Considerations on Using Sense of Place in Nature Protection Management

Academic year 2011-2012

THE SENSE OF PLACE OF NATIONAL PARK 'GALICICA' -

CONSIDERATIONS ON USING SENSE OF PLACE IN NATURE PROTECTION MANAGEMENT

RANTAĹ A, Bojan

Promotor: Ass. Prof. Dr.ir. Joost P. JONGERDEN

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the joint academic degree of International Master of Science in Rural Development from Ghent University (Belgium), Agrocampus Ouest (France), Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany), Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra (Slovakia) and University of Pisa (Italy) in collaboration with Wageningen University (The Netherlands),

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Title

The Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’ - Considerations On Using Sense Of Place In Nature Protection Management

Author

Bojan Rantasa

Contact e-mail

bojan@rantasa.net

Wageningen University registration number

790630680060

Master Programme

Erasmus Mundus International MSc in Rural Development

Period

2010-2012

University

Wageningen University and Research Centre, The Netherlands

Credits

30 ECTS – Thesis Rural Sociology (RSO-80430)

Supervisor Dr. ir. Joost P. Jongerden From Wageningen University (Rural Sociology Group)

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This thesis was elaborated and defended at Wageningen University, Rural Sociology Group (The Netherlands) within the framework of the European Erasmus Mundus Programme “Erasmus Mundus International Master of Science in Rural Development” (Course N° 2010-0114 – R 04-018/001)

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Certification This is an unpublished M.Sc. thesis and is not prepared for further distribution. The author and the promoter give the permission to use this thesis for consultation and to copy parts of it for personal use. Every other use is subject to the copyright laws, more specifically the source must be extensively specified when using results from this thesis.

The Promoter(s) The Author (name(s) and signature(s)) (name and signature) Joost Jongerden Bojan Rantaša

Thesis online access release I hereby authorize the IMRD secretariat to make this thesis available on line on the IMRD website The Author (name and signature) Bojan Rantaša

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In the writing of this thesis report documents from the State Archive of the Republic of Macedonia have been used. The documents are dully referenced in the text and their appropriate references are included in the bibliography.

For the use of these documents approval has been sought and received by the State Archive of the Republic of Macedonia.

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Dedication I dedicate this thesis report to you. – You, the person that found time and interest to read this thesis report. For this thesis report is meant to be read by you. Thank you.

I also dedicate this report to one certain Grandma Rose (In Macedonian: Баба Ружа / Baba Ruža). – Her storytelling, about 12 years ago, made me become more interested in the people’s perspectives that are embedded in the culture.

In a sense, she is the background cause of my life journey to end up researching the sense of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’.

Lastly, I dedicate this thesis report to myself. – Perhaps it sounds egocentric and unusual, but this thesis has been a personal discovery for me. The researching and writing of this report was a process of discovery of my self in the world of science. It was a process through which I learned how, but also why I should do scientific research.

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Disclaimer I consider that there is no blueprint for exploring relational place. The research methods that I use here are customized according to my presumptions, experience and knowledge on the matter. I take this from my personal experience of dealing with matters of social concern, and I recognize confirmation of this thinking in the words of Lefebvre (Lefebvre, 1974, p.32): ’How much can we really learn, for instance, confined as we are to Western conceptual tools, about the Asiatic mode of production, its space [relational place], its towns, or the relationship it embodies between town and country – a relationship reputedly represented figuratively or ideographically by the Chinese characters?’

I, as a researcher, am aware of this state that I expose above. I understand that there is a dose of biasness, or perhaps I could also say a dose of limitedness that I bring into the research process. Additionally my preconceptions create additional limitations, since it is a ‘[…] fact that the more precisely the research is structured in advance of data collection, the more the results will be framed by the subjective preconceptions of the researcher.’ (Newing, Eagle, Puri and Watson, 2011, p.6). Thus, I made all necessary efforts to deal with these limitations. I approached the research process with an open mind in order to provide as best as possible reading of the social life. I exposed this influence of mine in the research and I make attempts to employ ‘reflexivity’ (Bryman, 2010, p.500) in my writing style. In my analysis and conclusions I explicate my presence and thoughts on the matter, so the reader may distinguish the research from my interpretation to the matter. Yet I accept, in a sense as Lefebre (1974, p.38) defines it, that this thesis report is an abstract, a conceived representation of relational place.

A number of visualizations accompany the thesis report. Permission for the use of these works has been sought and received, or they have been licensed under the appropriate Creative Commons licence or other forms of public licences for available use in this report. The authors and/or copyright holders are rightfully acknowledged and referred. If there is no reference to the author(s), it means that the author is me. Any objects, brands or registered trademarks that appear on the visualisations remain in the ownership of their respectful (copyright) owners. If a copyright holder would like to make any claims, please do that directly to me. Thank you.

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank to the person that guided me through this first, individual journey of mine through scientific work, thus making it not so individual. The person that had to put up with me throughout the process - my thesis supervisor (also known as thesis promoter under IMRD terms), Joost Jongerden.

My gratitude goes to the institutions that hosted my work: the Rural Sociology Group, Wageningen University, The Netherlands (chaired by Han Wiskerke); and the Public Institution National Park “Galicica”, Macedonia (managed by Zoran Angeloski). They gave me a warm welcome and given me a chance to do my thesis with their collaboration and support.

I’d like to thank to the whole Erasmus Mundus International Master in Rural Development Consortium, and the European Commission for selecting me as a scholar of the programme and giving me the chance to undergo this educational process that lead me to my Master of Science thesis.

Without the intention of devaluing the importance of the assistance and support that I have received throughout the process of my research, but also my scientific education, I would like to thank the people that read my work(s), provided me with feedback, brainstormed with me, provided occasional help and guidance, inspired me, or simply shared a beer with me in the times of need (in alphabetical order): Aleksandar Kolov, Aleksandra Kržalovska, Aleksandra Stefanovska, Andon Bojadži, Bas Verschuuren, Basavaraj Biaradar, Dario Milošević, Dirk Roep, Dragan Brković, Evy Mettepenningen, Gabriel Specht, Guido Van Huylenbroeck, Han Wiskerke, Ignacio Lopez Moreno, Jan Schakel, Jana Jovanovska, Jane Stefanov, Jasna Stefanovska, Jeroen Buysse, John Studley, Joost Dessein, Josep Maria Mallarach, Kalliopi Stara, Kristina Sobekova, Lummina Horlings, Makedonka Stojanovska, Marija Smiljanovska, Marjoleen Kloek, Oliver Avramoski, Panče Šurkov, Rozita S. Vaskoska, Sandra Limacher, Saša Hajzler, and Slobodan Trajkovski.

My gratitude also goes to all those institutions, in fact to the people from those institutions that I have contacted due to a number of reasons in relation to my research: Snežana Korubin, Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia; Petar Zajkovski, State Archive of the Republic of Macedonia; Aleksandar Stevanov, Macedonian Nation.

Finally, I would like to apologize if I forgot to mention someone. I take this last word of mine to thank to all the un-named people that took part in one or another way in this research. Those that opened the web page I created for the purpose of this research, those that made an attempt and/or completed the questionnaire, and all those that sent me feedback via the web page. And last, but not least, all those that greeted me and opened up to me, by telling me their life stories while making my research interviews throughout Galicica and beyond.

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Abstract

Abstract I employ the concept of relational place to provide understanding of the experiences that form sense of place. I do this with the aim to explore the applicability of the sense of place concept in the management of protected areas.

I make an overview of the current understanding to the sense of place concept and I consider the sense of place to be imaginative, and related to the individual.

It is an impression of a place. I adopt that sense of place is comprised of ten components: place attachments, place dependency, place identity, place satisfaction, place commitment, place familiarity, place awareness, place belonging, place rootedness, and community connectedness.

I equally portray the scientific discourse on relational place and engage in finding the most appropriate understanding. In the process I take Lefebvre’s (1974) three fold understanding of relational place as the main focus to research the relational place concept. However I’m not neglecting other aspects of relational place e.g. geographical location, scale and time.

I conduct an exploratory research in the National Park ‘Galicica’. The research question that guides me through the process is: “What kind of sense(s) of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’ exists, and how does it (they) relate to nature protection and the park’s development?”

Through a process of informal interviews and field readings, I explore the sense of place of National Park ‘Galicica’, and the layers of relational place it has.

As a result I describe the National Park ‘Galicica’ as a threefold relational place: perceived, conceived and lived. I interpret the sense of place of locals, visitors and planners and relate the senses of place with the layers of relational place.

Thus, I make an understanding of the interrelations between the layers of relational place and the existing or past sense of place. This understanding allows me to discuss the sense of place in terms of management considerations that the Park’s administration can take on board.

The conclusions that I make are related to several aspects. 1. Of direct concern to the National Park ‘Galicica’ is that the management authority should take into consideration the sense of place people have as a way of expressing respect to the people. The management should also engage in involving the people in the Park in activities, through which they will build stronger sense of place of the Park and be active in the protection of the Park. 2. In relation to using sense of place in planning I conclude that planners and managers should be aware of the sense of place of people; adopt people’s participation in management activities as a process to strengthen the sense of place; and finally show respect towards the sense of place of people. 3. In relation to the scientific literature I used in the research, I found that Lefebre’s (1974) threefold is a good way to explore place.

It serves as a basis for understanding other processes and concepts related to the place. Using it intertwined with the sense of place concept, it provided new insight to understanding sense of place. Thus I make a call for researchers to engage in use of this concept in understanding place related concepts. Finally I propose that geo-statistical analysis of the sense of place of the Park could be taken on as further research. Such a research would provide further results that will have spatial references, thus be in a format that planners can easily take on board.

Key words: actors, management, nature protection, National Park ‘Galicica’, place, sense of place.

Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

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TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.1. About . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1.2. The Importance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.3. For Whom This Thesis Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.4. Background Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.5. Guide to the Thesis Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2.

REVIEW OF THE ACADEMIC LITERATURE CHAPTER . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.1. On Sense of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.1.1.

A Word on Sense of Place Scientific Literature . . . . . . . . . . . 19

2.1.2.

Sense of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

2.1.3.

Sense of Place Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

2.1.4.

Sense of Place Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

2.1.5.

Research on Sense of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

2.1.6.

Practitioners and Sense of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

2.2. On Relational Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

3.

2.2.1.

Space and Relational Place, Evolution of Thought . . . . . . . . . 31

2.2.2.

Making Distinction Between Social Space and Relational Place . . . 32

2.2.3.

On Place Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

2.2.4.

Authentic Claim of Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

2.2.5.

On Place Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2.2.6.

Understanding to Relational Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2.2.7.

Layers of Relational Place . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

2.2.8.

Relational Place and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

2.2.9.

Relational Place Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

MATERIALS AND METHODS CHAPTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

3.1. The Goal of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 3.2. Research Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 3.3. The Research Question . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3.4. Research Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 3.5. The Literature Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 3.6. Data Sources and Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 3.7. Pre Fieldwork Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 3.8. The Fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 3.9. Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.9.1.

Interpretation of the Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

3

3.9.2.

3.10.

4.

Analysing the Sense of Place in Nature Protection Context . . . 62 Technology Used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION CHAPTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

4.1. Reading the National Park ‘Galicica’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4.1.1.

Perceived . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

4.1.2.

Conceived . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

4.1.3.

Lived . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

4.2. Interpreting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 4.2.1.

The Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’. . . . . . . . . . . . 82

4.2.2. Sense of Place in Consideration to the National Park ‘Galicica’ Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 5.

CONCLUSIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

5.1. Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 5.2. Sense of Place and Protected Areas Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.3. A New Perspective to Look at Lefebvre. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 5.4. Considerations and Recommendations to Sense of Place Concept . . . 98 5.5. Issues for Further Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 END NOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Additional Reading and Inspirational Non-Referred Materials. . . . . . . 111 LIST OF TABLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 LIST OF FIGURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 LIST OF IMAGES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 ANNEXES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Annex A: List of Number of Papers on Sense of Place by Subject Topics . . . 123 Annex B: Flickr Photos Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Annex C: On-line Survey Questionnaire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Annex D: On-line Survey Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Annex E: Thesis Web Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Annex F: Business Card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Annex G: List of Geographical Identifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Annex H: List of Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

4

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Introduction

1. INTRODUCTION Following a line of development of thought, and also the scientific method that is required to be followed, I elaborate the idea of the thesis in details, step wise as recommended and as I see best for the reader to understand the issues it addresses. This thesis is organized in five main chapters: 1. introduction; 2. literature review; 3. methods; 4. discussion; and 5. conclusion. The second, third and fourth chapter are as required by the guidance for IMRD thesis report (IMRD, 2011; 2012) and the first and the fifth chapters are to add clarity and completeness to the thesis report.

