Having a sense of one's place: challenges of identifying and nurturing social and environmental community affordances

Pretty, Grace (2010) Having a sense of one's place: challenges of identifying and nurturing social and environmental community affordances. In: 27th International Congress of Applied Psychology, 11-16 July 2010, Melbourne, Australia .

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Abstract

This paper demonstrates how an understanding of people's relationships with the physical spaces they occupy as home and community can contribute to our practice at individual, social and environmental levels. Community
psychology suggests how a social residential community can influence the ability of its people to thrive and sustain cultural vitality with concepts such as sense of community and belonging. Similarly environmental psychology
informs the understanding of the physical context of the residential community. Concepts such as sense of place, place identity and attachment suggest how spaces become places which afford inhabitants opportunities for
biopsychosocial development and well being. This paper weaves these theoretical threads of community, environmental and ecological psychology and its research to describe processes by which people attribute meaning to
their physical surroundings and subsequently symbolically represent them as home and community. Methods are presented for observing this fabric as a source and site for consultation regarding current individual, social
and environmental challenges. Social justice issues embedded in current inequities of environmental affordances are considered from the experiences of adolescents, indigenous peoples, and rural and immigrant communities.

Statistics for this ePrint Item

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Commonwealth Reporting Category E) (Paper)
Refereed:	Yes
Item Status:	Live Archive
Additional Information:	Divisional Address presentation - only abstracts published in conference proceedings, as supplied here.
Faculty / Department / School:	Historic - Faculty of Sciences - Department of Psychology
Date Deposited:	27 Aug 2010 03:04
Last Modified:	05 Jul 2011 05:45
Uncontrolled Keywords:	social environment; environmental psychology; community
Fields of Research :	17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1701 Psychology > 170113 Social and Community Psychology 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1701 Psychology > 170106 Health, Clinical and Counselling Psychology
Socio-Economic Objective:	E Expanding Knowledge > 97 Expanding Knowledge > 970117 Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
URI:	http://eprints.usq.edu.au/id/eprint/8595

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