Snapshots of what matters most: Using resident-employed photography to articulate attachment to place

Sense-of-place research has grown in recent years and has attracted interest from a diverse range of disciplines. Beckley ( 2003) suggests that it may be possible to disaggregate persons' attachment to biophysical versus sociocultural aspects of sense of place. Stedman ( 2003) and Beckley ( 2003) challenge researchers to experiment with new methods for examining the subject. This research addresses the challenges through the use of resident-employed photography. The method was used to elicit sense-of-place values in four communities across Canada. Participants took photographs of things that most attached them to their communities or region. Participants were interviewed about their photographs, and 937 photo-narrative data points were created and analyzed. The analysis involved ascribing photo-narratives to single response categories. Residents distributed their photographs fairly evenly between sociocultural and biophysical dimensions of their communities; however, many attachments involve both sociocultural and biophysical influences.