The first additional chapter for introduction to the thesis is the one that you are reading. In this chapter an explanation is provided about the history of thought that inspired me to write this thesis. Then it continues by providing a thought of why this issue is of importance, but also on who may find this thesis interesting to read as to encourage people, especially professionals to read it.

It provides the background information to the geographical and social setting of the thesis. This chapter concludes by giving a short guidance about this thesis report to the reader.

1.1. About This section is a reading about the development of thought that lead me to the inspiration of writing this thesis. It gives a short overview of the processes that influenced me to form my decision on taking this topic. Perhaps an obsolete information for the scientific perspective of this thesis, but I value that other people will also find inspiration in what I have found inspiring.

My personal background is that I have my first degree in forestry engineering.

Upon which I began working as a consultant on participatory forest policy. I have always been appreciating nature, and this professional orientation in life gave me possibility to be close to nature. But my professional choice not only influenced my closeness to nature, but I was set at the policy interface between man and nature. I was able to witness various relations that people had formed towards nature. These relations were pertaining to meanings, values, function, and even spirituality. In time, my interest grew and I needed answers to why people react towards nature the way they do.

This particular thesis was formed in a long process of contemplation driven by the thinking induced during the course of A Global Sense of Place given at Wageningen University (RSO-50806). Through this course I was introduced to the concept of relational place1 in sociological and geographical terms (see: Escobar, 2001; Massey, 2004; Pickerill, and Chatterton, 2006; Reimer and Markey, 2008; Whatmore, and Thorne, 2008; Gibson+Graham and Roelvink, 2009; Friedmann, 2010; Pierce, Martin and Murphy, 2010; Franklin, Newton, Middleton and Marsden, 2011; Horlings and Padt, 2011). For me, this was a door opening to a comprehensive understanding or processes on place level. To my consideration, I learned a concept that is able to describe the actions, and the context of the actions that are or can be taken by the actors at a dedicated place.

7 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction What encouraged me to take up the effort to write on a topic related to the concept of sense of place are the considerations from my professional experiences working in rural development. On many occasions, I have noticed that different actors have different perspectives to the same policy issues, though having the same aims. However, I found reason, and I could relate to my experience in the process of developing my thought on the concept of sense of place. Before I was introduced to the concept of sense of place my initial idea was to indulge in an analysis of the actor’s approach and of the participation of actors in policy related processes. However, as I said earlier, I have come to realise that the concept of sense of place provides a more comprehensive understanding. To be more precise, to my understanding, the concept of sense of place provides an understanding of issues that are described within the local contexts of the geography where processes are undertaken. Therefore I considered that the most appropriate way to confirm this understanding of mine is to elaborate a case study that will link the concept of sense of place to a process delivered in a rural setting.

1.2. The Importance ‘[Relational] Place is not only a fact to be explained in the broader frame of space, but it is also a reality to be clarified and understood from the perspectives of the people who given it meaning.’ (Tuan, 1979, p.387) The importance of the issue that this thesis concerns about is addressed in this part. It starts with the referral of Tuan’s2 words as he clearly describes the issue that relational place is not only a physical location, but a social construct, and which is of great importance to be understood. This importance is valuable for policy creators and managers in rural/natural areas in overcoming conflicts (Yung, Freimund and Belsky, 2003, p.855): ‘A major challenge of forest policy and management is effectively understanding different people’s viewpoints on natural resource use and conservation, and how those viewpoints contribute to conflict and conflict resolution. In response to this challenge, the concept of [relational] place is gaining currency in natural resource research.’ (see also: Stedman, 2003b). In this sense, planning and managing for a rural and/or natural area, in fact any area that holds human understandings would be simply inadequate if it were to disregard for the sense of place of the local people, but also of others that may come into contact with the place. Understanding and taking into consideration of the concept of sense of place in planning and management is key to ‘re-humanize [accent added]’ (Friedmann, 2010, p.152; see also: Williams and Steward, 1989; Gregory, 1994; Vanclay, 2008) the rural.

‘Life is place-dependent’, says Merrifield (1993, p.525). All social activities take place, as the term itself indicates - somewhere, thus understanding sense of place is of great human importance and transcends to all spheres of human life: ‘[…] [relational] place matters for politics and identity, history and futures, inequality and community. Is there anything sociological not touched by [relational] place? Probably not.’ (Gieryn, 2000, p.482)

8 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction

1.3. For Whom This Thesis Is The examiners of this thesis report are the only people that are obliged to read it. Their opinion on this writing will be transferred to my transcript of records.

But what about those people that are not obliged to read it. In the previous part (see: 1.2) it addressed why the issue of the thesis as important. Relating to that I would like to stimulate certain people, or better say groups of people, to have a closer look to my writing. Because, I think it may be useful in their work, like I find it useful in my work. That is why this part addresses the issue of who may find this thesis report interesting.

Having a certain group of people in mind when addressing a writing, one also limits on the style and language to use. For example, policy makers have a specific style of language they use in their documents, that is different from that of engineers, or scientists. In this case I made an attempt to write a scientific report, by using simple words with meanings that may transcend profession.

Therefore, I used a language style that enables readers of any background to be able to read this thesis report.

Without limiting the readers of this thesis to only professionals or scholars in a certain field, it also relates to practitioners in natural areas planning and protection. I hope that the thesis will find interest amongst those who work in the management of nature areas, those who compose policies for nature and rural areas as well as people who work in rural development. It may be that the thesis is about nature protected area, but the implications it has are not limited only to nature protected areas. People are at the centre of the thesis, and people are an issue in any work that deals on territorial level, whether that is regional or local level. I illustrate this with the words of Williams and Steward (1989, p.18): ‘”Sense of place” offers resource managers ways to identify and respond to the emotional and spiritual bonds people form with certain spaces. […] By initiating discussion about sense of place, managers can build a working relationship with the public that reflects the complex web of lifestyles, meanings, and social relations endemic to a place.’

Bottom line is that the target audience for this thesis are professions whose work involves places and has impact on places. The relation to managers of protected areas could be taken merely as an example. The concept of sense of place is a concept that was applied to urban areas, as well as to nature areas.

To name just a few: architects, urban and regional planners, policymakers, landscape architects, interior designers, cartographers, surveyors, historic preservationists, even public relations specialists with expertise in promoting a place.

Another point that I should address is the issue of geographical focus. The thesis is presenting a case related to the National Park ‘Galicica’ (in Macedonian: Национален парк ’Галичица’)3, from the country of Macedonia (in Macedonian: Република Македонија)4, located on the Balkan Peninsula (in Macedonian: Балкански полуостров), on the European continent (see: Figure 1.1). However, this geographical focus, limited to 25.000 ha of protected area should not be taken also as a limit to the interests of readers. It should be taken as a case study, an abstract understanding of the sense of place that could stimulate a thought for another relational place.

9 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction

Figure 1.1: Map of Europe with accent to Macedonia (Figure altered, original by Kolja21, taken from Wikimedia Commons)

Finally it comes to a point of whether this thesis is interesting or not. I do hope that you will find it interesting. Whether you like it or not, I encourage you to express your comments on the dedicated web page for this thesis: <http:// www.galicica.rantasa.net>.

1.4. Background Issues In the previous three sections (see: 1.1; 1.2; and 1.3) it presented a background introduction to the topic of the thesis as a whole. In this section it provided the background issue that relates to the reason of the research itself; the reason why the choice on the particular site; and the conditions related to the site. The section provides information that is supposed to fill the gap of knowledge for those who are not familiar with the National Park ‘Galicica’. The research was conducted within this context The general background has a global relation and not as direct as an issue that relate to the National Park ‘Galicica’. It is the issue that planners of protected areas rely on technical and scientific analysis of ecosystems and natural resources for forest management. This is an illustration of the reality that portrays modern management practices. What is of concern is that the meanings and attachments that a place may bear for people are often being

10 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction left out in forest management (Stedman, 2003b, p.822) and consequently in nature protection management. Yet, there is an increasing interest about the relationship between people and forests expressed on global level through the International Year of Forests 2011, as well as the IUFRO conference in May 20125. In order for this concern to be addressed, the planning of forest areas is in need of change - extend to other objectives as Farcey (2004, p.11) puts it in her reflection on Europe’s forest planning. The suggestion is that the new objective could be sense of place, as many authors have indicated this (see: Williams and Steward, 1989; Yung, Freimund and Belsky, 2003; Friedmann, 2010). Sense of place, the meanings and values attached to a place, may provide different perspectives on the area under consideration. Taking into consideration Williams and Steward (1989) and Friedmann (2010), knowing the sense of place can allow development of fresh perspectives and new approaches to planning. The forest international community calls for a consideration of the relation peopleforest, while Friedmann (2010) gives a nice suggestion to this issue that place making is everyone’s job, and this is what I would like to explore in the context of the National Park ‘Galicica’.

Figure 1.2: Map of protected areas in Macedonia with accent to National Park ‘Galicica’ (Source: UNDPI, Cartographic Section New York; National Environmental Action Plan, Synthesis Report, FYR Macedonia )

The National Park ‘Galicica’ (further in the text is referred to it as the Park), established in 1958, is the newest national park in Macedonia. It is located in the South-West of Macedonia, occupying the territory of the Mountain Galicica (in Macedonian: Галичица, in Latin writing it is: Galičica), and lies between the Lake of Ohrid (in Macedonian: Охридско Езеро) and the Lake of Prespa (in Macedonian: Преспанско Езеро). It is obvious that tourism has high impact on the lake shores. In contrast, the highlands of the Park are less exposed to impact of tourism. However, the lakes are not part of the Park.

11 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction

Image 1.1: A hotel resort on the coast of Lake Ohrid. Hotel Metropol (left) and Hotel Bellevue (right).

Image 1.2: The highlands of Mountain Galicica

National Park ‘Galicica’ harbors a number of cultural and natural sites, and many locals and visitors revere these sites as sacred. Thus, the Park is being of interest to the Delos Initiative, as a sacred natural site. Furthermore, The Park has 5400 inhabitants in 18 villages (Galicica National Park, n.d.a), a fact that presents a serious need to combine nature conservation with people’s lives.

The research focuses on this location because of this particularly strong human presence and attachment to the Park.

Image 1.3: Village Peshtani

12 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction

Image 1.4 (left): Monastery of St Naum Image 1.5 (up): Church of St Naum

The National Park ‘Galicica’ is a habitat to many plants and animal species.

Mountain Galicica has been a refuge during the ice age for many plants (Galicica National Park, n.d.b). There are 14 local endemic plants, as well as South Balkan and Balkan endemic plants (Galicica National Park, n.d.b). The diversity of plants is truly remarkable to see for any biologist. The Park’s fauna is less known, but equally significant. Furthermore, there are many species of mammals, birds, invertebrates and insects that are also of interest to biologists (Galicica National Park, n.d.c).

