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Elements of a Theory of Place Attachment and Socio-Territorial Belonging Gabriele Pollini Published online: 22 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Gabriele Pollini (2005) Elements of a Theory of Place Attachment and SocioTerritorial Belonging, International Review of Sociology: Revue Internationale de Sociologie, 15:3, 497-515, DOI: 10.1080/03906700500272483 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03906700500272483

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International Review of Sociology */Revue Internationale de Sociologie Vol. 15, No. 3, November 2005, pp. 497 /515

Elements of a Theory of Place Attachment and Socio-Territorial Belonging

Downloaded by [Universita di Trento] at 05:43 05 June 2015

Gabriele Pollini

The aim of this paper is to furnish elements both theoretical and empirical useful for the formulation of a theory of place attachment and socio-territorial belonging, two dimensions that are analytically distinct but empirically co-present and interrelated. After delineating a frame of reference which accounts for the distinction and interrelation between place attachment and socio-territorial belonging, the structure of social belonging, of socio-territorial belonging and its relations with other components of human action, and of dynamics of socio-territorial belonging, consideration is made of results from surveys conducted in diverse geographical and social contexts, comparing them with those of surveys carried out in Italy in recent years (1985 2000). /

Keywords: Place Attachment; Belonging; Community; Localism; Cosmopolitanism 1. Introduction: The Dimensions of Human Involvement It is first necessary to distinguish four different dimensions or states in the involvement of individuals in the context of human relations: (a) territorial location; (b) ecological participation; (c) social belonging; (d) cultural conformity or cultural commonality (Pollini, 1990, 2000). The first dimension of human involvement is territorial location. This dimension, as Max Weber showed in his sociological analysis of the medieval European city (Weber, 1921), does not involve any form of social relation among the individuals of a population settled in a particular territorial area. Rather it marks out the limited territorial area within which the individual qua organism is situated and carries on the main activities of everyday life. The second dimension concerns the state of involvement that can be called ecological participation. Unlike territorial location, this dimension involves some sort Correspondence to: Gabriele Pollini, Dipartimento di Scienze Umane e Sociali, Facolta` di Sociologia, Via G. Verdi, 26, I-38100 Trento, Italy. E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 0390-6701 (print)/ISSN 1469-9273 (online) # 2005 University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ DOI: 10.1080/03906700500272483

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of reciprocal relationality among the individual members of a human population settled, or otherwise, in the same territorial area. To use the terminology of human and social ecology when referred to non-symbolic social relations* to recall George H. Mead’s well-known distinction (Mead, 1934)* ecological participation involves a specific form of interdependence among individuals (‘symbiosis’) (Park, 1936, 1939) which is distinctly different from social interaction (Quinn, 1939). For Talcott Parsons an ecological system is ‘a state of mutually oriented interdependence of a plurality of actors who are not integrated by bonds of solidarity to a form a collectivity but who are objects to one another’ (Parsons, 1959, p. 93). The third dimension of involvement is social belonging , or the state in which an individual person, by assuming some role, is characterized by his or her inclusion in the social collectivity, which is exclusively a Gemeinschaft, according to Weber (Weber, 1922, p. 136), and a Gemeinschaft, an organization and an association, according to Parsons (Parsons, 1959, p. 100). From the standpoint of the frame of reference formulated here, the dimension of social belonging relates to any form of social collectivity, whether this is predominantly expressive (non-rational in Weber’s terms) or whether it is predominantly instrumental. Strictly speaking, the belonging concerns only the symbolic dimension of human and social relations and interactions (Durkheim, 1912; Pareto, 1916; Weber, 1921, 1922; Mead, 1934; Park, 1939; Parsons, 1959; Merton, 1963; Shils, 1975; Hunter, 1978, 1987; Milligan, 1998). The fourth and final dimension of involvement is symbolic in character and comprises cultural conformity or cultural commonality. This dimension differs from social belonging in that it involves the sharing by individuals of value systems and therefore of attitudes of ‘consensus’, as defined by Weber (1913), and also, though not necessarily, conformism (Parsons, 1959). The distinction between the dimensions of social belonging and cultural conformity or commonality evidences that belonging to a collectivity can be compatible with the exercise of internal opposition; so that social membership does not exclude the possibility of disagreement, especially when the latter concerns value orientations. In the same way the existence of cultural commonality does not necessarily entail the existence of a Gemeinschaft understood as a sense of shared belonging (Weber, 1922, I, p. 40) (Figure 1). On the basis of the distinction drawn between the dimension of ecological participation and that of social belonging it is possible to use the findings of human ecology and sociological analysis to differentiate between community attachment [attachment to the community] and belonging to the Gemeinschaft (See also in this regard, the distinction between community* which refers to the geographic unit* and sense of community* which refers to social networks) (Wilson-Doenges, 2000). Whereas the former involves the ecological concept of ‘community’ defined as ‘(a) a population, territorially organized; (b) more or less completely rooted in the soil it occupies; (c) its individual units living in a relationship of mutual interdependence that is symbiotic rather than societal’ (Park, 1936, p. 148), the latter concerns the sociological concept of Gemeinschaft as variously defined by Ferdinand Toennies /


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Theory of Place Attachment and Socio-Territorial Belonging

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Figure 1 The dimensions and levels of human involvement.

