INTERGENERATIONAL SENSE OF PLACE AMONG

RESIDENTS OF LAZI IN SIQUIJOR ISLAND

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:
Inhabitants hold a unique perspective on a certain space they dwell in, that makes that place
distinct. Siquijor is known to be Mystical Island where not only its hidden beauty is a magnet
but the locals residing in the place too. Though the island only represents 0.11% of the land
area of the country, it has offered the necessity of its inhabitants, from food, education,
occupation to leisure.
Since the year 2000, the population of the Municipality of Lazi in Siquijor Island has increased
year by year. The 2015 census shows that it has a population in total of 20,490 where it had
14,279 registered voters in the 2016 elections. This means that 70% of the population are aged
18 and over .(1)

Thus, the intergenerational sense of place of the people in Lazi, Siquijor is explored through the
different age groups determined in the study, adolescent, adult and elderly, respectively. This
study considers the sociodemographic profile of residents such as sex, educational attainment,
occupation, civil status, social class, religion, place of origin and length of stay. In addition, the
place attachment of the residents are investigated through their community involvement.
The following major research questions will be investigated:
1. Is there a significant relationship between the sense of place and the different age
groups of the residents in Lazi, Siquijor?
2. Is there a significant relationship between the sense of place among residents in Lazi,
Siquijor and sociodemographic profile?
3. Is there a significant relationship between the place attachment among residents in Lazi,
Siquijor and their community participation?

HYPOTHESIS:
This paper hypothesized that there is no significant relationship between the sense of place
among the different age groups, sociodemographic profile and community involvement of the
residents in Lazi, Siquijor.
In order to prove this, the following hypothesis will be tested:
1. There is no significant relationship between the sense of place and the different age
groups of the residents in Lazi, Siquijor.
2. There a significant relationship between the sense of place among residents in Lazi,
Siquijor and sociodemographic profile.
3. There is no significant relationship between the place attachment among residents in
Lazi, Siquijor and their community participation.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE:
Many studies of sense of place and place attachments are conducted in different areas.

Title: Home is where the heart is: The effect of place of residence on place attachment
and community participation

Research Problem: This study explores the relationships between place of residence,
living in a threatened place and the subsets of place attachment: place identity and place
dependence.

Respondents: Six hundred participants living in south-west Western Australia in rural

and urban areas with varying degrees of bushfire risk responded to surveys asking about their
reasons for living in their local area, their place attachment and their sociodemographic details.

Data Gathering Tool and Procedure: Recruiting Methods; Survey; Telephone;

Registered Mail; Place attachment was measured using a survey adapted by Brown and
Raymond (2007) from Williams and Vaske (2003) who had adapted the questions from Williams
and Roggenbuck (1989).

Data Analysis Tool and Gathering Procedure: MANOVA; It consisted of six questions
measuring participants' place identity and five questions measuring place dependence.
Responses were measured on a five point Likert scale, ranging from strongly disagree to
strongly agree. The highest possible place identity score was 30 and the lowest six. The highest
possible place dependence score was 25 and the lowest five. An additional question was added
which asked whether participants belonged to organisations or clubs in their local areas.
Participants were also asked about their reasons for choosing to live in their local area as well
as socio-demographic information such as age, income, education, sex, and whether they have
dependents. Mean scores and standard deviations for place identity and place dependence.
Spearman's Rho correlations between the socio-demographic variables and the four measures
of place attachment were conducted

Major Findings: MANOVAs revealed a significant effect of place of residence on place

identity with rural residents reporting higher place identity than urban dwellers. Urban dwellers
reported lower place dependence than rural dwellers except when they lived in a fire prone
area, in which case their place dependence was on par with that of rural residents. Socio-
demographic predictors of both place identity and place dependence to the home and local
area were also explored, these included length of residence, education, and owning one's
home.