Image 1.6 (up, left): Field Maple Image 1.7 (up, right): Mountain Galicica Tea

Image 1.8 (left): Cormorant Image 1.9 (right): Pelican

13 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction There are several, environmental, economic and regulatory factors currently impacting the Park: 1. Changes in activities of local people e.g. decrease of sheepherding on the mountain pastures (Management Plan for the Period 20102020, 2010, pp.184-190); 2. Increase in tourism on the shores of the lakes of Ohrid and Prespa and with it increase in human impact (Management Plan for the Period 2010- 2020, 2010, pp.190-191); 3. Changes in legislation and policies e.g. new Law on Nature Protection (2004) and Laws Amending the Law on Nature Protection (2006; 2007; 2010; 2011a; 2011b; 2012), as well as the Law for Proclamation of Part of the Mountain Galicica for a National Park (2010), that required organizational changes of the park; and 4. A need for greater public support (Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020, 2010, p.208). The Park’s administration resolved to prepare a new Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (2010, p.1) to meet these requirements and challenges. The plan was based on scientific and technical analysis, though with public consultation (Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020, 2010, pp.1-2). Yet, there are issues that are noted in the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (2010, p.197) that relate to local people’s perceptions, such as the fact that local people do not value the biological aspects of the Park, instead they value income benefits that they may get. The management of the Park claims for low awareness on the Park’s values by residents and even visitors of the Park (Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020, 2010, p.197). Other issues that may seem clear to the management of the Park are not equally evident from the perspective of the visitors and the locals. From a simple questioning the people who visit thet Park and even to locals it is evident that they do not really know where the borders of the Park are. This perception that the Park is not, where it actually is, is mainly evidenced at the coastal areas of Ohrid and Prespa Lakes. Finally, the issue of the succession of the forest on grazing lands is not easy to answer from a biologist point of view, but it is in fact contradictory (Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020, 2010, p.186). The dilemma is whether to protect the natural processes or to conserve the rare species that exist now and are of importance.

As previously mentioned, the issue that is raised is that there is no understanding by the management of the Park for the causes of the perceptions of the visitors and local people. This is so, because there is no understanding to the actors’ perspectives on the matter. Knowing the sense of place that people have in relation to the Park would be a step towards providing this understanding of the perspectives that are of importance to the management. This knowledge would enable conditions for coexistence between nature conservation and the Park’s inhabitants. Therefore, a research on the sense of place of the Park would be an added benefit to the management plan of the Park, as it would provide the people’s perspectives, together with the meanings and attachments of the Park.

My research will look into the potential of using the sense of place concept to provide elaborated basis for management of the human aspect of the National Park ‘Galicica’ as a park for nature and people.

1.5. Guide to the Thesis Report At the beginning of this chapter (see: 1) it is explained the general structure of the report. As already said, this thesis is organized in five main chapters: 1. introduction; 2. literature review; 3. methods; 4. discussion; and 5. conclusion.

In this section of the introduction chapter it is provided some elaboration on

14 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction what is it that you may expect in the texts of this thesis.

Before expanding on each of the chapters it is provided, an overall elaboration to the thesis. At this point, it is important to introduce the main goal of the research, which is: to explore the applicability of the concept of sense of place and how its inclusion can provide new perspectives for protected areas planning and management. In this line of thought, the research question of the thesis was ‘What kind of sense(s) of place of the National Park “Galicica” exists, and how does it (they) relate to nature protection and the park’s development?’ It is therefore understandable that trough the thesis report it is made an attempt to establish a link between sense of place, and with it relational place, to the management of protected areas. From this point onward, the reader would be able to relate to that intention and see it in my text. Therefore, it can be continued about with the elaboration of the thesis, securing that the reader is on the right track of understanding it. Note that the thesis goal and the research question are explained in detail in the chapter on methods (see: 3).

In this first chapter of introduction, it is provided a personal touch to the understanding of the background of this thesis. But it is also provided the background issues that relate to the case that is chosen to be the object of the research. In order not to repeat what has already been read there is no further elaboration to these matters. Therefore, it continues with the elaboration to the second chapter of this thesis.

The second chapter of this thesis is the literature review chapter. This chapter discusses the state of the art scientific literature on the sense of place concept and the relational place concept. The intention is to combine both literatures on sense of place and relational place because they are connected and consequently important to address for the needs of this thesis. The literature review takes articles and books from authors that address sense of place and/or relational place from various perspectives, e.g. sociology, human geography, environmental psychology, spatial planning. In doing it is not limited only on peer reviewed scientific literature, but it also combines non-scientific literature that is found useful to relate to practitioners’ aspects and aspects of the common people on the concepts. The review follows a line of advancement of thought, going from the understanding of sense of place to the understanding of relational place. The literature review chapter is there not only to provide the basis for the interpretation, but also to give overall understanding to the concepts to the uninformed readers.

The third chapter is the materials and methods chapter. In this chapter is explained the issues related to the scientific method. It gives an elaboration to the aim and the research question that underline the thesis report. It elaborates in detail the thinking and the tools that were employed during the research and writing of the thesis report. With the information provided in this chapter it is almost possible for any other researcher to follow the same process and get to the same or similar conclusions. It is said almost, because issues may change in due course of time, thus making somewhat different findings to be obtained at the time of repeating the research. This chapter may not be of special interest to practitioners, except to understand the validity of the conclusions that are made.

The fourth chapter, on results and discussion, is the text that employs the understandings of sense of place and relational place. It utilizes the relational

15 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Introduction place concept to illustrate the National Park ‘Galicica’ in a very detailed manner. Thus, it shows the possibility to use relational place concept in the process of understanding the background to planning. In this chapter are the interpretations. This chapter interprets the sense of place that locals, visitors and planners have in relation to the Park, from the readings. But what is more important to the goal of this thesis, it is the link between the sense of place to the management of the park, thus providing a background, an understanding of the actors’ perspectives towards National Park ‘Galicica’. It interprets the relation that the various senses of place have to the management of the Park.

The reading of this chapter would enable the reader to thoroughly understand the relation between the sense of place and the decisions or preferences of the actors. On a more abstract context, this chapter portrays the way the concept of sense of place could be utilized to benefit the management of a protected area, in particularly the National Park ‘Galicica’.

The fifth chapter is the conclusions. It summarizes the most important issues that have been addressed throughout this thesis report. It makes conclusions in relation to the sense of place of the Park. It portrays the most significant relations between sense of place and protected areas management. It recommends a new way of looking at the sense of place and the relational place literature. It provides considerations and recommendation on a number of issues pertaining to the sense of place concept. And it suggests what to be researched in the future.

16 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

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Review of the Accademic Literature

2. REVIEW OF THE ACADEMIC LITERATURE CHAPTER - the current state of the art in its subject matter -

In the approach to understanding sense of place, here is combined both the sense of place concept with the relational place concept. This is because of several reasons. One, because the sense of place concept is very tightly linked to the relational place concept, in fact many authors include sense of place as a component of relational place in their understandings of relational place.

Second, there is a level of lack of clarity on what is the difference between sense of place and relational place, thus it gets mixed up if the two are the same or if they are different. Third, grasping a sound understanding of relational place is step towards understanding sense of place. And fourth, any development issues that concern sense of place, or vice versa, are mediated through the place itself.

Therefore, in this chapter, it presents the literature review from the point of sense of place, clarifying the difference between relational place and sense of place, and developing an understanding to relational place.

The literature that is included in this chapter is explained in detail as to how and what has been chosen in the section 3.5 of the next chapter. For clarity and out of organizational purposes this chapter is divided in two sub chapters.

The first sub chapter is concerned with the sense of place discourse. While the second sub chapter is concerned with the relational place discourse.

2.1. On Sense of Place

This sub chapter is concerned with the literature on sense of place. There is an engagement to provide an understanding on the sense of place concept. Whilst doing so, it makes a clear distinction between relational place and sense of place as concepts.

In the last sections of this sub chapter, there is a step forward and it presents a discussion on the various approaches in researching sense of place that are carried out by scientists, but also by practitioners. With these last sections, it links the sense of place literature with the practice by providing the considerations that practitioners make.

2.1.1. A Word on Sense of Place Scientific Literature Before going into discussing sense of place, it is provided a short overview of the available sense of place literature. It does this to illustrate the multidiscipline approaches that sense of place has received so far.

In an attempt to review the scientific literature, I made a simple search on the Web of Knowledge6. Using the term ‘sense of place’ in two versions: with quotes and without quotes, I searched all the available databases. The interesting aspect of this internet search was that I used two access points to

19 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Academic Literature the Web of Knowledge portal: one being through the Wageningen University library and the other one is through the Ghent University library. In both cases and at different times I got minimal variation of the results on the number of scientific literature. Though without understanding to what this difference exits in the search results, I have continued my review mainly using the access point provided from Wageningen University. search

results on date

04 June 2012

from

sense of place “sense of place”

05 June 2012

Ugent

WUR

07 June 2012 Ugent

WUR

in title topic title

quantity

Words

WUR 508

515

531

516

531

12.538

23.443

23.679

23.480

23.725

399

401

416

402

416

790

819

819

820

821

topic

Table 2.1. Quantified search results on sense of place scientific literature using Web of Knowledge, all databases search

Considering the grand volume of literature potentially related to the topic of sense of place, about 23.500 scientific contributions in various types, is an imposing fact. It is also intimidating to go about and analyse such an amount of literature.

Due to time constraints and due to the fact that the quoteless search on literature on the topic related to the sense of place term provides a number of non-related literature, I chose to have a look only at the search of literature that in its title has sense of place, with and without quotes search, as well as literature that is on the topic of ‘sense of place’, with quotes search.

From the search results provided by the Web of Knowledge, it is identified 653 scientific articles, journal articles, review papers, and proceedings papers.

Year

1968 1969

Number of papers Year Number of papers Year Number of papers Year Number of papers Year Number of papers Year Number of papers

1 1970 1971 0

0

1980 1981 2

1

1990 1991 4

7

2000 2001 28

26

2010 2011 46

61

1972

1973

1

0

1982

1983

1

7

1992

1993

13

9

2002

2003

24

32

0

1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1

3

4

5

2

3

1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1

5

8

0

9

4

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 10

14

12

16

22

18

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 35

31

40

42

51

43

2012 +11

Table 2.2 Number of scientific articles on ‘sense of place’, published per year, according to search results using Web of Knowledge, all databases search

20 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Accademic Literature The first article related to sense of place recorded in the databases is from 1968, by Cox, H., ‘Restoration of a Sense of Place - Theological Reflection on Visual Environment’, in the Journal Ekistics, a journal on human settlements.

From that year onward the number of published and recorded articles slowly, increase each year (see: Figure 2.1; Table 2.2). In the year 2011 the number of articles that were published and recorded reached its height of 61 articles.

Figure 2.1: Number of scientific articles on ‘sense of place’, published per year, according to search results using Web of Knowledge, all databases search

Without making assumptions as to why this trend of increasing interest in sense of place is, the data trend provides assurance that sense of place considerations will be more and more present in science.

Amongst the subject topics of the papers, sense of place is most often addressed in Environmental Sciences and Ecology, with 139 papers addressing this subject topic. Next in line subject topic is Geography with 114 papers; Literature – 49 papers; Urban Studies – 48 papers; Sociology – 47 papers; Social Sciences - 44 papers; Architecture – 37 papers; Psychology – 37 papers; etc. For the full list see Annex A. In relation to nature protection and related fields, sense of place has been addressed in 139 papers on Environmental Sciences and Ecology; 15 papers on Forestry; and 1 paper on Plant Sciences.

It has to be noted that many papers have two or more subject topics. Therefore this frequency of subject topics that have addressed sense of place issues is only provisional to understand merely what kind of scientific topics have addressed sense of place so far. While from the sheer magnitude, 73 subject topics, is understandable why sense of place is a complex issue. It can be analysed from point from art, engineering, through geography, environmental sciences and forestry to sociology, anthropology and psychology. A more important conclusion from this understanding is the need to address sense of place from a multidisciplinary perspective. Thus, sense of place should be analysed jointly by sociologists, geographers, psychologists, engineers, etc. If scientists want for sense of place research to provide a solution to an issue, scientists need this cooperation between scientists of different branches and not merely sociologists explaining that the right solution will come out of a sociological research (Molotch, 1994).

21 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Academic Literature Amongst the search results there were a number of book reviews. The books that were reviewed are 56 in number, with publication dates from 1972 through 2012.

Figure 2.2: Number of books related to ‘sense of place’, published per year, addressed in book reviews available through the Web of Knowledge, all databases search

Contrary to the scientific articles, the books on sense of place do not show particular tendency (see: Figure 2.2). It is good to understand that books, both edited works and authored, are not missing the scene of thought in relation to sense of place.

2.1.2. Sense of Place This section provides an understanding to what sense of place is. It portrays the existing thinking and engages in the discussion of defining sense of place in order to form an understanding that this thesis report follows.

