Sense of place: scale, context and social surrounds

Landscapes provide us with our dreams, thoughts and feelings and constitute our character and identity (Schama 1995). Meaning attributed in landscapes is interpreted and constructed by people in particular contexts and locales rather than representing inherent properties of nature (Kaltenborn 1998). Landscapes are thus cultural constructs of ecological systems simultaneously subject to natural laws and social construction. These linked processes interact to form an explicit and irreducible sense of place. While significant research has been carried out on the concepts of space, time, memory and identity, it is through a sense of place that it is all integrated. Sense of place provides an insight into thematic elements (social, symbolic and economic value sets) contributing to valueing in landscapes. Thematic tools provide symbolic processes for restoration drawing on place based values of civic community. This paper presents a tested conceptual framework as a means of implementing ecological restoration that considers landscape and social scale grounded within landscape and social context. A conceptual model was tested through a novel integration of quantitative and qualitative data gathered in two environmentally contrasting rural Australian locales. The results provide thematic tools for the development of processes that accommodate both symbolic and material values in landscape. This provides the means of effective, integrated and enduring ecological restoration, restoration that draws on the values of stewardship in sense of place, and builds a sense of identity and belonging in place. This integration binds people to place and protects places