Notes: Older people don’t have time to answer the survey. On top of this, people in rural areas often have to leave
to find jobs or to study since there are limited employment and study opportunities outside of urban areas. Similarly, elderly people and the
unwell may have to leave rural areas in order to be closer to medical facilities.
Title: Before and after a natural disaster: Disruption in emotion component of place-identity
and wellbeing. Means ages of respondents in the four different areaswere higher than census
data. Older people may have more time to answer surveys, or surveys may be given to the
oldestmember of the household to complete. It is not clear if the higher than average ages had
an effect on the results. Age was not a significant predictor of attachment to either the home or
local area in this study and previous studies have found conflicting results between age and
attachment (Bonaiuto et al., 1999; Hidalgo & Hernandez, 2001; Lewicka, 2010; Riger & Lavrakas,
1981; Rollero & De Piccoli, 2010a; Sampson,1988).

Research Problem: The aim was to investigate relationships between emotion and
cognition components of place-identity and wellbeing, before and after a natural disaster.

Respondents: A total of 656 respondents, living near the area of the largest forest and
landscape fire in modern times in Sweden.

Data Gathering Tool and Procedure: Survey; randomly identified households living close
to the fire area. The survey comprised several sections, including questions about landscape-
related activities, experiences, perceptions, and attitudes before, and after, the fire.

This is measured by Place Identity and Wellbeing.

This instrument includes ten statements, measuring emotion and cognition components of
place-identity. Emotion component (processes of attachment/closeness/ belonging): “I am
keenly familiar with the place.”; “I miss it when I'm not there.”; “I have strong ties to the
place.”; “I am proud of the place.”; “The place is a part of me.”. Cognition component
(processes of coherence, correspondence, mental temporality, reflection and agency): “I have
had a personal contact with this place over a long period.”; “There is a link between the place
and my current life.”; “I can travel back and forth in time mentally to this place when I think
about it.”; “I can reflect on the memories attached to this place.”; “These thoughts about the
place are part of me.”. Participants were asked to respond to these statements on a 7-point
scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree), related to their place-
experiences before and after the fire.

For the wellbeing, this includes ten statements from “The WHO (ten) wellbeing index” (Beach,
Gudex, & Staeher Johansen, 1996), with a Cronbach alpha of 0.91. Respondents responded to
the question of when I'm on the site, I feel: “Sad and down” (Reversed); “Calm and relaxed”;
“Energetic, active and enterprising”; “Relaxed and refreshed "; “Happy and pleased with my
personal life”; “Satisfied with my living situation "; “I live the life I want to live”; “Inspired to
deal with today's work”; “I can cope with serious problems or changes in my life”; “That life is
full of interesting things.”. Furthermore, the 4- point scale from the original measure was
replaced by a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree),
related to participants' place-wellbeing-experiences before, and after, the fire.
 Data Analysis Tool and Gathering Procedure: Regression statistics In line with our
hypotheses, two regression analyses were performed to investigate: (a) the links between
emotion and cognition components of place-identity (predictors) and wellbeing (criterion
variable) before the fire; and (b) the links between emotion and cognition components of place-
identity (predictors) and wellbeing (criterion variable) after the fire.

Major Findings: Before the disaster, a positive association was found between place-
identity and wellbeing, indicating that the stronger attachment/ closeness/belonging (emotion
component of place-identity) participants evolved to the area, as well as remembered more
and thought about the site (cognition component of place identity), the stronger wellbeing they
experienced visiting the location. After the disaster, the strength of the place-identity wellbeing
link decreased more than twice, accounted for by the weakening of the emotion-wellbeing
relation. This indicates that, after the disaster, participants almost lost their emotional bond to
the area and in doing so associated a lower level of wellbeing with the site. On the contrary,
participants maintained their cognition-wellbeing link intact, by which they kept their memories
and thoughts about the place and, thus, upheld a higher level of wellbeing associated

Title: Investigating urban migrants’ sense of place through a multi-scalar perspective

Research Problem: This paper investigates the interconnections between sense-of-place

dimensions across different geographical scales. The central research hypothesis in this paper is
that the migrants have developed a sense of place to the culture center through their everyday
place experiences, and this sense of place to the culture center can also reconstruct migrants’
perceived meanings of Guangzhou, whose values are represented and evaluated through the
socially and culturally constructed spatial experiences of the culture center.