So, what is sense of place? This is a question that deserves attention, though its answer is very difficult. This issue mainly comes due to the problem that there is a dose of interchangeable use of the term sense of place with the term relational place. Williams and Steward (1998, p.19) note this issue and say: ‘place, place attachments and sense of place are similar but not identical concepts’. So what sense of place really is?

The general understanding of sense of place is that it is difficult to define and it is complex and comprised of components (Williams and Steward, 1998, p.19; Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006, p.316; Vanclay, 2008, p.8; Studley, 2012, p.219-220). This understanding dates back as 1991 when Shamai (1991 in: Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006, p.316) coined the term sense of place and urged that this term combine the relational place concepts of place e.g. attachment, place identity and place dependence. Thus, creating a concept of sense of place that in its self is complex, and a complexity that is related to the components it combines.

22 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Accademic Literature Williams and Steward (1998) build upon this idea of a complex structure of sense of place and give a more general understanding. What they do is, with their own words: ‘suggest several overlapping approaches or dimensions that capture the multifaceted nature and complexity of what we will refer to here as sense of place: • The emotional bonds that people form with places (at various geographic scales) over time and with familiarity with those places; • The strongly felt values, meanings, and symbols that are hard to identify or know (and hard to quantify), especially if one is an “outsider” or unfamiliar with the place; • The valued qualities of a place that even an “insider” may not be consciously aware of until they are threatened or lost; • The set of place meanings that are actively and continuously constructed and reconstructed within individual minds, shared cultures, and social practices; and • The awareness of the cultural, historical, and spatial context within which meanings, values, and social interactions are formed.’ (Williams and Steward, 1998, p.19).

Looking from this perspective, what Williams and Steward (1998, p.19) present, it provides one underlying understanding of sense of place. That is that sense of place is a concept that is about the people that live, or feel a place, than about the place itself. As Vaclay (2008, p.7) would say: ‘”Sense of place” refers to the individual not to the place.’ Sense of place, basically relates to how the individual experiences and feels a place. Vanclay (2008, p.7) continues on this account and explains: Sense of place relates to the ‘[…] individual’s connection with the place […] and to their experience of place.’

Sense of place, as the name suggests is related to the senses. As mentioned prior, it is related to the experience of the individual. People experience through senses, regardless if they are limited to the 6 senses acknowledged in the West or are expanded to senses that pertain to the human’s spirit, imagination, etc. Relph (2008, Ch.30 in: Vanclay, 2008, p.7) in this relation suggests that: ‘Sense of place is a synaesthetic faculty that combines sight, hearing smell, movement, touch, imagination, purpose and anticipation. It is both an individual and an intersubjective attribute, closely connected to community as well as to personal memory and self.’ Or if I want to specify it with a twist: sense of place is the individual’s impression of a place. But, though the text stresses the individual’s role in the sense of place, like Relph (2008, Ch.30 in: Vanclay, 2008, p.7) and Vanclay (2008, p.7) it is accepted that sense of place could be a groups’ impression of a place. The group’s impression may pertain to a sense of community or identity, as components of sense of place.

The issue that appears now is what the components of sense of place are. There are several understandings to this. A lately dominant notion in environmental psychology is that it is comprised of three components: place attachment, place identity and place dependency (Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006, p.316).

However, there is also a notion that sense of place is merely place attachment (see: Eisenhauer, Krannich, and Blahna, 2000, p.421). This in itself is not that

23 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Academic Literature extreme, as place attachment is the main component and comes the closest to what sense of place stands for (Vanclay, 2008, p.8). Even one can consider all other sense of place components as forms of place attachments, like place attachment to identity, or place attachment to dependency. It is more a matter of attitude and understanding. For the understandings portrayed in this thesis, I would go for the different side, the one that Vanclay (2008, p.8) portrays and lists 10 (ten) components of sense of place: place attachment; place identity, place dependence, place familiarity, place awareness, place commitment, place satisfaction, belongingness, rootedness, and community connectedness. This understanding provides an approach to sense of place that is aware of the many components that sense of place carries with it – the complexity.

Knowing that sense of place is related to the individual and that it is comprised of components is not a full understanding. What is next in this thesis is to give a formulated understanding that pertains to a definition. I consider that it is difficult to make a definition on sense of place because of the complexity it carries, and perhaps because the scientific discourse on sense of place still needs ripening to give a definition on it. That is why in this thesis I aim at an understanding that could potentially grow into a definition. But then how to define an understanding of sense of place? Williams and Steward (1998, p.19) suggest one understanding: ‘A seemingly straight forward approach to defining sense of place is to think of it as the collection of meanings, beliefs, symbols, values, and feelings that individuals or groups associate with a particular locality.’ This approach is clear, yet open to a number of impressions that may pertain to sense of place, regardless of the context under which they are formed. However, if when looked back to the origins of the sense of place discourse a term appears: topophilia (Tuan, 1974). This term was coined by Tuan (1974) and it means the love of place (Tuan, 1974, p.93). It describes the man – place relation. I come to think that this term topophilia or love of place is a term, and an understanding that explains more than the often referred term of sense of place. There is a notion that topophilia refers only to place attachments (Vancley, 2008, p.8), however as said earlier looking at sense of place as only being place attachments is a matter of view point. But due to the potential of creating confusion by adopting the term topophilia in this thesis report, the term sense of place is used throughout. What is good to take from Tuan’s (1974) understanding, is the note that sense of place is the relation that man creates towards a place. Vancley (2008, p.8) would argue that this is a positive relation, positive feelings, however it is not good go limit it, as sense of place, perhaps, could be pertaining to a negative experience. Gieryn (2000, p.481) points to this thinking and adds traumas and other negative experiences as possible place attachments. I make this point being aware that there is but a dim line between pain and pleasure, thus the segregation to a positive or negative relation is just as well dim. It is but a matter of perspective.

One aspect of sense of place that has needs to be addressed is the location.

The whole concept of sense of place orbits about the location. However, how important is really the location. It is already said that sense of place is about the individual, not about the place (Vanclay, 2008, p.7). To this consideration, sense of place is an imaginative, individual construct. So where the location does comes in. Williams and Steward (1998) have the location as an important aspect to sense of place. Looking at Tuan (1974), his understanding also takes the location as important. Sense of place is a relation of man towards place.

Therefore place is the location as to where the experience takes place, one may

24 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Accademic Literature think, thus influences the impression that one may form. What is important to understand is that sense of place may be built from the experiences that take place, however it is not part of the location itself. Stedman (2003a, p.672) nicely puts it: ‘[…] sense of place is not intrinsic to the physical setting itself, but resides in human interpretations of the setting, which are constructed through experience with it.’ An issue that appears in this relation is the existence of the non-location bound relational places. Langer (1973, p.95) rises the issue of Nomadic cultures, but also Gypsy and Indian, that move their camps on various locations. A camp may take different locations, but it always is the same relational place. Therefore, emphasizing the link between the location and sense of place may not be the right thing. A better idea is to emphasize the link between sense of place and relational place. Though, just as well, without denying the potential influences that the physical setting of a specific location may have to the sense of place. However this issue should be approached with, because, as it is depicted, a relational place may move across many locations.

An additional complexity of sense of place is that is a nested concept (Vanclay, 2008, p.7). This means that an individual can have an impression from a place on various levels or scales. So one person may have a sense of place of the house he/she lives in, but also have a sense of place of the town he/she lives in or/and the country he/she lives in, or perhaps visited in a certain point in his/ hers life. This is an issue of scale that is more related to the concept of relational place than to sense of place, because of the link provided earlier between sense of place and relational place. This issue is address further in this chapter (see: 2.2.7).

The last aspect of sense of place, one is looked deeper in the research, is the use of sense of place. Williams and Steward (1998, p.18) suggest that ‘the concept offers managers a way to anticipate, identify, and respond to the bonds people form with place.’ In this sense, knowing the sense of place managers can adapt management practices to support and maintain sense of place that can help with their aims.

2.1.3. Sense of Place Components In the previous section is described the understandings to sense of place and it is said that one of the notions to understanding sense of place is that it is comprised of components. It is illustrated what authors think about this, portraying from a single component understanding to a large, multi component understanding. This section addresses these components more in detail.

It is mentioned that it is considered Vanclay’s (2008, p.8) understanding to sense of place as a multi component concept. Vanclay (2008, p.8) mentions 10 (ten) components: place attachment; place identity, place dependence, place familiarity, place awareness, place commitment, place satisfaction, belongingness, rootedness, and community connectedness. But for Vanclay’s (2008, p.8) it is less than ten components actually.

Vanclay (2008, p.8) compares place attachments, place identity and place dependency as being same or similar at least. For place attachment it is already said that it is the constitutive component of sense of place. What is interesting about place attachments is that they are considered as components

25 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Academic Literature of understandings to relational place (see: Friedmann, 2010). Though there is not much of a relation, but merely an aspect that a relational place forms.

To whether place attachments are a component of relational place or not is discussed further in the second sub chapter of this chapter (see: 2.2). However, in accordance to the understanding of the relation that is established between sense of place and relational place, they are not a constitutive component, but a result of interaction. What is the issue to discuss here is whether place attachments are the same as place identity and place dependence, as Vanclay (2008, p.8) claims. It has already been addressed the issue on one component understandings of sense of place, that all components of sense of place can be considered as place attachments as some sort (see: 2.1.2). Jongerden (2009, para.28) gives a perspective where place attachment is central, while the other components of sense of place are taken as forms of place attachment: ‘For its inhabitants, [relational] place is not an arbitrary location in an abstract grid, which can be changed at will: through generations, people come to feel attached to a particular environment, which becomes part of family, community or tribal history.’ In this relation it is confirmed that one can consider place identity and place dependency to be similar or even the same as place attachment, but what is the limit that one can not claim the same in regards to place familiarity or place awareness, or place commitment, or even place rootedness, etc. To the point that it is a repetition, it is all a matter of perspective. For this reason, the perspective to sense of place that is formed here is that it is comprised of 10 (ten) components: Place attachments; Place identity; Place dependency; Place familiarity; Place awareness; Place commitment; Place satisfaction; Place rootedness; Place belonging; and Community connectedness.

If a step backwards is taken, and it is accepted the understand that sense of place has only one component – pertaining only to place attachments, then it could be looked deeper as to what are place attachments related to. In this relation Gieryn (2000, p.481) makes a relation of place attachments to the geography and the built environment, like houses or even landmarks. But also to landscape (Stedman, 2003a, p.673). Williams and Roggenbuck (1989, p.3) discuss the relation of place attachment to recreational environments where people may have attachment to the function, but also to some emotional value.

On the other hand Studley (2012) finds relation of the place attachment to spirituality and wisdom. While Vanclay (2008, p.5) says that ‘one may attach to the change of the place.’ It is truly an individual aspect (Stedman, 2003a, p.672; Vanclay, 2008, p.8) that is not easy to define. Now if all of these related attachments are classified into 10 categories, as described earlier, a further interpretation of sense of place would be much easier. Yet, there are issues arising from this consideration e.g. how then are place attachments different from the other components; whether these 10 categories are the most appropriate ones; are there more than just 10; can there be less, etc. The answers to these issues are only available through further research. In the understanding taken for this thesis is that place attachments are related to feelings and emotions that relate to a relational place (Vancley, 2008, p.8); while the other components of place as man relations to the appropriate issues that they address e.g. identity, dependency, familiarity, awareness, etc.

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Review of the Accademic Literature

2.1.4. Sense of Place Considerations Fridmann (2010, p.155) claims that place attachments are the invisible attributes that people give to a relational place, which is considered that only at times when they are under threat they surface to visibility. However, this consideration can be expanded to all sense of place components. Because sense of place is imaginative and reside in the individuals, or to that matter to the group’s minds as impressions of place. They are the emotions, the love of place, as Tuan (1974) would say. In this relation sense of place is important as it is a way to value places. It is feelings that assign values to things (TED, 2009), thus to relational places as well. Friedmann (2010, p.155) further suggests that looking at the social activism in a location may reveal the sense of place that the location has, and in a sense measure it. In other words, sense of place is the value of place.

