Identifier

etd-07022014-162438

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Geography and Anthropology

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation explores place and the relationships that people have with place: sense of place, place attachment, and rootedness. These three concepts have each been researched and discussed on their own in journal articles, books, and book chapters, but the terms rarely appear in the same sentence let alone the same research article. In the United States, places of drink are historically linked to community and social interactions, and such establishments often possess a solid core of loyal patrons for whom going to their bar is a natural and routine part of their daily and weekly life. This research brings drinking establishments to the fore of American geography as containers of material culture and collective history that influence and are influenced by the people that spend time in those places and utilizes them as the laboratory for collecting empirical data on people-place relationships. Applying ethnographic research tools and theoretical geographic thought to empirical data, this research studies these places and the people in them situated relative to elements of the surrounding local culture, history, and community in four bars in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. The result is a theoretical discussion of real-world data and a new unified theory that brings sense of place, place attachment, and rootedness under not just under the same umbrella, but as the core of a single system of people-place relationships.

Date

2014

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Mathewson, Kent

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.1500

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