ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses research that explores place attachment through various narrative approaches, with a focus on the role of audio and visual methods. As a researcher from a landscape architecture background, I explore how theories of place attachment can equally attend to the materiality and sensory qualities of place experience while integrating the temporality of life change: expectations, memories, and resonances. I discuss the potential for collaboration (both with participants and with non-academic stakeholders) as embedded in the creative process and as an important means by which representation attends to commonly marginalized voices.
I set out methodological challenges and possible approaches by detailing the methods of two research projects. The first, Walking Voices (conducted in 2006), explored diverse neighborhood places from the perspective of residents who were first-generation migrants, used self-recorded on-site audio recordings, and forged a collaboration with a local radio station. The second, the Bench Project (conducted in 2015), focused on the affordances and meanings of place for users of a park and a square in outer London, which again used on-site audio but this time it was incorporated in a film output. In conclusion, I reflect on the strengths and limitations of these methods within traditional of place attachment research.