The creation of sense of place is through the interaction of people with the relational place and attributing emotional meaning to the relational place (Gieryn, 2000, p.481). It is by getting to know the relational place that this process is enabled: ‘it is only when we begin to participate emotionally in a landscape that its uniqueness and beauty are revealed to us.’ (Jackson, 1980, p.18 in: Malpas, 2011, p.14). In this process of attaching time plays a role, merely because in longer time periods there is greater interaction between people and place which enables for people to feel rooted and form greater attachments (Elder et al 1996, Herting et al 1997 in: Gieryn, 2000, p.481). Therefore inhabitants, or as some authors call them locals, abound with components of sense of place. Thus, locals have greater/stronger sense of place.

But is it right to claim that outsiders do not have a sense of place? To this issue Friedmann (2010) holds a very local position that outsiders can not have sense of place. However, Vanclay (2008, p.9) states that even non-locals can have sense of place: ‘People can […] create an imagined attachment to places they have not been to but which they have some connection.’ As sense of place is an imaginative category, one can imagine and form an impression through images, text or merely awareness of one’s family history. This issue is related to the issue of who has the authentic claim of a relational place, something that is addressed later in the next sub chapter (see: 2.2.4).

One last issue that strikes is the issue of why do people form sense of place. To Williams and Roggenbuck (1989, p.2) it is a need that people have: ‘[…] one of the reasons individuals assign importance to places (just as they do to objects, activities and possessions) is that these places help to identify themselves to others.’ Thus, there is a human need to distinct one place from another, and it seems that it is best done through the process of experiences and forming impressions – a sense of place.

2.1.5. Research on Sense of Place This section is concerned with the issue how researchers approach to sense of place. How they do study sense of place. It explores various approaches and engages to find out what could be the most appropriate approach. This section is in a sense an introduction to the approach that this thesis has, and which is explained in detail in the chapter on methods (see: 3).

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Review of the Academic Literature The recognized complexity of sense of place (see: 2.1.2) has compelled researchers to analyse sense of place in a qualitative manner. Researchers rather prefer to explore and describe the sense of place, than to engage in analysing the processes through which sense of place is formed (Beckley 2003; Stedman, 2003b). However, qualitative approach has been regarded as wrongful in the context of nature resources planning (Stedman, 2003b; Studley, 2005). Stedman (2003b, p.827), says that forest managers require measurable elements: ‘One cannot “manage for sense of place” or integrate it into resource planning unless its particulars are known, as well as the process by which it is created.’

Therefore, forest planners need measurements and statistics in order to include sense of place in their plans. This approach and understanding originates from the history of scientific forestry7. Scientific forestry was designed for control of the resource for central (state) planning seeing the forest in a utilitarian way, through the availability of wood, and stripped from any other social or natural values (Scott, 1998). In this relation, scientific forestry is related to traditional science, as Stedman (2003b, p.824) says: ‘[…] [Scientific forestry] has relied more heavily on conventional positivistic science and its hypothesis-testing approach.’ The consequence of this is that sense of place is required to be measured statistically so it can be managed. However sense of place is a human dimension, and measuring variables on sense of place is as close as explaining the forest landscape through the average wood mass of the plot. Or as Scott (1989) explains the abstract measurements: measuring books in kilograms.

Therefore measuring sense of place or any of its components would be a very difficult process.

Examining the forest related literature reveals that the quantitative approach has more and more presence (Stedman, 2003b). The sense of place is being treated in variables that express: attachment to place (Williams and Roggenbuck, 1989); attachment, identity, and dependence (Jorgensen and Stedman, 2001; 2006); characteristics of the environment, human uses of the environment, constructed meanings, place attachment and satisfaction.

(Stedman, 2003a); etc. In this relation, sense of place is being treated as onedimensional or as multidimensional. The latter concept is making an attempt to develop an approach that will portray the complexity of sense of place. However, hardly any literature combines both quantitative and qualitative approach to the research of sense of place.

Due to the argument that Stedman (2003b, p.824) provides that forest planners need quantitative studies, there is a tendency for quantitative research to be conducted in relation to sense of place of forests. Though not neglecting the importance of qualitative research in Stedman’s (2003b) call, researchers may be inclined to go directly to quantitative research, thus skipping a process of understanding the sense of place and any possible issues that may be hidden. The limitation of employing only quantitative research is portrayed in the research on lake side owners, where the results exhibit variations (in e.g. lake importance) of unknown origin that compels the scientists to speculate on the origin of this variation (Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006). Thus, the important aspect of understanding the complexity of issues that hide in the landscape is missing from this research. Stedman (2003b, p.825) notes that researchers that employ quantitative studies, tend to stress the complexity of sense of place in their literature review, however they fail to do the same in their analysis.

Thus, merely portray stronger or weaker senses of place (Stedman, 2003b, p.825). In this sense, Stedman (2003b, p.825) sets a question: ‘How can we

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Review of the Accademic Literature examine the multidimensionality of place in a manner consistent with theory?’

It is a valid thinking, since researchers avoid to research sense of place in its complexity in quantitative studies. But is it the theory that has been missing in quantitative research or is it the lack of information that would be gathered beforehand through an explorative, qualitative research? Researchers should not simply go about “[…] counting and measuring before we truly understand underlying meanings that would help identify what we should be counting or measuring.” (Kruger and Shannon, 2000, p.463). I would add to this, that there is no quantitative study that can replace a qualitative.

The other side of the coin – the qualitative research is not missing from nature related literature on sense of place. It has been noted that qualitative research has been dominating in the past as a way to understand the complexity of place (Stedman, 2003b). The qualitative approach, unlikely the quantitative, does not treat but a few dimensions of the sense of place. Qualitative research focuses to illuminate or develop new insights. As in the case of quantitative, qualitative research is in process of finding the right approach. “Momentum around place research is connected to the development of effective and illuminating qualitative research methods and increasing acceptance of these methods.” (Yung, Freimund and Belsky, 2003, p.858). Yet, the interview, whether structured or open, remains as the sole method of gaining the information sought (Yung, Freimund and Belsky, 2003; Avramoski, 2011).

As seen so far, the scientists’ approach to researching sense of place has been very rigid, and to a sense is lacking innovation. What the scientific approach to researching sense of place needs is use of ‘[…] maps, floor plans, photographic images, bricks and mortar, landscapes and cityscapes’ (Gieryn, 2000, p.483). It needs a way to integrate spatial, visual aspects, and even aspects pertaining to smell, taste, and touch. Jorgensen and Stedman (2006) as well suggest incorporation of spatial aspects of sense of place and as if agreeing with Gieryn (2000) say ‘In this way, a more comprehensive understanding of places might be attained than if one were to operationalise sense of place as it has been described in the literature.’ (Jorgensen and Stedman, 2006, p.326).

At this point it is worth mentioning the work of Studley (2005) in the region of Eastern Kham. In the seven years long process Studley (2005) made an anthropologic, quantitative research, though combined with qualitative research, on forest values. He (Studley, 2005) used several methods to quantify indigenous forest values: text analysis for forest value identification, multidimensional scaling for the cognitive mapping of forest values, geostatistics for forest value distribution, and boundary analysis for changes in forest values and their coincidence with cultural or biophysical phenomena. In this process Studley (2005) extracted dimensions of the indigenous sense of place, embedded with the local meaning, believes, cults and senses (Sudley, 2005; 2012). But to do this he had to undergo a careful and diligent process in qualitative identification of the values and developing customized methods to measure them in a way that is appropriate to the local understanding. It is perhaps this multilayer approach that researchers should embrace in combining qualitative and quantitative with spatial aspects.

But what about photographic or other images of landscapes? Are they to be treated merely as artistic forms in relational place related science? Researchers could also look at paintings. Malpas (2011) vividly explains that one can extract

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Review of the Academic Literature sense of place from paintings. The case of Hobart, a town in New Zeland is a subject that can be taken for an example, because there is a painting of the town’s past: ‘The significance of the work undoubtedly derives from the all encompassing view of early Hobart and its immediate surrounds that the painting presents to the viewer, as well as the record it provides of the town at this point in its history. It is through its presentation of this view that the work contributes to the sense of the town’s history and identity.’ (Malpas, 2011, p.3).

Merifield (1993) would say, relational place is a constellation of social elements at a point in time. This understanding is comparable to a painting, as described

by Malpas (2011), or even a photographic image. On the other hand, without going in to the depths of the discussion of the dynamism of place, the image can be evidence to the dynamic character of place (Massey, 2011).

2.1.6. Practitioners and Sense of Place This section addresses the issue of the practitioners’ approach to sense of place. Perhaps this literature is very limited, it still exists, and therefore it should not be ignored. Thus, this section is looking into what practitioners do or think.

An important link that is seldom considered is the link between science and practice. This link is vital for the research that is being conducted to find its application. The scientific community researching sense of place occasionally makes a call to practitioners that sense of place should be included in planning (Williams and Steward, 1998; Avramoski, 2011), even stressing the importance, like with the words of Williams and Steward (1998, p.23) that: ‘it may be the only genuinely integrative approach to managing ecosystem.’ However, as Stedman (2003b, p.822) notes, ‘the contribution of sense of place to forest management has been minimal’, sense of place concept is not finding its way easily in practice. Yet there are practitioners that employ the sense of place in their planning projects. Their approaches differ in methods and information that they ask from people.

A development group from the USA, Regenesis Collaborative Development Group (2008; 2010) employ a synthesis approach in which they explore the geographical characteristics of a location and combine that with people’s stories of that place. They interpret the geographic landscape and the spirit of the place in order to provide guidance for the landscape planning they make. That way they make their plans to fit to the place that is subject to development.

Though not related to forest planning practices, other, innovative, practices to get the sense of place by practitioners are also employed that may be used in forest planning as well. An example is of an urban planning consultancy from Scotland that was asked to develop new design of a school. In their practice they used stakeholders’ consultation workshops and asked people how they feel about the school’s space (Cunningham, Kenyon, and Sims, 2011). A different approach is by an architect from the USA who puts his clients under hypnosis to draw out of them the sense of place they want and need (Hester, 1989).

It is interesting to see that though some scientists consider that planners, or better say practitioners, need statistical data for the results of studies on sense of place to be incorporated in their management (Stedman, 2003b; Studley, 2005), practitioners themselves explicitly show the contrasting approach and

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Review of the Accademic Literature employ many, different, innovative and quite unusual qualitative methods on exploring sense of place and using it in their plans.

The examples above come down to a common feature, and that is that sense of place can be represented through the emotional reasoning of people.

However, in a world that is dominated by rational thought – logic, emotions are suppressed, thus we have non-working policies and plans (theRSAorg, 2011) in the same manner as the sense of place is often left out from planning and leading to results that do not fit the place or even alter or destroy the place itself (Freidmann, 2010). In this last consideration, as it is already mentioned (see: 2.1.4), sense of place should readily and increasingly be adopted into the work of practitioners.

2.2. On Relational Place

This chapter is concerned with the existing discourse on the concept of relational place and the sense of place. It portrays both the discourse on relational place and sense of place because they are tightly linked (see: 2.1.2) and sometimes are mistaken to be the same issue. That is why in this chapter it is provided an explanation of what a place is in a relational term. It portrays the discourse on relational place and it engages with the various understandings of relational place that exist. It makes an attempt to give a systematically dissection of relational place so the reader, even if not familiar with the concept of relational place, can understand the discourse.

2.2.1. Space and Relational Place, Evolution of Thought As an introduction to the place discourse this section presents a historical overview of the evolution of thought on space and place. This is a good background to the scientific discourse on relational place that is addressed subsequently in this thesis report. It shows that the discourse on place is not new, a construct developed in these last few decades, but that it exists perhaps for as long as human thought exists.

Ever since writings of the ancient thinkers can be identified, space, and place, together with time and motion, has been a central philosophical discussion (Stanford University, 2006). The overwhelming presence of space and place, around human life has enabled to be part of the eternal questions of existence: ’Why are we here, what’s life all about?’ (The Meaning of Life, 1983). However, the problem of the issue of space and/or place is that there are many understandings of both space and place.

