Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T03:48:22.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Place Detachment and the Psychology of Nonbelonging

Lessons from Diepsloot Township

from Part II - Migration, Mobility and Belonging

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2021

Christopher M. Raymond
Affiliation:
University of Helsinki, Finland
Lynne C. Manzo
Affiliation:
University of Washington, Seattle
Daniel R. Williams
Affiliation:
USDA Forest Service, Colorado
Andrés Di Masso
Affiliation:
Universitat de Barcelona
Timo von Wirth
Affiliation:
Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Get access

Summary

This chapter aims to describe the psychology of nonbelonging through co-constructed accounts by informal settlement residents who belong – yet also struggle to not belong – to ‘non-places’ such as the informal settlement. It illustrates how (non)belonging is performed as unspoken affective senses of place that are resonant in narratives. Using Lacanian psychoanalytic insights, the chapter contributes to an expanded conceptualisation of ‘senses of place’ by showing that we also perform place belonging in an ‘unconscious’ sense – beyond our discursive performances (place identity) or expressed feeling states (place attachment). This epistemological stance highlights senses of place belonging as coordinated via an unspoken social contract with the hovering interlocutor (Other), who offers the navigational cues to situate where we are (place) and to define who we are (identity).

Type
Chapter
Information
Changing Senses of Place
Navigating Global Challenges
, pp. 103 - 115
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Augé, M. (1995) Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, London, Verso.Google Scholar
Avis, W. R. (2016) Urban Governance (Topic Guide) [Online]. Available at https://gsdrc.org/topic-guides/urban-governance/ (accessed 4 May 2020).Google Scholar
Brah, A. (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities, London, Routledge.Google Scholar
Brown, L. and Durrheim, K. (2009) ‘Different kinds of knowing: generating qualitative data through mobile interviewing’, Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 911930. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800409333440CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cresswell, T. (2015) Place: An Introduction, 2nd ed., Malden, Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Di Masso, A., Dixon, J. and Durrheim, K. (2014) ‘Place attachment as discursive practice’, in Manzo, L. C. and Devine-Wright, P. (eds), Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications, Abingdon, Routledge, pp. 7586.Google Scholar
Dixon, J. and Durrheim, K. (2000) ‘Displacing place-identity: a discursive approach to locating self and other’, British Journal of Social Psychology, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 2744. http://dx.doi.org/10.1348/014466600164318Google Scholar
Dovey, K. and King, R. (2011) ‘Forms of informality: morphology and visibility of informal settlements’, Built Environment, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 1129. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/23289768CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, J. W. (1991) ‘Transcription design principles’, Pragmatics, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 71106.Google Scholar
Fullilove, M. T. (1996) ‘Psychiatric implications of displacement: contributions from the psychology of place’, American Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 153, no. 12, pp. 15161523. http://dx.doi.org/10.1176/ajp.153.12.1516Google Scholar
Harber, A. (2011) Diepsloot, Johannesburg, Jonathan Ball.Google Scholar
Hook, D. (2013) ‘The racist bodily imaginary: the image of the body-in-pieces in (post)apartheid culture’, Subjectivity, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 254271. http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/sub.2013.7Google Scholar
Hook, D. (2018) Six Moments in Lacan: Communication and Identification in Psychology and Psychoanalysis, London, Routledge.Google Scholar
Kankonde, B. P. (2010) ‘Transnational family ties, remittance motives, and social death among Congolese migrants: a socio-anthropological analysis’, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 225243. http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jcfs.41.2.225Google Scholar
Kristeva, J. (1982) Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, New York, Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lacan, J. (2014) Anxiety: The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book X, Cambridge, Polity Press.Google Scholar
Landau, L. B. (2014) ‘Conviviality, rights, and conflict in Africa’s urban estuaries’, Politics and Society, vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 359380. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0032329214543258CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewicka, M. (2011) ‘Place attachment: how far have we come in the last 40 years?’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 207230. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2010.10.001Google Scholar
Lombard, M. (2014). Constructing ordinary places: place-making in urban informal settlements in Mexico. Progress in Planning, 94, 153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2013.05.003Google Scholar
Manzo, L. C. (2003) ‘Beyond house and haven: toward a revisioning of emotional relationships with places’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 4761. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-4944(02)00074–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, J. (2016) ‘Capturing desire: rhetorical strategies and the affectivity of discourse’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 143160. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-856X.12065Google Scholar
Mazumdar, S. (2005) ‘Religious place attachment, squatting, and “qualitative” research: a commentary’, Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 8795. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2004.09.003Google Scholar
Pomerantz, A. (1986) ‘Extreme case formulations: a way of legitimizing claims’, Human Studies, vol. 9, pp. 219229. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00148128Google Scholar
Relph, R. (1976) Place and Placelessness, London, Pion.Google Scholar
Saville Young, L. (2013) ‘Becoming other to oneself: misreading the researcher through Lacanian discourse analysis’, in Parker, I. and Pavon-Cuellar, D. (eds), Lacan, Discourse, Event: New Analyses of Textual Indeterminacy, London, Routledge, pp. 279290.Google Scholar
Tonkiss, K. and Bloom, T. (2015) ‘Theorising noncitizenship: concepts, debates and challenges’, Citizenship Studies, vol. 19, no. 8, pp. 837852. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2015.1110278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuan, Y. (1980) ‘Rootedness versus sense of place’, Landscape, vol. 24, pp. 38.Google Scholar
Tyrell, M. (2008) Urban Design for Capacity Development in Informal Settlements [Online]. Available at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5613d09ee4b01b9a1333c012/t/5667864fd82d5eb53652cd5f/1449625167113/tyrrellm.pdf (accessed 14 June 2020).Google Scholar
Žižek, S. (2008) The Plague of Fantasies, London, Verso.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×