An Alternative Construction of Identity: A Study of Place-based Identity and Its Implications

embodied knowing, phenomenology This paper discusses an alternative construction of identity based in phenomenology that includes the affects of place. The aim of the paper is to provide a way to rethink constructions of identity broadly, but more specifically, to think about how identity contributes to our views of ourselves, the world, and our relationship to it. It presents the results of an ethnographic study of rural farmers to show how the natural world, which includes non-human Others, can be a critical part of our identities. This understanding may be helpful to scholars interested in environmental communication and social change as well as those who theorize more broadly about the philosophical nature of communication