The trained thought on space and place has evolved throughout the course of time. Aristotle8 discussed of movement in an absolute space where all things moved towards or opposite the centre of the Universe (Stanford University, 2006). Descartes9 and Newton10 claimed that space is real and exists on its

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Review of the Academic Literature own (Stanford University, 2006). Leibniz11, had a more interesting and relevant theory for this report. Leibniz moved beyond the existing concepts and said that space is comprised of all places together, that it is ideal and is instantiated by each individual differently (Stanford University, 2006). Leibniz claimed that one object can take the place of another object only when it will stand in the same relation to other referential objects that did not change their places (Stanford University, 2006). However, Leibniz recognized that time is change, thus no two objects could ever occupy the same place (Stanford University, 2006). Leibniz therefore, in his theory said that the ‘same’ place that is occupied by the two bodies is the same only in our minds, and therefore it is ideal place (Stanford University, 2006). ’In his Correspondence with Clarke, Leibniz says that he believes space to be “something merely relative, as time is, […] [space is] an order of coexistences [of places], as time is an order of successions” (LIII.4)’ (Stanford University, 2006). Leibniz’s relativist theory was further developed by Mach12, and even later Einstein13, in relation to Leibniz’s theory, developed the Special Relational Theory and the General Relative Theory (Stanford University, 2006).

I’d like to stop at this point, as Leibniz’s understanding of space, place and time of being relational and ideal is linked to the philosophical understanding of the concept of relational place, and of the concept of sense of place. The evolution of thought on place it does continue, and I follow in my thesis report the direction of thinking related to the relational place in the following sections.

2.2.2. Making Distinction Between Social Space and Relational Place Many times in literature authors sometime address social space, while other authors address relational place. The two could be completely different, or not. It is a concern because these terms are used sometimes interchangeably, though meaning the same thing. Where one author speaks of space (see: Lefebvre, 1974), another author refers to it as place (see: Gieryn, 2000; Friedmann, 2010). This play of words in a sense may not be key issue for this thesis.

However, since the idea is to combine both the concept of sense of place and relational place, than a basic understanding of relational place should be made.

And to that point includes the issue of understanding the difference between social space and relational place. This section does that. It portrays the main distinctions between the two terms as described by various authors. I provide my thinking to this issue which to this date remains an open discussion between scientists. Further more, this section opens the discussion on the topics that are addressed more in detail in the following sections of this chapter.

Making a clear distinction between space and place, or giving a clear definition either on space or on place is a difficult thing. The difficulty comes from its many usages of the words. Friedmann (2010, p.152) describes this difficulty well saying: ’It is difficult to take a word such as place, which is in everyday use and applied in all sorts of ways, and turn it into a concept that has a precise and operational meaning.’ Place, but to the same extent space, is a polysemous14 word, to which people relate various slightly different meanings on a daily basis. It is what Leibniz describes about place as being ideal and different for each individual because each individual understands it differently (Stanford University, 2006). Thus, making a definition that would apply only

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Review of the Accademic Literature in the context of the concept of relational place would have to ask to whose understanding that definition will be constructed on. And more importantly, is one able to know the understanding of the other. This, a definition would be inappropriate. I say inappropriate to have a definition on place, taking the words of Vanclay (2008, p.5): ‘[b]ecause of the personal definition of place, it [place] defies definition other than by general understanding.’ Placing a definition on place would be like placing a definition on love. Therefore I will look in the thesis for ways to understand place, rather than to define it.

One, most often described distinction between space and place is that place is space embodied with meaning (Escobar, 2001, pp.152-153; Vanclay, 2008, p.3).

However, this is a disputed distinction, since space, like place has a meaning too (Massey, 2004, pp.7-9). Still meaning is an important element of place, which will be addressed in detail later (see: 2.2.3).

Another distinction that appears is the differentiation between the local – place and the global – space (Lefebvre, 1974; Escobar, 2001; Friedmann, 2010).

Again, this is equally disputed as place is a nested concept (Vanclay, 2008, p.7) and scale would not provide answer to a distinction between the two. However, the perspective of a local and an outsider is an interesting issue, and gives rise to some thought which are addressed further in the report (see: 2.2.4).

What strikes me is that each attempt in literature to make a clear distinction between space and place has its counter arguments. Perhaps the interplay in use of the terms that is found among many authors is justified since space and place, in relational terms, are perhaps the same. Perhaps a case of linguistics that merely has not been well communicated. Therefore, I will take this notion as perhaps being true, as I can not find any evidence that it might not be true.

And in the thesis I will refer to relational place, and only to relational place, so I do not create additional confusion for the reader. But I take that the reader will know that this issue exists so if he or she tries to look up a reference that addresses social space instead of relational place, no one will be confused.

2.2.3. On Place Meaning In the previous section was opened the issue of place meaning. In this section it is addressed more in detail. Basically, this section explores what meaning is to relational place.

Without pertaining to the thought that place is space embodied with meaning (see: Escobar, 2001; Vanclay, 2008), I do accept the understanding that place does have a meaning. A meaning that people give through experience, thus coming to an understanding of place that, using the words of Tuan (1979, p.387): ‘Place incarnates the experiences of and aspirations of a people.’

Meaning is a valuable constitutive element of place (Gieryn, 2000, p. 464). A constitutive element of place that a place without it would not be a place. Place meaning is an underlining trait of a relational place. It is meaning that makes the place, because, to take the words of Gieryn (2000, p.463): ‘[a]s places lose their distinctiveness, place loses its reality and significance, some believe.’ In other words, place meaning makes the distinction between two or more places.

Which in it self is very important for people – a way to make distinction between

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Review of the Academic Literature places, as described already (Williams and Roggenbuck, 1989, p.2; see: 2.1.4).

However, one should not enter into a discussion on what comes first, is it the relational place or the place meaning. Because the two are so elementary related, that this discussion would be as the one of the chicken or the egg.

Due to the individual nature of place meanings, there can be identified individual place meanings and/or collective place meanings (Stedman, 2003a, p.823; Vanclay, 2008, p.3). Therefore, there can be as many place meanings as there are people and for the relational place itself could be said that, to take Vanclay’s (2008, p.4) words: ‘[…] there are pluralities of [relational] place’, not just one relational place. Greider and Garkovich (1994, p.2, in: Stedman, 2003a, p.672) explain this multiplicity of place meaning in relation to the landscape: ‘landscapes are the reflections of these [people’s] cultural identities, which are about us, rather than the natural environment. […] Any physical place has the potential to embody multiple landscapes, each of which is grounded in the cultural definitions of those who encounter that place. Every river is more than one river. Every rock is more than just one rock.’ Therefore there are as many landscapes, as many relational places as there are users, people that experience it.

2.2.4. Authentic Claim of Place Previously was opened the issue of the perspective of place (see: 2.2.2), whether local’s or an outsider’s view is more appropriate. It was also explained that there can be as many places as there are people or users, thus emphasizing that there must be a relation (see: 2.2.3). This section addresses this issue of who has the right to a place. It talks about who is considered as local, and whether outsiders can embody a meaning to a place.

First of all, to point out an affiliated issue that needs to be addressed first. That is the issue of: who is to be considered as local? Is it those that are located in the relational place’s geographical location, or those that relate to the specific place meanings? In a simple understanding, a local is the person that lives on that particular geographical location. However, a person living in a certain geographical location may also be a stranger to the relational place and to the dominant place meanings that that geographical location has. It is not necessary to say that is a stranger to all place meanings, because certainly that individual created a place meaning of its own. Massey (2011, sec. Reversing the terms of belonging) in e.g. addresses the issue of displacement in a relational place: ‘You don’t have to move to be, or feel, displaced. It can happen through dispossession.’ A relational place or better say the dominant place meaning can be dispossessed through a domination of another group’s or individual’s claims over a relational place. It is understandable in modern terms for a domination of the abstract over the lived (see: Lefebvre, 1974; Gregory, 1994), thus a dispossession of relational place can occur easily from outsiders. But isn’t this possible also from local people, a different group that is part of the same relational place? Williams and Steward (1998, p.20) give a confirming answer to this: ‘Given the many dimensions of the concept [of relational place], competing senses of a place can be invoked by diverse and conflicting groups - local commodity interests seeking to maintain a way of life, environmentalists embracing Leopold’s land ethic, Native Americans focusing on the spiritual or transcendent qualities inherent in a place, recreation

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Review of the Accademic Literature and wilderness enthusiasts voicing concerns about new or nonconforming uses, and heritage preservationists trying to maintain landscape character or restore resettlement ecological conditions.’ In this sense it is difficult to say what is local, or better said, there are various levels of being local: being local to the geographical location, and/or being local to the place meanings.

The importance of the issue of who is local is related to the issue of who has the authentic claim over a place. Because some authors (see: Gieryn, 2000; Friedmann, 2010), give emphasize to the local understandings of place and even claim that the place meaning embedded by an outsider can not create a place, but placelessness. However, using the words of Williams and Steward (1998, p.19): ’It is worth noting that although we emphasize the importance of recognizing “local” meanings, these should not be limited to residents’ sense of place. Many tourists and regular visitors have strong attachments to place. It is not the possessors of meanings that are local, but the meanings them selves.’

In this sense and with this understanding, we should not limit our selves to a single entity as being the authentic claim of place. Therefore a local, in terms of relational place should be considered the person that is related to a place meaning, and not necessarily limited to that geographical location. However, considering that place meanings are related to experiences, then being a local in terms to the geographical location is a certainty that one has local place meanings.

2.2.5. On Place Names So far it has been addressed the element of place meaning, and it has been discussed the authentic claim over that meaning. Yet there is one more element of relational place that gives a dimension to the place meaning, it is a signature on the place meaning. That is the place name. In this section it is discussed the relationship between relational place and place names, and its implications to a relational place.

A place starts to exist once it is given a name (Gieryn, 2000, p.465; Vanclay, 2008, p.4). The appearance that a relational place may not have a name is only related to the person not knowing its name, as Williams and Steward (1998, p.21) say: ‘Virtually every [relational] place has a name, whether a roadside sign proclaims it or not.’ The process of naming a relational place lies in the same process of acquiring of meaning: relational place ‘[…] thereby becomes a distinctive place and may even acquire a name.” (Friedmann, 2010, p.154). A place name, it seems, is the signature of the place meaning.

But place naming is not as simple issue as it seems. In the same notion that there can be place meanings as there are people, the same multiplicity applies to names. Place names are tightly related to place meaning and identity (Jongerden, 2009, p.29). Each word applied to a place name can be delicate, ‘[b]ecause certain words and phrases are politically charged and act as a sort of shorthand for particular political positions and agendas, even seemingly neutral descriptions of specific places can quickly polarize a group of people.’ (Lung, Yung, Freimund, and Belsky, 2003, p.864). In practice, place ‘[n]aming is not a neutral activity but loaded with meaning, an important part of the processes comprising the political appropriation of spaces.’ (Jongerden, 2007, p.29).

Therefore the changing of names or pertaining to names of a certain group or

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Review of the Academic Literature ethnicity is a political activity that ‘[i]t is intimately involved in the conversion of places to territories.’ (Jongerden, 2007, p.30).

2.2.6. Understanding to Relational Place In the sections above are discussed the central elements that make up a relational place – the meaning, and the name. However, there is more to a relational place. In the literature several attempts exists to provide a definition.

But as previously said, I will not use the term definition, but rather the term understanding, as being more appropriate. This section illustrates the variations that exist as a step to a complete understanding to relational place. However, it does not go into the depths of these understandings, this is done in a later section (see: 2.2.7).

The understanding to relational place varies, and go from a very blunt like the one of Tuan (1977, in: Stedman, 2003b, p.823): ‘[…] [relational] place is defined in opposition to space.’ However, this understanding call on the discourse of space versus place that is already addressed (see: 2.2.2) as an open and probably needless issue. Other authors provide much more concrete and physical understanding of relational place: ‘[…] place will have three necessary and sufficient features: [g]eographic location, material form, investment with meaning and value.’ (Gieryn, 2000, p.464). This understanding puts a firm foot on the relation of relational place to the geographical location.