(1887), Max Weber (Vergemeinschaftung) (1922), Talcott Parsons (1959) and Edward Shils (1995). 2. The Structure of Social Belonging The distinction between community attachment and belonging to the social collectivity (in particular of the type denominated Gemeinschaft) introduces the further and fundamental question of the structure of social belonging, and of the relations among its main components, which from an analytical and multidimensional perspective, also include attachment. Using Parsons’s frame of reference, together with the contributions of other sociologists, the structure of social belonging can be described by starting from the relations among its four chief components which combine to define it as such: attachment; loyalty ; solidarity ; and the sense of affinity or we-feeling (Figure 2). Attachment is a form of investment or ‘cathexis’ towards a social object (the collectivity as a social object in this case), and where by ‘cathexis’ is meant ‘the significance of ego’s relation to the object or objects in question for the gratificationdeprivation balance of his personality’ (Parsons, 1959, p. 17). When attachment is organized into a symbolic pattern, and in primis into a pattern of expressive symbols the meaning of which, shared between ego and alter, become values* or in other words, when they serve as criteria or standard for selection (or appreciative criteria in the present case, given that it concerns expressive symbolism) among the alternatives of orientation which are intrinsically open in the situation* then loyalty arises (Parsons, 1959, p. 77). In the specific case of social belonging, /

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Figure 2 The structure of social belonging.

loyalty defines the relation between ego as a subject and the collectivity as social object of which ego is a member. Besides being the social object of attachment, therefore, the social collectivity thus also becomes the object of loyalty. And this raises the question of the trust that the collectivity requires and which the individual grants. As well as attachment and loyalty, social belonging involves a further component, namely the solidarity of the collectivity. Solidarity, which ‘involves going a step beyond ‘‘loyalty’’’, is defined by Parsons as ‘the institutionalized integration of collectivity’ and it distinguishes itself from loyalty because it entails that ‘collectivityorientation converts this ‘propensity’ into an institutionalized obligation of the roleexpectation. Then whether the actor ‘feels like it’ or not, he is obligated to act in certain ways and risks the application of negative sanctions if he does not’ (Parsons, 1959, p. 98). The final component which combines with the others just outlined to define the structure of social belonging is what has been called the ‘sense of affinity’ (Shils, 1975) or the we-feeling (Mac Iver, 1949, 5 ff) or we-ness (Cooley, 1902) or ‘sense of community’ (McMillan & Chavis, 1986; Wilson & Baldassare, 1996; Wilson-Doenges, 2000) (Weber treated belonging in terms of Zusammengeho¨rigkeit or ‘subjective feeling of the parties, whether affectual or traditional, that they belong together’) (Weber, 1922, p. 136). Although from one point of view this component can be considered to be the final outcome of attachment, loyalty and solidarity, from another it can be viewed as the component which controls and legitimates the others, and therefore performs the function of ‘pattern maintenance’ in the system of social belonging. It may comprise, at least in part, two of the factors that, according to Merton, constitute a collectivity as a social group: definition of themselves as ‘members’ of the group, and definition by others as ‘belonging to the group’, these others including fellow-members and non-members (Merton, 1963). In short and in conclusion, socio-territorial belonging is constituted by the relations of interdependence among the dimensions of attachment, loyalty, solidarity and sense of affinity, according to paths which extend from attachment to sense of


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affinity or we-feeling, and from the latter back to attachment, passing through the intermediate components of loyalty and solidarity.


3. Socio-territorial Belonging and its Relations with Other Components of Human Action The foregoing discussion of the structure of socio-territorial belonging and its main components has identified a number of elements which constitute and condition it. By adding some further elements, also of fundamental importance, we may outline a complete frame of reference wherein socio-territorial belonging involves interrelations among the following subsystems or ‘complexes’: the ecological complex of territorial location and ecological interaction; the mental complex of the identity of the personality [(place identity) (Proshanski, 1978); (settlement-identity) (Feldman, 1990); (environment identity) (Stets & Biga, 2003)]; the social complex of the solidarity of the place collectivity; and the cultural complex of expressive symbolism (Parsons, 1961) (Figure 3). In this frame of reference, central importance is assumed by the relationship between the identity of the personality and the solidarity of the collectivity, both of which stand in relation to the complex of expressive symbolism. It is the latter in particular which, through the processes of internalization and institutionalization, comes to characterize personal identity and collective solidarity (Durkheim, 1912), of which the personal identity involves the process whereby the symbolic complex is acknowledged, and the collective solidarity the process whereby it is represented.