Respondents:  In this paper, we approach this under-theorization of multi-scalarity of

sense of place by looking at urban migrants’ sense of place at two geographical scales e a
community culture center and the city of Guangzhou, China.

Data Gathering Tool and Procedure:  Our research methodology combines both quantitative
(structural equation modeling analysis with 104 questionnaires) and qualitative (12 indepth
interviews) approaches. Interviews; Survey; The questionnaire contains two parts. The first part
is used to achieve basic information about the respondents’ age, sex, place of origin, length of
residence in Guangzhou and occupational status. The second part of the questionnaire
measures migrants’ sense of place with the dimensions of place attachment, place identity and
place dependence. Each of the three constructs is measured at both two geographical scales.
Narratives are designed under each construct for measuring migrants’ sense of place from
various aspects. Definitions of place attachment, place identity and place dependence are in
congruence with discussions in the Introduction section. The place dependence construct
concerns both physical and social reliance on the center and the city. The sub-items are written
in the questionnaire as positive statements (Table 2 and Table 3). For each item, a 1-5 Likert
scale is applied to measure the degree of agreement, with 5 denoting “strongly agree” and 1
denoting “strongly disagree”. The respondents are then asked to score each sub-items in the

Data Analysis Tool and Gathering Procedure: SPSS; Cronbach’s alpha

Major Findings: Major findings in this research include: 1. at the scale of culture center,
place dependence contributes strongly to both place identity and place attachment, while the
latter two dimensions can be seen as parallel constructs; 2. at the scale of Guangzhou, place
dependence is a dimension independent of both place identity and place attachment, and on
the other hand, it is place identity that has a strong impact on place attachment; 3. migrants’
place dependence on the culture center significantly influences their place identity to
Guangzhou, which further contributes to the migrants’ place attachment to the city.

Note: Questionnaire; Likert Scale

Title: Home sweet home: an examination between place attachment and place-protective
actions
Research Problem: The aim of this thesis was to measure the relationship between
living in a threatened place and place attachment to explore between place attachment and
place protective behaviors.
Respondents: people living in the center of rural towns an people living in less built up
rural areas and in Australia’s bush fire prone areas; 300, 150 each
Data Gathering Tool and Procedure: advertised; telephone interview; online survey
Data Analysis Tool and Gathering Procedure: t test; spearman rho
Major Findings: There is no difference in place attachment between people living in
rural owns and people living in less built rural areas; higher place dependence than the inner-
city; rural groups has stronger place identity than the urban groups; place attachment part.
Place dependence is stronger in people who live in threatened places;  
Note: questions

Title: Photovoicing the neighbourhood: Understanding the situated meaning of

intangible places for ageing-in-place

Research Problem: professionals’ and older adults’ constructions of ageing-in-place.

Respondents: We conducted a photovoice study in which 18 older adults (70–85 years)

living independently and 14 professionals (social workers, housing consultants, neighbourhood
managers and community workers) were asked to photograph and discuss the places they
consider important for ageing-in- place.
 Data Gathering Tool and Procedure: This paper draws on a photovoice study, a method
used in the social sciences and based on the idea that photographs add new (visual)
information about our society because they induce alternative modes of thought. Photographs
(existing photographs, or photographs taken by researchers and/or participants) are considered
visualisations of experiences and meanings given to objects (or places) by participants. We
asked 14 professionals and 18 older adults in A and B to photograph a maximum of 25 objects
and places which they considered important with regard to ageing-in-place.

Data Analysis Tool and Gathering Procedure:

Major Findings: Based on a theoretically informed analysis of the data, we found that
professionals primarily consider objective characteristics of neighbourhoods such as access to
amenities, mobility and meeting places as important enablers for older adults to remain living
independently. Analysis of older adults’ photographs and stories show that they associate
ageing-in-place with specific lived experiences and attachments to specific, intangible and
memory-laden public places. We conclude that exploring these experiences helps to increase
current knowledge about place attachment in old age.