Relational place is becoming considered as a social construct. In this relation a social understanding of relational place is nicely put by Relfph (1976, p. 141, in: Stedman, 2003b, p.822), one that connects relational place with meaning, identity and bindings: ‘[relational places are] ‘fusions of human and natural order [...] significant centers of experience [...] the focusing of experiences and intentions onto particular settings. They are based on directly experienced phenomena of the lived world, full of meanings, with real objects, ongoing activities [...] and become important sources of individual and communal identity, often profound centers of human existence with deep emotional and psychological ties.’

Another important aspect of relational place is the context in which it is constructed. Because the context predefines the kinds of experiences one may have. Being a social construct, it is influenced by the mode of production that is dominating for that particular group of people and in that particular location.

And for the most, if not all, of the literature considered here, it is capitalism.

Place ‘[…] is the terrain where basic social practices - consumption, enjoyment, tradition, selfidentification, solidarity, social support and social reproduction, etc. - are lived out. As a moment of capitalist space, place is where everyday life is situated. And as such, place can be taken as practiced space.’ (Merrifield, 1993, p.522).

The issue in the exposed understandings to relational place is that relational place is more than just one consideration, ‘[Relational] [p]lace […] is the coming together of the biophysical, social and spiritual worlds.” (Vanclay, 2008, p.3).

Such an attempt to combine these worlds has been developed by Lefebvre (1974) in which concept is combined the conceived, the perceived and the lived as a threefold understanding to relational place15. Even in this attempt, it is

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Review of the Accademic Literature difficult to explain precisely the understanding to relational place. Merrifield (1993, p.524) would say to this: ’Lefebvre is, nevertheless, tantalizingly vague on the precise fashion in which the conceived-lived-perceived triad interrelate‘, it is still the second most often quoted understanding of relational place in English speaking research16 (see: Merrifield, 1993; Gregory, 1994; Escobar, 2001; Halfacree, 2006; Friedmann, 2010; Kort, 2011).

However, for the need of policy documents, place has a very rigid definition.

An example is The Burra Charter: The Australia ICOMOS Charter for Places of Cultural Significance 1999 where ‘Place means site, area, land, landscape, building or other work, group of buildings or other works, and may include components, contents, spaces and views.’ (Australia ICOMOS Inc, 2000, p.2).

However, this definition has limitations in its tight relation to the physical locale, and the social dimension is missing, thus is inappropriate to be considered for the concept of relational place as a social construct. To that matter, professional or policy related understandings of place are too strict in its formulation that does not necessarily portray the complexity of the relational place.

2.2.7. Layers of Relational Place As it is exposed earlier (see: 2.2.6), there are many understandings of relational place. What I will take into discussion into this section is that these understandings of relational place illustrate that relational place is constituted of parts or dimensions. I prefer to call these parts as layers out of two reasons.

Firstly, the parts are layered over the understanding of place, and secondly, it gives a better visual understanding of the parts as overlapping. Each layer is examined in the course of this section: the conceived, the perceived, the lived, the geographical location and the scale.

To each understanding to relational place, authors have identified key layers.

With few exceptions (see: Friedmann, 2010) most of the authors that provide detailed understanding of relational place, constitute place out of three layers (see: Lefebvre, 1979; Merrifield, 1993; Gregory, 1994; Gieryn, 2000; Halfacree, 2006). This, almost fascination with a threefold composition of relational place is considered to be due to a ‘human centrism’ (Gregory, 1994, p.384) amongst the authors, and a tendency to compare relational place with the human as being comprised of a body, a mind and a soul. Though the authors think somewhat differently on which layers a relational place has.

Here is taking as a basis, the three layered concept elaborated by Lefebvre (1974) and supported by a number of his like-minders (see: Merrifield, 1993; Gregory, 1994; Halfacree, 2006). It is looking more into detail this Lefebvrian trinity that is compared to form-function-structure as Lefebvre (1974, p.94) himself states. It is also exploring other concepts that involve a three layered understanding of place, like that of Gieryn (2000). And those that involve a more layered understanding of place like that of Friedmann (2010) and his five dimensions of place. However, this is done through the discussion on the layers them selves.

Unlikely many authors that relate to Lefebvre’s concept of the three layered relational place and call it a triad (see: Merrifield, 1993) or even Lefebvre (1974, p.39) him self, I prefer to use the word trinity. Trinity as meaning unity of

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Review of the Academic Literature three, but not pertaining to the Christian usage of the word. This comes from the understanding that each of the constituting layers of a relational place are not separate and should not be addressed individually, but that they form one whole, thus should be addressed in unity (Lefebvre, 1974, p.39-40; Entrikin, 1991, p.7) In a sense a duality, or a triality in the context of a trinity.

The idea behind Lefebvre’s trinity concept of relational place is the ‘construction of a “system of space”’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.16) - a system of relational place, understanding the lack of difference between space and place. And it is not an abstract concept of relational place (Lefebvre, 1974, p.40), but one that is grounded in practice. The Lefebvre’s trinity is comprised of: representations of space, or the conceived; representational spaces, also known as spaces of representation or the lived; and the spatial practice, or the perceived. For each of these elements it is elaborated deeper in the following text.

Conceived To explain conceived, and to that matter the other elements as well, I prefer to use the words of Lefebvre directly. Because of the consideration that Descartes (1637, Ch.5) makes that one‘s words sound differently when said by another one.17 Conceived, to Lefebvre (1974, p.38) is the ‘[r]epresentations of space: [and it refers to] conceptualized space, the space of scientists, planners, urbanists technocratic subdividers and social engineers, as of a certain type of artist with a scientific bent – all of whom identify what is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived. […] This is the dominant space in any society.’ The ‘representations of space, […] are tied to the relations of production and to the “order” which those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to “frontal” relations.’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.33). It is the ‘ideal space, which has to do with mental (logico-mathematical) categories’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.14; see also: Merrifield, 1993, p.523).

The representations of space is an abstract conceived place as Merrifield (1993, p.524) would call it. And this is somewhat a cause of disagreement amongst some authors, because e.g. Gieryn (2000, p.465) disagrees that abstract place is part of place, though Lefebvre (1974) places it as the dominant element in his trinity concept of relational place. This disagreement is also in a sense taken

by Friedman, who considers this abstract place as being placelessness. But this disagreement is on a different level, not whether or not the conceived constitutes place or not. It is a disagreement of the authentic claim to place (see: 2.2.4).

Since Gieryn (2000) and Friedmann (2010) take the side of the local people, while Lefebvre (1974) recognizes the influence by the outsiders and includes them in his understanding. Interesting enough is Gieryn’s (2000) view that, perhaps without intention, supports Lefebvre’s (1974) concept. Gieryn (2000, p.468-471) considers place professionals and their abstract thinking to be key in place making, thus placing the abstract back into importance for relational place. Finally, referring to my earlier discussion (see: 2.2.4), the conceived, or the conceived is rightfully considered as being a layer constituting relational place.

The conceived is seen as a dominated force that imposes its self over the lived

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Review of the Accademic Literature (Gregory, 1994, p.401). This imposition of the conceived goes just as well over nature (Kort, 2011, 35). Or as Lefebvre (1974, p.31) would say: ‘nature is now seen as merely the raw material out of which the productive forces of a variety of social systems have forged their particular spaces.’ This idea of the abstract imposed over the lived, has been noted by Scott (1989) as well, though without direct intention to elaborate the social space. Scott (1989, p.13) explains the domination of the conceived by the state over nature, where the trees are seen in an abstract, utilitarian way in order to satisfy the needs of the state’s wood supply. Thus, though Lefebvre (1974) originally conceived this concept to be for urban place, the same, it seems, applies to the rural and nature areas as Halfacree (2006) discusses.

Lived Lived to Lefebvre (1974, p.39) is the: ‘[r]epresentational spaces: [and it refers to] space as directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of “inhabitants” and “users”, but also of some artists and perhaps of those, such as a few writers and philosophers, who describe and aspire to do no more than describe. This is the dominant - and hence passively experienced – space which imagination seeks to change and appropriate. It overlays physical space, making use of its objects. Thus representational spaces may be said, though again with certain exceptions, to tend towards more or less coherent systems of non-verbal symbols and signs.’ Lefebvre (1974, p.33) also explains: ‘Representational spaces, [are] embodying complex symbolisms, sometimes coded, sometimes not, linked to the clandestine or underground side of social life, as also to art (which may come eventually to be defined less as a code of space than as a code of representational spaces).’ (see also: Merrifield, 1993, p.523).

This lived is also considered as ‘counterspace’ (Gregory, 1994, p.403) that challenges the dominant conceptions and perceptions. This comes from the issue that the lived does not obey rules of consistency or cohesiveness (Merrifield, 1993, p.523), because it is ‘alive’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.42). An interesting thing is that Lefebre’s (1974) trinity has been created with a reason, and that is to give credit to the lived and bring it into perspective, since it was occupied by the conceived, or what is known: the economy and the state. (Gregory, 1994, p.402).

Lived place is also known as the experienced place (Lefebvre, 1974, p.39; Merrifield, 1993, p.524). It is here where the unique experience of people is to be located, because ‘experience is lived and acted out in space [or place to that matter]’ (Merrifield, 1993, p.517), and not just any relational place, but the lived place. Relating to sense of place, a matter that was discuss more in detail already (see: 2.1.2), the unique experience is related to the sense of place (see: London, 1994). The lived is source of experience, thus is also a source of the place meanings and place attachments that constitute the sense of place.

One layer of the Friedmann’s (2010) manifold understanding to relational place is linked to Lefebvre’s (1974) lived. It is the place attachments. As said earlier, experiences are linked to the lived, and through the experiences the place meanings and place attachments are being formed. Place attachments were discussed already in detail (see: 2.1.3).

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Review of the Academic Literature Relating to place meanings, it is Gieryn’s (2000) layer of place. It was addressed before that relational place is embedded with meaning (see: 2.2.3).

For Gieryn this consideration is also one of the key elements of relational place.

I also already elaborated the issue of naming, as one form of investment, or also called embedment with meaning to a relational place (see: 2.2.5). So I will not repeat further on this account. However, the issue of value and place is a link yet to be discussed.

Friedmann (2010, p.158) said: ‘if place is something to be valued (though not in terms that can be measured in dollars and cents), and if there is anything to the notion that cherishing a neighborhood in which one has spent a significant part of one’s life is a meaningful concept, if sense of place and identity are at issue, then the demolition of places large and small inevitably imposes immense human costs.’ Relational places do have a value, and this value is of human character. It is emotions that assign value to the place (TED, 2009), while place attachments are emotional connections to the place. Again, as I mentioned, all finding their source in the lived, as the source of the experience that gives the meanings, emotions, attachments, thus values.

Perceived Perceived to Lefebvre (1974) is the spatial practices. ‘Spatial practices are practices that ‘secrete’ society’s space.’ (Merrifield, 1993, p.524; see also Lefebvre, 1974, p.38). ‘It embodies a close association, within perceived space, between daily reality (daily routine) and urban reality (the routes and networks which link up the places set aside for work, ”private” life and leisure). This association is a paradoxical one, because it includes the most extreme separation between the places it links together.’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.38).

‘Spatial practice, […] embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation. Spatial practice ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion. In terms of social space, and of each member of a given society’s relationship to that space, this cohesion implies a guaranteed level of competence and a specific level of performance.’

(Lefebvre, 1974, p.33).

The perceived is ‘the practical basis of the perception of the outside world, to put it in psychology’s terms’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.40). It has direct relation to ‘both conceived space and lived place’ (Merrifield, 1993, p.525). It represents the interaction between the conceived and the lived with the physical space, a ‘mediating role’ as Merrifield (1993, p. 525) would say. Thus, it is the place of an ongoing clash between the productive and unproductive uses, between ‘utilisers’ and ‘users’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p. 60; Merrifield, 1993, p.522).

The perceived in the sense as being a mediator (Merrifield, 1993, p. 525) is representing the material form of relational place. Since the material form of relational place is the physical side of place (Gieryn, 2000, p.464). The layer to relational place as having a material form is given by Gieryn (2000). It is a layer to make a distinction from virtual places (Vanclay, 2008, p.4). Looking to Friedmann, (2010, p.154-157) he has the material form in the inhabited and in the spaces of encounter.

