A community in transition: the relationship between spatial change and identity processes

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between place and identity. The context is provided by the enforced relocation to a nearby site of Arkwright Town, a one hundred year old North East Derbyshire mining village. The study on which this paper is based was longitudinal in design and monitored the relocation process during the period 1992-1998. The data used for this study was obtained from 22 participants at 5 time points over the 6 years. This paper focuses on how participants made sense of changes in their spatial environment and how these meanings affected their self-perceptions and self-evaluations as well as being implicated in changes within their community which occurred during and after the relocation. Breakwell’s (1986) Identity Process Theory was used to examine the degree to which the participants’ identity processes were affected by the changes in the spatial environment. This included an examination of the ways in which the spatial change threatened or enhanced distinctiveness and continuity, two of the principles of identity described in Breakwell’s theory. Evidence was found for the important role of place in maintaining and enhancing the principles of identity.

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