Figure 3 Socio-territorial belonging and its relations with other components of human action.

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The process by which the social collectivity relates to the person-in-role can be called the process of inclusion, while the mental process by which a person comes to be inducted into membership in a collectivity may be called the mechanism of identification, or the mechanism by which a person learns ‘to play a role complementary to those of other members in accord with the pattern of values governing the collectivity’ (Parsons, 1958, p. 91). In other words, again those of Parsons, identification is ‘motivational ‘‘acceptance’’* at levels of ‘‘deep’’ motivational ‘‘commitment’’* of membership in collective systems’ (Parsons, 1970, p. 356). From the point of view of the personality, the multiple social belongings* or even the belonging to multiple collectivities or social circles (Simmel, 1890, 1908)* today so distinctive of the individual condition, are inevitable components of an identity (Parsons, 1968, p. 21) to the point that the perception of personal individuality is determined by membership of some collectivity or social circle (first sociological a priori) (Simmel, 1890, 1908). On the other hand, however, just as the individual as a member of society (social person) is not wholly determined by the fact that s/he is a member of society, but also by the fact that s/he is ‘not socialized’ (second sociological a priori) (Simmel, 1890, 1908), so identity marks out ‘the individual autonomy relative to any role and collectivity membership’ (Parsons, 1968, p. 20). A person’s role as member of the collectivity* which is acquired by means of the mechanism of identification whereby social belongings come to constitute inevitable components of personal identity * entails acknowledgment and internalization by the individual personality of the symbolic complex. The latter is both the foundation of the social collectivity and its representation. According to Durkheim, for whom the social group is defined by the symbolic complex, and especially totemic symbol (Durkheim, 1912), and according to Parsons, for whom expressive symbolism does not concern solely individual members or units (in that it is shared by each of them) but the entire collectivity constituted as a social object by symbolic social interaction, belonging to the social collectivity is not just expressed and represented by the symbolic complex and by distinct symbols and emblems. More importantly, it is reinforced, developed and augmented by them, and in particular by participation in specific symbolic actions and rituals like ceremonies, celebrations, gatherings, meetings, and by the projection of shared value sentiments onto individual members, especially those who assume the role of chief or leader and thus symbolically embody shared value patterns (Parsons, 1959, pp. 395 399). Thus, ritual participation does not simply express and manifest belonging to the collectivity and group; it also and especially strengthens and develops this belonging, and in particular that component of it denominated we-feeling or sense of affinity. /

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4. The Dynamics of Socio-territorial Belonging Some of the approaches dominant within first the modernization paradigm, and then the globalization paradigm (Meyrowitz, 1985; Calhoun, 1991; Giddens, 1991), have often suggested the progressive loss of significance of particularist and diffused



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belonging to the local community (‘delocalization’) (Peachey et al., 1984), with the corresponding emergence of a single cosmopolitan attachment/belonging of a universalist and specific kind. This perspective is based on the diffusion of specific occupational and vocational roles which are not intrinsically tied to territorial residence, and it assumes complete residential mobility, the intense territorial fluidity of the population and the development of information and communication technologies as its background scenario (‘mobiletic revolution’) (Russett, 1969). However, more thorough analysis, necessarily followed by empirical inquiry, yields evidence that points in a different direction, or at least complements the evidence conventionally cited in support of the thesis that belonging to the local community is becoming less important (Kasarda & Janowitz, 1974). The results of theoretical analysis and the hypothesis subjected to empirical verification, in fact, indicate more a change in the structure and empirical configuration of socio-territorial belonging than its progressive and unidirectional loss of importance. From the point of view of structural analysis, this change may be accounted for in terms of the prevalence of expressive symbolic elements and of emotive social elements, and of the reduced influence of constitutive and moral symbolic elements and of normative social elements* these latter being specific to the previous theoretical emphasis and empirical approach. Empirical enquiries* although in truth only a few of them have been conducted* largely agree in their findings that the feeling of local socio-territorial belonging still persists (Taylor & Townsend, 1976; Hunter, 1978; Gubert, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1999, 2000a; Beggs et al., 1996) but that it is associated with sentiments of belonging which refer to multiple social collectivities, even ones specific in character and not necessarily territorial, such as community, movements, associations and various kinds of organization. In other words, the dimension of socio-territorial belonging seems to conserve its currency, although it may have undergone internal changes which render it increasingly multiform and composite. If on the one hand, socio-territorial belonging has tended to diminish in its ‘totalizing’ character because of the correspondence, overlapping and coincidence of symbolic-cultural, interactive-social and ecological-territorial elements, on the other it has tended to acquire symbolic-expressive character within the cultural sphere, and emotional character within the system of social interaction. In this manner, the properly territorial element is assumed and perceived in a more directly expressive and emotive sense, relatively independently of the ‘strong’ mediation by normative Gemeinschaft relations that operated almost universally in society (the reference here is to Italy) only a few decades ago. From this perspective, socio-territorial belonging, especially at the local level, tends to diminish as a univocal horizon of orientation in the everyday life of the population, with the concomitant strengthening of the bond with the territorial area in which the residential unit is located* this latter being understood as the ‘centre’ and ‘pivot’ on the basis of which a diverse pattern of socioterritorial belonging may structure itself. /

