in the context of place. In this way, place nurtures a sense of belonging.
Seeing with an Ecological Aesthetic
- To understand
- To visualize
Delia:
You know, what we’ve been discussing reveals a tension between surface and depth. Paul H. Gobster, in his article "An Ecological Aesthetic for Forest Landscape Management," pointed out that our sense of beauty may be at odds with a deep understanding of ecology. He said, “By emphasizing the visual, dramatic, and picturesque attributes of nature; by treating the landscape as a static, formal composition…we may be limiting the range and depth of aesthetic opportunities we afford our public. This is unfortunate in itself, but the problem is compounded when we attempt to provide for sustainability and aesthetic values.”
Take a look at the below image of a clearcut area after logging. What do you see in this image? Or, better, what meanings does this scene hold for you?
View in a clearcut area after logging, with all brush and slash now covered with snow, circa 1930s. Photo by National Archives and Records Administration.
Theresa:
You know, I’ve got a Ph.D. in forestry and I’m keenly aware that people react viscerally to clearcuts. I react viscerally to clearcuts. And this scene is even softened by the snow cover! But under conditions where we’ve excluded fire from the ecosystem, a clearcut may mimic the effect of fire and enhance our ability to regenerate the forest. Gobster highlights that fire, dead and downed wood, and forest fragmentation are aspects of forest management that run counter to the scenic aesthetic that many of us have internalized since childhood. When people see woody debris lying around, they think that someone didn’t pick up after themselves! It looks like the opposite of an ethic of care.
Heather:
Gobster emphasized that “standing and fallen dead trees and other coarse woody debris are integral components of many
mature and old growth forests.” In fact, some ecologists think that the diversity of old growth forests may have more to do with what’s lying on the forest floor than with the majestic trees that occupy our visual interest. But researchers found that respondents gave scenes that contained standing snags, tree tip mounds, and fallen woody debris the lowest ratings of perceived visual quality.
Amanda:
But the standing snags, tree tip mounds, and fallen woody debris provide microhabitats, places for seedling establishment, cavities for nesting birds, and through decomposition, nutrients that are essential for forest regeneration. Deep sigh. It’s important to help people cultivate an ecological aesthetic and to find beauty in more than just pastoral landscapes or manicured gardens.
Seeing Sacred Structure, Creating Common Ground
- To Empathize with Another’s Perspective
- To Imagine (or Create a Mental Image of) a Future Reality
Christina:
You know, we’ve been using western disciplinary lenses thus far in our discussion, and there’s value in these disciplinary efforts. But when I’ve talked to Indigenous Knowledge Holders, there seems to be a sense of deep history, of being connected to time immemorial. When Daniel Nadenicek and David Pitt talked about learning to see, as we discussed above, one aspect stood out to me: “to empathize with another’s perspective.”
Heather:
In Keith Basso’s classic ethnography, Wisdom Sits in Places, he described how the Apache at Cibecue connected places to place stories. Coming at this topic from the lens of a K-12 educator, I was struck by the idea that places anchor knowledge. The Apache at Cibecue used physical places as an anchor point in their thoughtscape. Not only that, but these mental anchor points provided ready access to place dependent meanings, or in their case, to ancestral wisdom. As Apache people move through their ancestral homelands, they encounter places that are laden with story, with humorous
anecdotes, with cautionary tales, and with wisdom. Thus, places remind them how they should live in this world and how to be Apache.
Carol:
I think this understanding was central to the Apache at Cibecue. Their oral history, their approach to storytelling, and their sense of place centered a dynamic tension. Places have material aspects that you can identify, catalog, and put into physical and historical relationships with each other. They also have expressive aspects that tie to culture, tradition, symbolic associations, disciplinary lenses, spirituality, and the many ways that people relate to place.
Christina:
I wanted to include a geologic or deep timespiral in this article. These renderings add a temporal dimension to place–and that’s essential! That said, it’s hard to compress geologic time into an illustration that fits on a computer screen, so you won’t be able to read all the words the below timespiral image. But you can see Pablo Carlos Budassi’s deep timespiral online and zoom in and out to explore all the intricacies and detailed information.
Pablo Carlos Budassi created and rendered this deep timespiral especially for Wikimedia.org.
The history of nature from the Big Bang to the present day is represented in a spiral with notable events annotated. Each billion years (Ga) is represented by 90 degrees of rotation of the spiral. The last 500 million years are represented in a 90-degree stretch for more detail on our recent history. Some of the events depicted are the emergence of cosmic structures (stars, galaxies, planets, clusters, and other structures), the emergence of the solar system, the Earth and the Moon, important geological events (gasses in the atmosphere, great orogenies, glacial periods, etc.), emergence and evolution of living beings (first microbes, plants, animals, fungi), the evolution of hominid species and important events in human evolution. Photo by Pablo Carlos Budassi.
Carol:
That artwork is stunning! To me, it provides a different way to think about oneself and one’s place in the vastness of time and the universe. Maybe that awareness is the beginning of wisdom?
Theresa:
Carol, I think recognizing one’s smallness relative to the vastness of time and the universe gets us a good way toward wisdom. So far, our conversation has touched on multiple points of view; an ecological aesthetic; and oral traditions, wisdom, deep history, and the temporal dimensions of place. What if we wrapped things up by considering the idea of sacred structure? I first encountered this concept when I read Randy Hester's article "Subconscious Landscapes of the Heart" in the 1990s.
