If These Walls Could Talk: Places as Stages for Human Drama

I advance the argument that the construction of identity is dependent on the actor's participation in interpersonal dramas. The narratives that flow from participation in personal or social drama become the anchors that affirm one's claims to identity. Historically, psychologists have given little attention to the places that provide the stages for such action. A dramatic engagement involves not only the act, the actors and their motives, but also the scenes (the places) that provide the backdrop for social life. Observations of the variability in performances attributable to scenes suggests place identity as a significant component of social identity. Accounts of emotional attachments to places support place identity as a useful construction in describing the components of a self. An implication of this analysis is that architects and planners, in their efforts to redesign cities, should take into account the construction that urban places are stages for the enactment of human dramas.

Acknowledgments

This article was an invited address, 112th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Division 34, July 28–August 1, 2004, Honolulu, Hawaii. A preliminary version was presented at the 40th Making Cities Livable Conference, June 13–17, London. The theme of the article developed through conversations with Joseph Juhasz, Henry Lennard, and Suzanne Crowhurst Lennard. I acknowledge with thanks critical readings of an earlier draft by Ralph Carney and Michael Mascolo.