ABSTRACT
How do ecological identity, place, and emotion come together in an increasingly globalized world? There is no one answer to this question, but an environmental microsociology approach offers useful insights into the increasingly complex interweave of identity and place. To illustrate, I draw on a case study of the Finca La Bella project in north-central Costa Rica. This unusual piece of land is an ongoing experiment in socio-ecological change and the product of a long-term transnational collaboration. While macro-level sociological theories focus on the large-scale flows that shape global patterns of social interaction (economic, demographic, political, and other), a micro-level interactionist perspective illuminates how those patterns look and are negotiated in the face-to-face spaces of everyday life. Here, I consider the usefulness of a “sociology of emotions” framework for understanding how the emotion of hope is sustained in small interactional spaces, becoming a “renewable energy” resource for community change and ecological awareness (Collins, 1990; Jasper, 2011; Summers-Effler, 2002). This has particular significance given the intertwined nature of social and ecological sustainability. I also note the emergent meanings of the project for key participants. More broadly, I consider Anthony Giddens’ (1990) notion that modernization and globalization increasingly disembed (uproot) us from local places, but that we are also “re-embedded” in new ways as time and space are rearranged in our everyday experience.