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It is as if the given unity of belonging to the local territorial Gemeinschaft (Gemeinschaft of soil, in Ferdinand Toennies’ terms) has fragmented and differentiated (Pollini, 1997), giving rise to two distinct dimensions, each of which constitutes itself on only one of the elements which were previously integrated and interwoven: on the one hand, the moral symbolic element on the basis of which belonging to non-territorial social collectivities* primary or secondary but at any rate non-specific (religious belonging or belonging to a social movement, etc.)* constitutes itself; on the other, the symbolic-expressive element around which emotive socio-territorial belonging, characterized by a more direct symbolic bond with the place of residence, dwelling included, structures itself (the process of structural and functional differentiation). This change in the pattern of socio-territorial belonging towards a symbolicexpressive, rather than symbolic-moral, configuration may give renewed importance to the dimension of attachment to the community (community attachment)* which, especially in urban contexts, but not only, may be regarded as the natural complement to the expressive bond with the place, now understood, at least in some cases, as a residue of primary socialization. This, however, is to move out of the dimension of belonging which, unlike that of attachment, expressly envisages inclusion in a socio-territorial collectivity and not simple ecological interdependence in a given territorial area. /


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5. Socio-territorial Belonging: Empirical Results of Theoretical Relevance The aim of the second part of this paper is to present, comparing them with those of other surveys, some results from an empirical-statistical survey on ‘Socio-territorial belonging and values’ which are relevant to the formulation of significant propositions that may constitute an initial and very partial introduction to a medium-range (if you will) of socio-territorial belonging. The survey was carried out in the year 2000 in various areas of the Italian regions of Lombardy, Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Emilia-Romagna (northern Italy) and Sardinia (central Italy) on a random sample of 2800 residents by means of a questionnaire, and the data were processed using the customary statistical techniques of bivariate analysis, factor analysis and multiple linear regression analysis (Gubert et al., 2004). 5.1. The persistence of the Relationship of Place Attachment and Socio-territorial Belonging The first finding is the persistence, subjectively defined, of the relation of socio-territorial attachment/belonging , and not its disappearance or replacement by other forms of non-territorial social belonging or by other kinds of human involvement not coincident with social belonging in the strict sense (for example, territorial localization or ecological participation). If what emerges is this permanence of socio-territorial belonging in contemporary society* also known as postmodern /


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society characterized by pervasive processes of globalization (Pollini, 2004b)* the question that immediately arises is in what forms it persists and how, given that it is not possible to argue that its structure has remained unaltered, immune to the social, cultural, economic and political changes that have traversed and shaken society as a whole and its interdependent spheres, ambits and dimensions. The next question is that of identifying the features of this transformation, which cannot be anything but a transformation in the structure of socio-territorial belonging, or a change in the relations among the main elements of which it is composed, and in the ‘weights’ or ‘values’ that each of these elements expresses in relation to the others. The observations that follow will therefore seek to delineate the changes that have taken place, and to determine the present state of affairs in relation to previous situations as described by various surveys conducted in Italy since the 1980s (Capraro, 1987; Gubert, 1987; Struffi, 1987) until the most recent one (Gubert, 2004) with numerous others (Gubert, 1989, 1992, 1997, 1999) in between. In particular, multiple regression analysis shows that the social conditions most typical of post-modernity (residence in larger cities, geographic mobility, residential mobility, higher levels of education, secularization, ethical relativism, individualism, etc.) (Halman et al., 1987; Ashford & Timms, 1992; Inglehart, 1997; Gubert, 2000b) tend to attenuate the intensity of socio-territorial belonging but do not erase it (Gubert, 1999, 2000a).


