On behalf of Sabine Meier and Joke Terlaak Poot<br /><br /><br />Session:<br />Residential quality and the construction of social identity in rural areas with population decline<br /><br />Session organisers:<br />Sabine Meier (Applied Research Professor, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen)<br />Joke Terlaak Poot (PhD-researcher, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen)<br /><br />Fourth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies<br />1-3 July 2013 at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands<br /><br />Various perspectives have been developed by academic scholars to analyze the relationship between residential quality and social identity (Easthope, 2004; Gieryn, 2000; Mallett, 2004). Constructing social identity is closely related to attachment to 'home', which does have certain social, aesthetic and physical qualities (Blunt and Dowling, 2006). Attachment to a particular dwelling and neighbourhood has been regarded as crucial for the development of a person’s positive sense of self (Buttimer, 1980; Dovey, 1985; Pratt, 1981; Savage et al., 2006).<br /><br />From an environmental psychological perspective, attachment to particular qualities of dwelling and neighbourhood is defined as a cognitive process, consisting of emotions and rational responses referring to sociospatial experiences. It results in a range of different personal attitudes towards a place (Cuba and Hummon, 1993; Proshansky et al., 1983). The environmental psychological perspective on the correlation between residential quality and social identity has been developed further by other social scholars like sociologists and human geographers. When people decide to move they consider if the new place whether or not will fit their sense of self. The freedom to choose a particular residential quality is dependent on people’s assets. According to Savage et al. (1992) property - which is often regarded as synonym to a high residential quality-, is one of the three assets (besides cultural and organizational assets) by which class formation is affected. Social groups attempt to preserve these assets for future generations and convert one type of asset into another. As a result, residents aspire to transforming their cultural assets into 'housing, so that the aesthetics of the middle-class residence plays a major part in the exhibition of specific cultural taste and values' (Savage et al. 1992:94). Once middle-class incomers had moved to their new home, they 'electively belong' to places by distinguishing themselves from 'locals' who have historical attachments to the place (Savage et al. 2005; Savage 2010; Heins 2004; Gosnell 2011). However, both social groups share an interest in the maintenance of a variety of qualities of the shared residential place.<br /><br />In rural areas with population decline, the meaning of property and residential quality is changing. Residents become confronted with the fact that they are not able to sell their property, when they want to move. Besides, unoccupied houses provoke the decline of the house prices (on local level) and the aesthetics of the residential space probably change from a 'decent and fitting image' towards an image of decay. For the purpose of a more complete understanding of the relation between residential quality and social identity in rural areas that are confronted with population decline, we are in search for papers which deal in a broad sense with the following questions:<br /><br />-  How do spatial consequences of population decline (like vacancy and a disrupted infrastructure) influence rural residential quality?<br />-  How do population decline and demographic change inform everyday residential life?<br />-  How do population decline and demographic change inform the 'feeling-at-home' experience of residents?<br />-  In what way do population decline and change threaten the idea of the so-called 'rural idyll' for insiders and outsiders (Cloke 2003, Bell 2006)?<br />-  How does the meaning of property change in areas with population decline and demographic change?<br /><br />Please send abstracts of approx. 300 words to Sabine (<a href="/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind1301%26L%3DCRIT-GEOG-FORUM%26E%3Dquoted-printable%26P%3D928230%26B%3D----7612f05e4ea3022dbfa7e%26T%3Dtext%252Fhtml%3B%2520charset%3Dwindows-1252%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>) and Joke (<a href="/cgi-bin/wa-jisc.exe?LOGON=A3%3Dind1301%26L%3DCRIT-GEOG-FORUM%26E%3Dquoted-printable%26P%3D928230%26B%3D----7612f05e4ea3022dbfa7e%26T%3Dtext%252Fhtml%3B%2520charset%3Dwindows-1252%26pending%3D" target="_parent" >[log in to unmask]</a>) before January 10th, 2013.