Delia:
Below is a photograph of Manteo, North Carolina, from offshore. What a magnificent waterfront! This image features prominently on Manteo’s official webpage.
As Hester describes in his article, town leaders invited him and his team to Manteo because, although the town wanted to increase tourism revenue, they worried that an influx of visitors would lead to irreversible changes and that local residents would experience these changes as a net loss. In this glowing critique, Annie Koh said Hester’s work represents “the gold standard in participatory design.”
The town of Manteo is located on Roanoke Island, nestled among North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Manteo’s official webpage says that “Visitors to Manteo can return to a simpler time of fishing rods and smiling faces, picket fences and charming places. Strolls on the waterfront boardwalk are the best ways to see the sun sparkle and the moonlight reflect off of the waters of Shallowbag Bay. Watch boats in the marina sail by, whether sitting on the docks at the marina or on a bench in the downtown park.” Photo by Town of Manteo.
Pamela:
Hester and his team identified the places in Manteo that local residents wanted to keep intact and reserve for their exclusive use. These places were regarded as “sacred” to their community life and wellbeing, and they didn’t want to share them with tourists.
Hester said that these seemingly mundane places "are almost universally unappealing to the trained professional eyes of an architect, historian, real estate developer, or upper-middle-class tourist. As a result, in Manteo, only two places among the Sacred Structure were protected by historic preservation legislation. Only a few were protected by zoning laws and less than half were identified as significant in a Lynchian image survey.”
Theresa:
Think how much we miss when we default to official designations and professional assessments to determine the value of a place. Think how much we miss when we don’t explore places in all their richness and complexity.
Heather:
When I visit a heritage site, I want to know why this place matters to me. I know that sounds ego-centric, but it’s really about relevance. The deepest relevance comes from understanding how you, and how every human and beyond human being, fit into a larger context. Places provide the context for personal relevance.
In 1980, Randolph Hester and his research team produced this map for residents in Manteo, North Carolina, to help them navigate the challenges of retaining their small-town atmosphere while also redesigning the waterfront to enhance tourism revenue. By overlaying community resident activity patterns, and talking with community members, Hester identified the places that should be reserved for use by local residents. These areas are marked on the map with “hearts.” One resident referred to these places as the town’s “Sacred Structure” and it stuck. Photo by Randy Hester.
Christina:
Yes, and places are rarely what they appear to be on the surface. By learning how to think about place, by applying some of the tools introduced in this article, interpreters can populate their own mental maps with a wide range of place meanings and significance. They can cultivate an ecological aesthetic. And, they can discover, through interaction with others, the sacred structure of place. Then they’ll be well poised to imagine a future reality that creates—and protects—common ground.
If this discussion has piqued your interest, dig deeper through these action steps:
- This article included images and text related to landscapes, townscapes, and a deep timespiral. Reflect critically on these examples, record your thoughts in a journal, and talk with your co-workers about the questions they raise.
- What’s the best place story you’ve read, heard, or experienced? What made that place experience come to life in the moment? What made that place story memorable for you?
- Consider taking steps to cultivate an ecological aesthetic. Do this by exploring the two contrasting dimensions: a scenic aesthetic and an ecological aesthetic. Our clearcut example illustrates that the scenic and ecological aesthetic can be diametrically opposed to each other. Under what circumstances might these two aesthetics align?
- How could you strengthen your ability to see, perceive, or understand the value of unattractive or everyday places? Why might it be important to do so?
- Ask yourself, what place stories could your site tell? How many lenses could your site incorporate in your interpretive work? How do these lenses work together? How might they work at cross purposes?
- What could your site do to help your audiences cultivate a sense of place?
Finally, check out these recommended resources:
- Learn more about The Mirror Shield Project and the artist who launched a global campaign: Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota). Luger’s call to action “inspired people from across the Nation to create and transport what has been estimated at over a thousand mirrored shields to the Oceti Sakowin Camp near Standing Rock, ND.”
- We discussed Meinig’s 1979 essay "The Beholding Eye” in this article, but Yi-fu Tuan is arguably the seminal thinker in the sense of place field. Tuan’s 1975 article titled “Place: An Experiential Perspective” is key essay that provides insights into how geographers think about place.
- Learning in Places, an NSF-funded project (#2201253) that seeks to “cultivate equitable, culturally thriving, socio-ecological systems learning and ethical decision-making using field-based science education in outdoor places, including gardens” for children and families, has a framework that explores the socio-ecological histories of place. We recommend this framework if you’re interested in learning more about the temporal/deep time aspects of place.
- In this article, we mentioned nostalgia briefly, but some researchers say that globally we’re experiencing an extended period of collective nostalgia. Place figures prominently in nostalgic thinking. Learn more about nostalgia through an NPR Throughline podcast episode titled “The Nostalgia Bone” (2021).
- Finally, the Ecozoic Cafe has a great blog post titled, “Our Nation’s Changing Views about Nature: An Exhibition.” The article discusses a 2019 exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum, exploring nature art as “a record of human cultural values and beliefs.”