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5.2. The Persistence of Localism A second feature of the current configuration of socio-territorial belonging is the persistence of localism (Strassoldo & Tessarin, 1992; Wilson & Baldassare, 1996; Gubert, 2000a), understood as a structural and non-conjunctural, necessary and not contingent, characteristic of place attachment and socio-territorial belonging felt mainly at the local level (the primary community/Gemeinschaft of everyday life) (Rothenbuhler et al., 1996). This does not coincide, in either extent or amplitude, with the localism that may previously have characterized socio-territorial belonging (‘old localism’), nor with the localism different from the previous one and perhaps corresponding to a dimension fixed and valid for every circumstance and context. In other words, localism continues to be a component of socio-territorial belonging, but it varies according to the specific features of the socio-territorial ambit concerned. Not only does the quantum of localism not coincide necessarily with the village, town or commune, neither does it correspond univocally with another socio-territorial unit larger than these. Rather, it is determined by the relational field or system that forms between the individual person as a social actor, on the one hand, and the natural environment, the ecological system, the social collectivity and the symboliccultural complex on the other. From this perspective, ‘localism’, on the basis of its ideal-typical form of municipalism, may assume both the form of ‘neighbourhoodism’ (from neighbourhood), if the area in question is characterized by increasing complexity and heterogeneity (this being the case, for example, of the city of Milan in north-western Italy) and of ‘provincialism’ (or ‘regionalism, but only in very

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particular cases like Friuli-Venezia Giulia in north-eastern Italy, a region consisting of only two provinces), if the area is characterized by relative ‘simplicity’ and homogeneity (Pollini, 2004a). From this point of view it is of interest to find that, alongside a ‘traditional’ municipal localism of prevalently non-urban type, a ‘contemporary’ or ‘new localism’ of urban, or better metropolitan, type which coincides with the ‘neighbourhood’ localism (intra-metropolitan localism) (Mesch & Manor, 1998) is now arising, as well as an extended localism coincident with the province and, in certain specific cases where the latter largely coincides with a socioterritorial ambit larger than it and homogeneous with it, coincident with the region (Hunter, 1987). In short, in the contemporary situation, localism may vary from intra-metropolitan ‘neighbourhoodism’* through rural and urban municipalism, that of the area intermediate between commune and province* to ‘provincialism (-regionalism)’. A further question that arises is whether the variations in localism up to its extreme coincident with the ‘provincial(-regional)’ ambit due to both changes in the socioterritorial unit concerned and to processes of territorial and more general mobility (Pollini, 1996), have also brought about change in the structure of social relations which may characterize a socio-territorial community in terms of the ideal type of the Gemeinschaft or of the Gesellschaft. In other words, one may hypothesise and verify whether the extension of localism, where it has occurred, does not necessarily bring with it* below a certain threshold* change in the social structure of the community which refers to that area in the direction of ‘societal’ rather than ‘communitarian’ characteristics, to use two ‘normal concepts’ of Toennies and especially the ‘ideal types’ of Weber. In the case of the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige, in particular, the trend towards ‘cosmopolitanism’ (sense of belonging to the whole world) does not necessarily entail, at least for the time being, the disappearance of the ‘localist’ orientation and of its typical communitarian structure. Instead, it is indicative of an extension of the territorial area of primary reference (from the commune to the province) and of the attribution to the latter also of the features and traits typical of the social community of Gemeinschaft. Thus, Gemeinschaft comes to characterize not only the social relations of the commune, of the village, or of the neighbouhood but also those of the province, and consequently allows one to define the Trentino, as regards the majority of its population, a Gemeinschaft, or even as the Trentino Gemeinschaft (Pollini, 1998). In more general terms, the process of change marked by the relative increase in both ‘nationalism’ (sense of belonging to the nation) and ‘cosmopolitanism’, in a context nevertheless still characterized by the prevalence of ‘localism’, is for the moment not to the detriment of the communitarian structure of social relations tout court. It instead gives rise to a gradual increase in the size of the territorial area to which communitarian social relations refer. One should not forget, in fact, that if localism were not more positively correlated with the communitarian structure of relations and therefore of the social community, it would be difficult still to talk of socio-territorial belonging* at least on the basis of /

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Weber’s ideal-typical concept of Vergemeinschaftung defined, stringently and unequivocally, as the ‘subjectively felt sense of shared belonging’ (Zusammengeho¨rigkeit). This thus raises the further question as to whether a sense of socio-territorial belonging connected to a non-communitarian localism is possible, or indeed, localist and non-communitarian socio-territorial belonging.


