Stories of favourite Places in public spaces: Emotional responses to landscape change

Maraja Riechers; Werner Henkel; Moritz Engbers; Jörn Fischer

doi:10.3390/su11143851

Stories of favourite Places in public spaces: Emotional responses to landscape change

Professorship of Sustainable Landscapes

Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Transfer › peer-review

27 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Understanding emotions is necessary to analyse underlying motivations, values and drivers for behaviours. In landscapes that are rapidly changing, for example, due to land conversion for intensive agriculture, a sense of powerlessness of the inhabitants can be common, which may negatively influence their emotional bond to the landscape they are living in. To uncover varied emotional responses towards landscape change we used an innovative approach that combined transdisciplinary and artistic research in an intensively farmed landscape in Germany. In this project, we focused on the topic of favourite places in public spaces, and how change in such places was experienced. Drawing on workshops and interviews, we identified themes of externally driven societal and internal personal influences on the public favourite places. “Resilient” emotional responses towards landscape change showed a will to integrate the modifications, while “non-resilient” responses were characterised by frustration and despair. We argue that identifying emotions towards change can be valuable to strengthen adaptive capacity and to foster sustainability.

Original language	English
Article number	3851
Journal	Sustainability
Volume	11
Issue number	14
Number of pages	11
ISSN	2071-1050
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/su11143851
Publication status	Published - 15.07.2019

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding: This research was supported by the Volkswagen-Stiftung and the Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenshaft und Kultur funded project “Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation: Institutions, People and Knowledge” (Grant number A112269).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Research areas and keywords

Sustainability Science
Environmental planning
Land art
Landscape change
leverage points
nature connectedness
sustainbility transitions
thematic analysis
Transdisciplinarity research

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Computer Science (miscellaneous)
Hardware and Architecture
Energy Engineering and Power Technology
Computer Networks and Communications
Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
Geography, Planning and Development
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Access to Document

10.3390/su11143851Licence: CC BY

DownloadFinal published version, 4.76 MBLicence: CC BY

Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation: Institutions, People and Knowledge
Vilsmaier, U. (Project manager, academic), Lang, D. J. (Project manager, academic), Newig, J. (Project manager, academic), Fischer, J. (Project manager, academic), Schomerus, T. (Project manager, academic), von Wehrden, H. (Project manager, academic), Sieveking, A. (Project staff), Klaniecki, K. T. (Project staff), Dorninger, C. (Project staff), Clarke, E. A. (Project staff), Horcea-Milcu, A. I. (Project staff), Lam, D. (Project staff), Patru-Duse, I. A. (Project staff), Jager, N. W. (Project staff), Derwort, P. (Project staff), Patru-Duse, I. A. (Project staff), Apetrei, C.-I. (Project staff), Freeth, R. C. (Project staff), Engbers, M. (Project staff), Peukert, D. (Project staff), Berkau, A. J. (Project staff), Lutz, L. M. (Coordination), Leventon, J. (Project manager, academic) & Abson, D. (Project manager, academic)
Ministry of Science and Culture of the state of Lower Saxony in Germany
01.04.15 → 31.03.21
Project: Research

Cite this

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title = "Stories of favourite Places in public spaces: Emotional responses to landscape change",

abstract = "Understanding emotions is necessary to analyse underlying motivations, values and drivers for behaviours. In landscapes that are rapidly changing, for example, due to land conversion for intensive agriculture, a sense of powerlessness of the inhabitants can be common, which may negatively influence their emotional bond to the landscape they are living in. To uncover varied emotional responses towards landscape change we used an innovative approach that combined transdisciplinary and artistic research in an intensively farmed landscape in Germany. In this project, we focused on the topic of favourite places in public spaces, and how change in such places was experienced. Drawing on workshops and interviews, we identified themes of externally driven societal and internal personal influences on the public favourite places. “Resilient” emotional responses towards landscape change showed a will to integrate the modifications, while “non-resilient” responses were characterised by frustration and despair. We argue that identifying emotions towards change can be valuable to strengthen adaptive capacity and to foster sustainability. ",

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author = "Maraja Riechers and Werner Henkel and Moritz Engbers and J{\"o}rn Fischer",

note = "Funding Information: Funding: This research was supported by the Volkswagen-Stiftung and the Nieders{\"a}chsisches Ministerium f{\"u}r Wissenshaft und Kultur funded project “Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation: Institutions, People and Knowledge” (Grant number A112269). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 by the authors.",

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N2 - Understanding emotions is necessary to analyse underlying motivations, values and drivers for behaviours. In landscapes that are rapidly changing, for example, due to land conversion for intensive agriculture, a sense of powerlessness of the inhabitants can be common, which may negatively influence their emotional bond to the landscape they are living in. To uncover varied emotional responses towards landscape change we used an innovative approach that combined transdisciplinary and artistic research in an intensively farmed landscape in Germany. In this project, we focused on the topic of favourite places in public spaces, and how change in such places was experienced. Drawing on workshops and interviews, we identified themes of externally driven societal and internal personal influences on the public favourite places. “Resilient” emotional responses towards landscape change showed a will to integrate the modifications, while “non-resilient” responses were characterised by frustration and despair. We argue that identifying emotions towards change can be valuable to strengthen adaptive capacity and to foster sustainability.

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KW - thematic analysis

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Stories of favourite Places in public spaces: Emotional responses to landscape change

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Research areas and keywords

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

Access to Document

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Projects

Leverage Points for Sustainability Transformation: Institutions, People and Knowledge

Cite this