ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on interpreting the changing relationship between identity and place over the life course with particular attention to later life. A primary objective is to illustrate how capacity for personal place identification and the identity of places are uniquely blended through expression in attachment to place in a manner that, for each person, facilitates their degree of being in place that is intimately tied to well-being and quality of life, and especially so in old age. This personal place identification profile is shaped by personality. But there is more to it than the legacy of genes. Personal place identification begins at the body and at this level evolves over the life course. During infancy, it involves few and generally spatially limited places–being in place at mother's breast or within the bodily range of the protective confines of the crib.