5.3. The Compatibility of Socio-territorial Belonging with Spatial and Residential Mobility A third feature of the present configuration of socio-territorial attachment and belonging derives from the latter’s relationship with the processes of territorial mobility in general and of residential mobility in particular. The surveys show, in fact, that socio-territorial belonging does not necessarily entail the absence of spatial mobility in general and of residential mobility in particular, and that it is not necessarily to be regarded as incompatible with mobility (Feldman, 1990, 1996; Cuba & Hummon, 1993a,b; Mesch & Manor, 1998; Gustafson, 2001); rather, in concomitance with the latter, it may assume different and specific forms. In particular, residential mobility seems to multiply local attachment rather than to create a single cosmopolitan attachment (Gubert, 1992, pp. 326 330; Rubinstein & Parmelee, 1992, 1996; Feldman, 1996). Alongside the more traditional form of ‘belonging ascribed by birth and residence’ (59.5%), in fact, there emerge, non-traditional forms of ‘belonging ascribed by birth alone’ (6.4%), ‘belonging acquired by residence’ (13.2%) and ‘elective belonging’ (6.7%) (Pollini, 2004). ‘Belonging acquired by residence’ can be associated with residential mobility [with the lowest level of ‘autochthony’ (the commune of birth of both the interviewee’s parents is located in a region different from that of the interviewee’s commune of residence which, in its turn, is located in a region different from that of his/her commune of birth)] and referable to ‘absolutely mobile’ individuals and internal migration to a socio-territorial ambit different to the one of birth and with respect to which there arises a process of symbolic-social acquisition (interiorization) and full identification by the immigrant, independently of any meaningful tie with the socioterritorial ambit of birth and any feeling of nostalgia for it. Although ‘socio-territorial belonging ascribed by birth alone’ also involves maximum residential mobility (with the lowest level of ‘autochthony’ and referable to ‘absolutely mobile’ individuals), it is associated with emigration rather than immigration, where the internal emigrant may still feel nostalgia for the socioterritorial ambit of his/her birth which has been left for the present place of residence, towards which s/he feels no sense of principal belonging/attachment. This may be the social condition of the ‘marginal man’ first described by Robert E. Park (1928) and Everett V. Stonequist (1937) and then by Robert K. Merton (1963). It should be noted that this latter type of ‘belonging ascribed by birth alone’ mostly characterizes social actors subject to ‘modern’ processes of residential mobility but who still feel nostalgia /

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for their previous condition and are highly educated. This indicates that social marginality in the strict sociological sense of the term does not necessarily coincide with conditions only apparently related to it, like cultural disadvantage and social hardship and marginalization. Finally, there is ‘elective belonging’. This involves a medium level of residential mobility [with a low level of ‘autochthony’ (the commune of birth of both of the interviewee’s parents is located in the same region as the interviewee’s commune of residence)] and referable to ‘relatively mobile’ individuals]* and therefore lower than in the two previous cases* and identifies with a third ambit of belonging different from both place of birth and place of residence, presumably for reasons both expressive (to do with free time, for example) and instrumental (tied to work, for example). In sum, residential mobility with the lowest level of autochthony and which therefore designates the condition of the ‘absolute mobile’ individual can be positively correlated with both ‘belonging ascribed by birth alone’ and ‘belonging acquired by residence’, thereby demonstrating that socio-territorial belonging is not incompatible with residential mobility because it can ‘recreate itself ’ with reference to an ambit different from the place of birth, and also and especially because it may persist with reference to an ambit which does not coincide with that of current residence (i.e. the place of birth). One may accordingly argue that the ascribed character of belonging may persist even in conditions of absolute residential mobility, if this is understood in the symbolic-social sense and not just in the ecologicalterritorial sense. The thesis of the compatibility of socio-territorial belonging with territorial mobility is also confirmed in the case where territorial mobility coincides with international migration. In fact, a survey conducted on a sample of seven hundred foreign immigrants in Italy from seven different countries (China, The Philippines, Ghana, former Yugoslavia, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia) has highlighted, by means of factor analysis,1 three factors all relating to socio-territorial belonging: the first factor relative to the ethnic and national belonging of origin; the second relative to the pleasantness of the territorial area and place of current residence and/or work; and the third factor relative to belonging to the nation of arrival as the propensity to acquire Italian citizenship (Pollini & Venturelli Christensen, 2002). /

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5.4. The Ambit of Belonging is a Territorially Characterized Social Collectivity A fourth feature to be inferred from the indications by the Italian population interviewed (Pollini, 2004a) of the main characteristics of the area to which they feel most attached relates to the qualification and denomination of that ambit and enables one to speak of socio-territorial belonging in the proper sense. If, in fact, the territorial ambit to which a person feels ‘tied’ is not defined, not exclusively nor even prevalently, by purely naturalistic-environmental elements (40.3%), not by simply cultural ones (60.2%), nor by ties of primary (61%) or secondary (60.6%) sociality,


