| Recent collaborative efforts to solve complex natural resource management problems at the local scale have included an increased emphasis on place and community. The importance of a concept of place has not been fully recognized by democratic political theorists. This study explores how the concept of place--grounded in the search for sustainable solutions to ecological problems--has become part of a discourse of political resistance, as well as part of a discourse of the constitution of democratic practices and institutions. Theories of place are divided into five themes: place attachment; political economy and political geography; structuration theory; social constructionism; and narrative-communitarianism.;Two case studies, located in Mill Creek (northern Sacramento Valley) and Lake Tahoe (Sierra Nevada), California, show how place-based approaches had different outcomes in developing policy and building social capital. Based on interviews, archival research and meeting observations, the case studies examine how place was used as a resistance strategy, how place shaped power and political outcomes, and how place played a role in changing social relations and cultural discourse. The final chapter suggests ways to think about a more explicitly political theory of place, arguing that place is not a strictly geographical concept, nor is it a predominantly aesthetic or emotive concept. Rather, place is an occasion and setting of democratic processes for the contestation of social meaning and the negotiation of power and authority. Place is examined in terms of its resistive power and its ability to constitute democratic political and social identities. The thesis proposes five elements of a politics of place: detail and particularity; imperfect intersections; mediation of polarities; transference and solidarity; and grounded criticism. |
