Making Character Concrete: Empirical Strategies for Studying Place Distinction

Actors orient themselves toward places based not only on major distinctions—coastal versus inland, large city versus small town—but based on a subtler and seemingly ineffable set of qualities, including meanings associated with place and patterns in local life. This article suggests that to understand how locality matters, we must not merely describe place in broad terms, but come to understand how material and symbolic aspects of place work together to direct activity on the ground. Place character is offered as a conceptual tool for understanding how qualities of place combine and influence local patterns in meaning and action. This article outlines strategies that can aid in uncovering just what constitutes a place's character by identifying understandings associated with specific locales and the social and material realities that provide the bases for these understandings. It also suggests approaches that reveal how character works to shape local action. Classic and contemporary studies are called on to elaborate the precedents and stakes of conducting this research and illustrate how the four research strategies presented here can be used. Concluding remarks suggest how researching place character might advance substantive understandings of situated social action.