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but rather by a set of dimensions related on the one hand to economic-productive aspects (76.4%) and on the other to aspects of social and political integration (74.9%), then that ambit does not coincide simply with a territorial area but indicates the existence of a territorially characterized and subjectively perceived social collectivity. The existence of this social collectivity* presumably, and for the moment hypothetically, of territorial Gemeinschaft type, given that it is a distinctive condition for the community ecologically understood and defined by symbiotic interdependence* entails that the ‘bond’ with it can be mainly defined in terms of socio-territorial belonging rather than solely place attachment. More generally, this is a theoretically significant indicator with which to distinguish between the two dimensions of socio-territorial belonging and place attachment, where the former comprises the symbolic and social dimension while the latter does not (Figure 1). However, this is not to imply that the two dimensions may not be empirically copresent and conjoint (Hunter, 1987); rather, it implies that particular relations of ‘control’ and ‘conditioning’ arise between them. /


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5.5. The Communitarian Structure of the Socio-territorial Collectivity of Belonging While on the basis of the survey (Gubert, 2004) results it is possible to argue for the presence of the social collectivity, and therefore for the presence of the ‘bond’ of socio-territorial belonging as distinct from that of place attachment* a further question to be answered concerns the social structure of this collectivity, understood as a system of social relations. Yet examination of the elements that individuals cite as ‘giving meaning’ to their bond with the territorial ambit shows that they can be largely related to motives of an affective (Hunter, 1978; Altman & Low, 1992; Hummon, 1992; Mesch & Manor, 1998; Pollini, 2004a) and traditional nature (Pollini, 2004a), or in other words, of a non-rational character (for example the following: ‘because my family lives there’; ‘because it has particularly dear memories for me’; ‘because it is the place where I was born or want my children to be born’) (Capraro, 1987; Gubert, 1999, 2002), ‘because my friends live there’ (Guest & Lee, 1983; St. John et al., 1986; Pollini, 2004a). But the presence of these types of motives necessarily relates, in the light of Max Weber’s sociological analysis, to the type of social relation that he called Vergemeinschaftung , and Toennies Gemeinschaft. From this perspective one may argue that socio-territorial belonging, which once related to the social collectivity, can now be more precisely related to the type of social collectivity definable as Gemeinschaft and be distinguished from the other type idealtypically specular to it of Vergesellschaftung or Gesellschaft. What seems to persist is belonging to the territorial Gemeinschaft, not simply belonging to a social collectivity (on this, see Pollini, 1998). The further question to be asked now concerns the specific configuration of a territorial Gemeinschaft of this kind, given that it has not disappeared or been supplanted but rather transformed over time (Brint, 2001), assuming different configurations in traditional societies, then in the modern ‘mass societies’ (Kasarda & Janowitz, 1974; Sampson, 1988), and now in the postmodern /

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‘globalized’ society (see, e.g., Mlinar, 1992, 2001; Robertson, 1992, 1994; Pollini, 2004b). Also the reasons for ‘apostasy’ from socio-territorial belonging* or in other words, the reasons for abandoning one’s socio-territorial ambit of belonging* confirm the findings as regards the motives for belonging and reinforce in negative the thesis of the communitarian (from Gemeinschaft: Gemeinschaft-like) structure of the social collectivity to which a person feels the strongest attachment (Pollini, 2004a). /

/


5.6. The Multiplicity of Socio-territorial Belongings Although socio-territorial belonging can still be related to a social collectivity of Gemeinschaft type, this does not signify that it is unique and monolithic, nor that it can be necessarily defined as belonging to a single and sole socio-territorial collectivity. In contemporary circumstances, in fact, one observes the presence, subjectively felt, of multiple socio-territorial* not just social* belongings, and therefore the existence of belonging to a plurality of socio-territorial collectivities (Gubert, 1998, 2000). This ‘polycentric belonging’, moreover, can be understood either hierarchically (from the most intense to the weakest) or ‘heterarchically’, i.e. in scattered and random order independently of any gradation or grading of intensity. The majority of the Italians interviewed declared that they felt a sense of belonging to a multiplicity of place collectivities (57.8%) which were (24.7%) or were not (33.1%) connected by a scale of subjectively perceived intensity, while only 24.3% of the sample declared that they felt a sense of belonging to one single place collectivity (‘monocentric belonging’) (Pollini, 2004a). /

