Today's Amazing Presentations!

Attendees of the "Where I am From & Where I am Now" presentations were wildly impressed!
Students of the Summer Immersion Program seamlessly integrated difficult academic concepts (e.g., place attachment, identity differentiation) into well-crafted and beautiful story-like presentations.

Alan

Kailin

Qidi

Saurabh

Yujie

Tianhao

Loic

Will

Xinge

Taemin

Kate and I thank you all for being such incredible and inquisitive students!!

To our amazing students:

Be sure to visit us during the school year! 

(Our offices have candy and hot water : )

In Sense of Place in Developmental Context (Robert Hay, 1998), the author says that teenagers who have experienced being away from home (e.g. at boarding school) tend to have more awareness of their sense of place through homesickness, while those who do not have such experience may take their place for granted in the teenage years. This point coincide with my personal experience: I have noticed that students who have ever studied abroad usually speak of their country with a more passionate voice that those who haven't (which shows their greater sense of place), and such changes is not necessarily accompanied by changes in the perception of what their country is really like; those students have a seemingly paradoxical opinion of being patriotic and admitting the negative aspects of their country. So I think that the greater sense of place has more to do with emotion than with physical conditions, in other words, more to do with place identity than with place attachment, due to the difference in definition of the two terms (Hernandez et al, 2007).
Besides, I have some questions regarding the point and my personal experience: studying abroad means being away from both one's city and one's country, and does such experience strengthen more sense of place with the city or with the country? And what factors can affect the answer?

Differences between food Cultures help me develop the place attachment

They say…

Broadly, taste (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami, or savory) preferences have a strong innate component. Nevertheless, these innate tendencies can be modified by pre- and postnatal experiences. (Gary K. Beauchamp and Julie A. Mennella, 2009)

I say…

I agree with this claim. The most incompatible thing I found these days is American food with Chinese food. In my opinion, there is no standard for tastes, which means it is hard to say which flavor is better than another. But it is our eating habits determine our flavor preference. Moreover, flavor preference can be changed through time. I have found the food I like in Rochester. So flavor preference is variable.

They say…

Twigger-Ross and Uzzell (1996) found support for two forms of continuity in environmental relationships. One of them is the “place referent continuity”, when place acts as referents to past selves and actions and thus provide a link between past and present identities.

I say…

I agree. Although food in America has plenty of differences from the food in China, I found an amazing similarity – people in these two countries both consider eating food together as a way to communicate and make new connections between each other. Thus, I found old personal identity in the new place, which could be a beginning of the place attachment.

They say:

The previous studies on place identity have few attempts to integrate this literature into a more general theory of identity and environment because of the lack of studies that simultaneously examine identification with places of different scale. Therefore, Lee and David’s research addresses this omission by analyzing how people develop a sense of home with respect to dwelling community and region.

I say:

I agree with the authors that there are few studies focus on small places as dwelling and community. The previous study I looked through is about cities islands and neighborhood (Hernandez, 2007). Furthermore, I believe the focus of dwelling makes sense because it is the place to call home and it is where the bond starts. It directly interprets the affiliation between people and the place identity. And maybe it will serve as an answer to “Where I am from”. Personally speaking, I am an immigrants from Fushun to Shenyang and lived in a boarding school for six years. I may consider the dormitory as the dwelling I live in and compare it with Sub I currently live in. The dormitory is the place serving as a root for me in Shenyang and is the main reason why I would consider Shenyang as my place identity.

In the summer writing course, I read Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives (Bernanrdo Hernandez, M. Carmen Hidalgo, M. Esther Salazar-Laplace, Stephany Hess, 2007). I thought the topic was really interesting and try to find some more references related to the topic. I found a work named A pace to call home: Identification with dwelling, community, and region.
 They say:
In the research, Cuba and Hummon (1993) claimed that social participation in the local community is essential for community identity and patterns of intercommunity spatial activity promote a regional identity. I agree with the authors ideas that what people do in the community contribute a lot and help people develop their place identity with community.

 I say:
 I have a different idea about the how people develop their place identity and personal identity. In my idea, I think there is one significant element for people to develop their personal identity. The important element is about peoples that people deal with in their daily life(Family, Friends and Teachers...etc.) I think people's relations are really significant to people's personal identity and all the peoples people interact with help cultivate their different personal aspects. From this viewpoint, I am going to discuss more about related ideas about people's relations with other people.

Integrating sources

They say, I say

While Hernandez (2007; Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives) claims that place attachment appears earlier than place identity, I disagree.

Island and city are places that have greater attachment and identity than neighbourhood (Hernandez, 2007: Place attachment and place identity in natives and non-natives) ,and city arouses stronger bond than neighbourhood.

According to Giuliani (1991; Towards an analysis of mental representations of attachment to the home), the quantity of the objects and the space people occupy have positive effects on home attachment.I agree with it and home attachment is also related to the representation of people themselves.

While Giuliani (1991; Towards an analysis of mental representations of attachment to the home) argues that it is possible for people to have no attachment at all because they may prefer not to become attached, I disagree with it and I argue that people cannot choose to become attached or not.

In Giuliani’s research, she discovered that the number of variety is related to people’s attachment to home (1991; Towards an analysis of mental representations of attachment to the home), and the more importance they concern, the more attachment they have for their own residential situation.

My opinion about the article of Chow and Healey(2008)

According to the Chow and Healey’s article(2008,p.368), “attachment is confirmed by others and the degree of interaction experienced with them”, and they also refers that everyone knows that making friends are important because of security they provides. Combining these two facts, we can conclude that making new relationships, or friends, in new place is also one of important factors to develop place attachment, the affective link that people have in specific place where they like and feel safe and comfortable(Hernandez, 2007).
The reason why I concluded that way is because I have been and am experiencing it right now. When I was in high school, I didn't like my school but I had an attachment to my school because I enjoyed the everyday life with my friends in the school. In the same way, I am slowly developing the attachment to the University of Rochester with my new relationships, or friends, in here although I dislike the crazy weather in the Rochester. Thus, I think making new friends are one of most important factors to develop place attachment in new place.