A new study investigates the emotional bond people form with places in downtown Reykjavík
The urban landscape of Reykjavík has changed rapidly in the last few years. In the city centre, houses have been demolished or moved within the city limits while others have been painstakingly restored. Urban dwellers undeniably view houses as part of the landscape, and as time passes, they become an essential part of places and their history.
Having a connection to their material environment matters when it comes to people feeling like they belong to a place. “People’s connection to a place becomes a part of their self-awareness and identity. Thus, an historical urban environment has special value as people connect to places that have a rich and layered meaning because of both personal and cultural association,” says Ólafur Rastrick, professor of ethnology in the Faculty of Sociology, Anthropology and Folkloristics at the University of Iceland. Ólafur is now leading a new study into the emotional bond people form with places in downtown Reykjavík, titled “Haunted: Heritage attachment in the urban terrain”.
An emphasis on commonplace features of the urban environment
The objective of the study is to analyse how people ascribe meaning and give value to the historic urban landscape. It looks at commonplace features of the urban environment that city locals relate to as they go about the city and spend their time there. The aim is also to gain a deeper understanding of the allure of the historical urban environment and the factors that form, maintain, and change these emotional bonds. “A special emphasis is put on places that have the aura and material qualities of time gone by. The play on words in the study title references, on the one hand, places that people often visit, and, on the other hand, places haunted by ghosts of the past that can surface in the present. There’s a very curious relationship between being in a place and reminiscing about the past,” Ólafur says about the subject and aim of the study.
Research based on a new approach in heritage studies
Asked about the inspiration behind the study, Ólafur points out that it has a dual purpose. On the one hand it’s based on a current tendency within critical heritage studies that involves looking at how emotions and types of affective qualities emerge through sensory engagement with places of the past. This includes urban environment people have formed an emotional bond with in one way or another. “Possessing knowledge about a specific place, its history for example, is one thing; experiencing it on your own skin in the context of your own experience or the experience of others, is another. Revisiting a childhood home or that of your forefathers and mothers may evoke all kinds of impressions or memories that give places meaning. If we think about a historic urban landscape generations of people have placed their meaning on, it’s obvious that it’s contemporary meaning and value can be very complex,” Ólafur explains.
On the other hand, the study was motivated by demands for greater public participation when it comes to decision-making processes regarding the preservation and development of the historic urban environment. Today, the public is only involved to a small extent when it comes to decisions involving changes to the urban environment. It falls in the hands of specialists in the fields of cultural heritage and city planning, and financially interested individuals to make decisions on the tangible cultural heritage of the city. Ólafur says better tools are needed to increase the public’s involvement. “The basis for developing such tools is a deeper understanding of how people form a bond with the urban environment in which they live, what they care about, why, and how. It may not be easy for laypeople to explain the value of their environment or an obscure emotional bond to a place in a language that carries weight in town halls or banking institutes, or are taken seriously by planning authorities and investors.
Participants are sent on a walk around the city centre
The research methods are based on watching people’s reactions and the interplay between them and their environment when spending time or walking around everyday urban environment they know well. A special emphasis is put on anything considered old and which could be viewed as cultural heritage in the urban environment, with the aim of analysing the meaning it has for people going about the city.
As Ólafur explains, three research methods are used for conducting the study. “Firstly, we join participants on walks through the city centre where we record our conversations and reactions to what we see and experience with the other senses. Secondly, we ask small groups of people to discuss certain places in situ; the memories, associations, and anything else these places conjure up in the minds of participants. In these groups, we typically rely on old photos of the places. The third method is about getting individual participants to put on glasses fitted with a small camera and mic, and then sending them alone on a walk around the city centre. Participants are encouraged to describe their experience and thoughts as they walk through the city. The camera follows the participant’s point of view and records sound too. This is then followed by an interview where we select a part of the video and ask further questions about participants’ reactions and experience. These three methods are thought to be mutually supportive and to compensate for any limitations each might have.”
While Ólafur oversees the study, it is conducted in close collaboration with Snjólaug G. Jóhannesdóttir, a doctoral student in ethnology at the University of Iceland. Snjólaug’s Ph.D. dissertation is a part of the study, and she has led the collection of research data. Postgraduate students in ethnology; Anna Melsteð, Ragnheiður Jónsdóttir, and Vitalina Ostimchuk along with undergraduate students Kristín Dögg Kristinsdóttir, Linda Ósk Valdimarsdóttir, and Stefanía Anna Rúnarsdóttir have also contributed to the collection of data. Other participants are Páll Jakob Líndal, environmental psychologist, and Sigurlaug Dagsdóttir, ethnologist. The research team has also been assisted by the project’s international committee of experts, including Steven Cooke, an associate professor in the Department of Cultural Heritage at Deakin University Australia, who recently was appointed the director of the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.
“The most commonplace components of the urban environment can be laden with meaning for people and their identity while other places, even those generally considered within the cultural heritage field to be of significant value, mean little or nothing to people. Some function as landmarks as people go about the city centre while others conjure up unexpected thoughts or may evoke memories people haven’t thought about for years or even decades,” says Ólafur.
A better understanding of the interplay between perception and knowledge
The results of the study are not yet clear; however, the research team has collected an extensive amount of data and has started analysing it. Ólafur points out that it doesn’t come as a surprise that some places are meaningful for people but that the team’s research methods will give them an opportunity to delve deeper than before into the complex interplay between perception and knowledge, for example of the history and lay of the land, which contributes to people connecting with places in the city centre. “The most commonplace components of the urban environment can be laden with meaning for people and their identity while other places, even those generally considered within the cultural heritage field to be of significant value, mean little or nothing to people. Some function as landmarks as people go about the city centre while others conjure up unexpected thoughts or may evoke memories people haven’t thought about for years or even decades.”
A contribution to the discussion of city development
Ólafur says that one of the advantages of the study is the merging of a few different qualitative methods that bring to light different factors in people’s perceptions of the historic urban landscape. Those perceptions depend on whether participants are alone, walking with a researcher or discussing the past as part of a group. “By combining different methods, we gain a deeper perspective on what it is in the urban landscape that people ascribe meaning and value to and how they create and maintain an emotional bond with this tangible heritage in the city.”
Asked about what effect the study could have, Ólafur says he sees it as a contribution to the discussion of city development that considers how old neighbourhoods, streets, gardens, and houses affect people’s relationships to the environment and specific places in the city centre. By shining a light on how connections to places are determined by perceptions and feelings, an opportunity is created to widen the basis on which ideas about the preservation of man-made environment and architectural heritage are built. “By understanding better what it is that connects people and places, new opportunities emerge to better foster an urban environment people care about, feel like they share in, and other factors that contribute to people feeling like they belong in the city,” Ólafur says.