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5.7. Localism is not Incompatible with the Sentiment of National Belonging While ‘localism’ characterizes to a greater extent socio-territorial belonging as such when a respondent is ‘induced’ by the structure of the questionnaire (Gubert, 2004) to choose only one of the territorial ambits to which s/he feels most attached, an orientation to ‘nationalism’ (sentiment of national belonging) instead more widely characterizes socio-territorial belonging when they are asked to express their intensity of attachment to each of the seventeen ambits indicated: neighbourhood or district, commune, area intermediate between commune and province, province, Italian region, North Italy, Central Italy, South Italy, cross-border region, Italy, European Union, Central Europe, Mediterranean countries, Eastern Europe, geographical Europe, the West, whole world) (Pollini, 2004a). This means that ‘localism’ and ‘nationalism’, far from being necessarily alternative to each other, are two complementary attitudes which both overlap with the sense of socio-territorial belonging (Robertson, 1992). This may mean that although socio-territorial belonging is localistically characterized to a large extent, it does not detract from national belonging, given that the two dimensions are not defined by a ‘zero sum game’ (Mlinar, 2001). Probably, whereas ‘localism’ mainly characterizes the symbolic/


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territorial dimension of social belonging, ‘nationalism’ more closely determines its symbolic-civic dimension (Pollini, 1991), evidencing more the relative homogeneity of civic commonality among individuals than the differentiation of their territorial localization, albeit symbolically and socially elaborated and represented. In other words, ‘nationalism’ seems to relate more closely to the civic and political components of socio-territorial belonging, rather than to more specifically territorial ones, while ‘localism’ seems to relate to elements more directly connected with proximity to a specific place and with the sociality represented by the social relation of Gemeinschaft.


5.8. Change in the Sense of Socio-territorial Belonging: From Nationalism to Europeanism and to Localism The final feature of socio-territorial belonging of both conceptual and theoretical importance is the change in the sense of socio-territorial belonging as it is perceived by the Italian population (Pollini, 2004a). And yet one observes that the change as subjectively perceived by the population shifts as the years pass from ‘nationalism’ on the one hand, to ‘Europeanism’ and ‘localism’ at the same time on the other (Galtung, 1967; Mlinar, 2001), in the sense that with respect to the past, prevalent today and perceived as increasing, are both the sense of belonging to the European Union and that of belonging to the extreme localist ambit (village, town, valley), compared to the sense of belonging to the nation. From a subjective point of view, the simultaneous trends towards Europeanism and localism indicate that a process of differentiation is in progress, whereby a hypothetical point of departure definable as ‘nationalism’ is being decomposed into the two distinct and only nominally opposed points of Europeanism and localism. The further result is that both these two latter points display today the same trend towards greater diffusion among the population compared to the recent past. 6. Conclusions The surveys conducted in Italy in the past twenty-five years, from the first in 1985 to the last in the year 2000, confirm some of the results from surveys carried out in other countries. In particular, the findings of the surveys conducted in Italy useful for the purpose of formulating a theory of place attachment and socio-territorial belonging seem to be the following: the persistence of the relationship of place attachment and socio-territorial belonging; the persistence of localism, understood as a characteristic of place attachment and socio-territorial belonging felt mainly at the local level (the primary community/Gemeinschaft of everyday life); the compatibility of place attachment and socio-territorial belonging with spatial and residential mobility, in the sense that residential mobility, in particular, seems to multiply local attachment rather than to create a single cosmopolitan attachment; the ambit of belonging is a socio-symbolic place collectivity and not purely a place characterized naturalistically


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and ecologically; the socio-territorial collectivity of belonging has a Gemeinschaft-like structure characterized mainly by motives of belonging of an affective and traditional nature; the diffusion within the population of a multiplicity of socio-territorial belongings (‘polycentric belonging’) at the expense of belonging to one single territorial collectivity (‘monocentric belonging’); localism is not incompatible with the sentiment of national belonging, given that the two dimensions are not defined by a ‘zero sum game’; the change in the sentiment of socio-territorial belonging, in the sense of simultaneous trends towards Europeanism and localism at the expense of nationalism. These findings point to the more general conclusion that place attachment and socio-territorial belonging, even when of a localist and communitarian character, are not disappearing in contemporary societies subject first to modernization, and then to globalization, and marked by the ‘mobiletic revolution’. Rather they tend to transform themselves, and in doing so follow the more general social process of the differentiation and specification of structures and functions. Note [1]

Maximum likelihood extraction with eigenvalue equal to or greater than 1, quartimax rotation with Kaiser normalization.

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Gabriele Pollini is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Human and Social Sciences, University of Trento, Italy. His current research interests focus on sociological theory, European and Italian values, socio-territorial belonging and geographic mobility (migration in particular). He is author of Appartenenza e identita` (1987), Migrazioni e appartenenze molteplici (with Patrizia Venturelli Christensen) (2002), Sociologia delle migrazioni e della societa` multietnica (with Giuseppe Scida`) (2002) and he is coeditor (with Giuseppe Sciortino) of Parsons’ The Structure of Social Action and Contemporary Debates (2001).