40 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Review of the Accademic Literature Taking this relation of the material, or the physical, Lefebvre’s (1974) perceived is in a sense related to Friedmann’s (2010) inhabited. But not only in this sense, Friedmann (2010, p. 153) sees the inhabited as the ‘spatial pattern’, which well comparable to the spatial practices and the daily routine of the perceived by Lefebvre (1974, p.38). Considering that both Lefebvre (1974) and Friedmann (2010) created their understandings of place to an urban relation, it is good to understand this inhabited concept since most natural or rural areas are not inhabited directly. Looking at Friedmann’s (2010, p.153) idea of being inhabited is more related that the place possesses a soul. On the soul of place Vanclay (2008, p.7) refers to spirit of place, or also known as genius loci, as a term that refers to ‘the qualities of a place that make it special.’ Therefore this idea of being inhabited, in terms of considering a rural area like a field or a forest, does not jeopardises the consideration that the field or the forest can be a place, if it does possesses a soul. While the soul of the place is acquired from the perceived, specific activities that are conducted there.

Yet, there is another layer that Friedmann (2010) portrays that can be related to the perceived of Lefebvre (1974). It is the centres of encounter. Friedmann’s (2010, p.155) ‘[…] ”centres” or spaces of encounter and/or gathering’ are related to the ‘[…] networks of traditional practices and rituals, the building of ancestral halls, a temple dedicated to a local deity, all of which, in turn, become points of attraction for a village.’ Just as Lefebvre (1974, p.38) sees the perceived to be pertaining to the networks of the place. Another relation is that Friedman (2010, p.155) sees these spaces of encounter as that they ‘[…] may ultimately lead to a degree of belonging or attachment, to a sense of place and, ultimately, of one’s place in the cosmos.’ Again, linked to Lefebvre’s (1974) understanding of the perceived, as being a mediator with the lived (Merrifield, 1993, p.525), thus with the place attachments.

Friedmann (2010, p.156) continues further in the explanation of the spaces of encounter and he sees them on the very local level he position the place as ‘sacred spaces’18. Friedmann (2010) relates to Hester (2006, p.120) in relation to the sacred spaces, to which he says: ‘The sacred places in Manteo are buildings, outdoor spaces, and landscapes that exemplify, typify, reinforce, and even extol the everyday life patterns and rituals of community life. They are places so essential to the life of residents through use of symbolism that the community collectively identifies with the places. The places are synonymous with residents’ concepts and uses of their town. The loss of such places would reorder or destroy something or some social process essential to the community’s collective being.’ A description that portrays Lefebvre’s (1974, p.38) concept of spatial practice, it contains the daily life, the uses of space and intertwined with the perceptions of the place. But with that one small relation, that Friedmann (2010, p.156) in his understanding of the spaces of encounter or the sacred places, appropriately, limit him self only to the uses of the local people, and not those of the outsiders. This limitation of Friedmann’s understanding to place is in fact the main difference between the understanding of Lefebvre (1974) and Friedmann (2010).

But let’s explore a bit more this idea of sacred places and Hester (2006).

Hester (2006, p.118) explains that there are different sacred place at different level, thus at national level, national parks are sacred. But more importantly to the issue of the perceived is that the sacredness is experienced ‘through the ritual use of those places’ (Hester, 2006, p.117). Now, understanding that the

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Review of the Academic Literature

perceived in Lefebvre’s (1974, p.38) is considered under capitalist context, in the application of the concept I would emphasize the need to go beyond the widely accepted western spatial practices and see also those that are related to the spirit, such as reverence, shamanic processions, etc. (Studley, 2012, p.229).

Because this widening of the perceptions would enable better understanding of the lived, and provide locally adjusted application of Lefebvre’s (1974) concept of social space.

Geographic Location In the Gieryn’s (2000) understanding to place there is one more layer that is not been addressed directly by Lefebvre’s (1974) trinity. It is the layer of geographical location (Gieryn, 2000, p.464). To Gieryn’s (2000, p.464) understanding, the geographic location of a place as the layer that provides the place with a distinction: ’A place is a unique spot in the universe. Place is the distinction between here and there, and it is what allows people to appreciate near and far.’ This understanding to place poses a very strong relation to the physical setting of the geographical location. The problem to this understanding is the relation between the geographical location and the place meaning. Greider and Garkovich (1994, p.2, in: Stedman, 2003a, p.672) address this issue and give a strong critique: ‘[...] Of course, humans reside in a natural [...] world that is there [...] but this world is meaningless. Meanings are not inherent in the nature of things.’ And yes, humans give the meaning to the geographical location, and some of that meaning may be related to the geography itself.

But how does is the geographical location significant to the understanding of relational place.

There is an understanding to place that helps clarify the difference between the social construct of place and the geographical location. It is an understanding that opposes the importance of the geographical location for the existence of place (Gieryn, 2000, p.464). It is the understanding of the camp as a place detached from the physical location. For example a Tibetan nomad or a Roma camp is a place that is constructed in different, multiple locations (Langer, 1953, p.95). The camp is the same place every time, though it is situated on a different geographical location. This understanding vividly portrays the distinction between place and locale. In this sense what seems important to be considered from the geographical location is that it may have relations, and implications to the place, but it is not necessarily always valid. Thus, the geographical location should not be neglected, but perhaps should find its potential place to the lived place, as the physical basis to which experience is achieved.

The geographic location has also a different usage, one that pertains to the conceived. Since professionals, especially planners, work with maps and spatial data, it is needed to consider the geographical location for the use by practitioners.

Scale of Place For Friedmann’s (2010) understanding to place it is important that it is from

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Review of the Accademic Literature the side of the local people that it is considered, and not in a consideration that may pertain to a wider scale. That is why he adds a layer of scale of place to his understanding. Friedmann (2010, p.152) says on this: ‘In contradistinction to the multiple scales of the geographer, the scale I propose to adopt here is exclusively the local, and the perspective on place will be from the inside out, that is, as place is experienced and sometimes transformed by those who dwell in […] [it].’ This consideration gives place a ‘human scale’ (Scott, 1989, p.25), a scale ‘which allows people to interact in a variety of mostly unplanned ways’ (Friedmann, 2010, p.154). However, we can not limit the scale to a single size.

As Gieryn (2000, p.464) and Entrikin (1991), would say: ‘A place could be your favorite armchair, a room, building, neighborhood, district, village, city, county, metropolitan area, region state, province, nation, continent, planet–or a forest glade, the seaside, a mountaintop.’ The concept of relational place is a nested concept on both level and scale (Vanclay, 2008, p.7). Therefore we would need to accept the multiple scales of the geographer, and the local, human scale because of the different considerations of place by various individuals. Thus in the understanding of place is more important ‘[…] to ask what these places of varying scale have in common and how they differ.’ (Gieryn, 2000, 464). To which I urge to be looked at the layers discussed earlier.

In this multi scaled understanding to place it is very perspective dependent what one scale may represent to another. In e.g. a national scale is very abstract to the village scale, or the neighbourhood scale to a city scale. What one considers as local, another one may consider as abstract. Considering this, the scale, as it pertains to borders, can be linked to the layer of the conceived

by Lefebvre (1974).

2.2.8. Relational Place and Time The temporal aspect of relational place is a consideration that is being addressed by all authors of understandings of place (see: Lefebvre, 1974; Gieryn, 2000; Vanclay, 2008; Friedmann, 2010). It is addressed both the nature of relational place in time (see: Massey, 2005; 2011), and the history of place (see: Lefebvre, 1974; Friedmann, 2010).

Nature of Place in Time There are two considerations of the nature of relational place in time. The first one is that place is a point in time (Merrifield, 1993, p. 525). Merrifield (1993, p.525) calls on Harvey’s consideration to relational place in time, he sees relational place as ‘[…] the “moment” when the [integral elements of social space as defined by Lefebvre (1974):] conceived, the perceived and the lived attain a certain “structured coherence” (to borrow Harvey’s term).’

Which represents a rather static view to relational place, yet it also relates to the understanding of Leibniz to place. This view of relational place is strongly disputed by Massey (2005, 2011). Massey (2011, sec. Stillness) would say: ‘In […] (For Space, 2005) I had urged the need for a reconceptualisation of space. I argued at length against the characterisation of space as a “slice through time” in which there is no dynamism. There is a long and persistent history of this counterposition of space and time, in particular through the conceptualisation of

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Review of the Academic Literature space as the absence of time/temporality.’ Massey’s (2005, p.9) consideration is that ‘space is always under construction’, under a constant change. Providing a rather dynamic view to relational place.

But Merrifield (1993) also accepts that relational place is not just static.

Merrifield (1993, p.521) says that relational place ‘is simultaneously a process and a thing’. This consideration merges the two, of relational place being static and dynamic. And this understanding to the temporal side of relational place is key issue to explaining different senses of place that people form through the history of the place. To which Massey (2011, sec. Stillness) would say that ‘It is indeed impossible to produce movement/life/becoming out of a series of static cross-sections, even multiplied by infinity.’, and she continues ‘space must itself be imbued with temporality. Space as a simultaneity indeed, but a cut through ongoing histories. Not a surface but a simultaneity of stories-so-far.’ (Massey, 2011, sec. Stillness). Thus, making each image of relational place, to be imbued with temporality and the change that occurs.

History of Place ’Robinson believed that if he look to the landscape hard enough it will reveal to him the molecular basis of historical events and in this way he hoped to see into the future‘ (Robinson in Ruins, 2010).

This fantastic look at the history of place is not as naive one may think. The historical aspect of relational place is important and related to the present.

‘Meanings that individuals and groups assign to places are more or less embedded in historically contingent and shared cultural understandings of the terrain— sustained by diverse imageries through which we see and remember cities’ (Boyer, 1994). It is this consideration that makes images of relational places valuable. On a painting of the Town of Hobart, New Zealand from the early 19 century is pointed out that it is a record of the town through history and identity (Malpas, 2011, p.3). I mention the value of paintings, or generally art, because art is a form of commemorating a past image of relational place. And not only paintings or photographic images, but also words that portray historical images of place, such as stories.

But to get back to the idea of the relation of history and future, expressed in the movie of the British landscape – Robinson in Ruins (2010). Friedman (2010, p.159) in his relation to Lefebvre’s (1974) work would say: ‘these lived spaces, what Lefebvre calls espaces vécus, do not just exist in a moment of time; they have a history, a past as well as a future, and it is this last that from a planner’s perspective is the most important.’ This relation of history and future can be portrayed from an example of a European project on pastures: Pastoralism in Europe is found to be 10000 years old and in this long historical development created dependencies with the wildlife that follow the herds (PASTORAL, 2003, p.2). This look through history enabled them to consider future actions for conserving Europe’s wildlife (PASTORAL, 2003, p.3). In this same terms relational place can be maintained, by looking at the history of the place, as to which elements of the relational place influenced the continuous place making.

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Review of the Accademic Literature

2.2.9. Relational Place Making The process through which a non-place is transformed into a place is called place making (Vanclay, 2008, p.4 and p.6). It is a process of personal experience with the space through which places are imbued with meaning (Gieryn, 2000, p.

464; Stedman, 2003b, p.823) and names are assigned to (Gieryn, 2000, p.465; Vanclay, 2008, p.4). ‘In essence, people confer meaning on the environment in ways that reflect their social and cultural experiences.’ (Eisenhauer, Krannich, and Blahna, 2000, p.422). But as place meanings can be on various levels, just as so relational place making processes can occur at various levels: individual, group, institutional, etc. (Stedman, 2003a, p.823; Vanclay, 2008, p.3,4,6).

Therefore we may look at individual experiences as relational place making, but also at institutional activities as a process of relational place making, though in some literature it is referred to as relational place destruction (see: Friedmann, 2010). But Tuan (1974) poses a different view to the relational place destruction.

He (Tuan, 1974, p.57) says that each time a place is lost it is also gained.

The process is not easy to understand, as Lefebvre (1974, p.37) would say: ‘Even neocapitalism or “organized” capitalism, even technocratic planners and programmers, cannot produce a space with a perfectly understanding of cause and effect, motive and implication.’ However, there are theories on to how it is produced. Gieryn (2000, p.468) refers to three processes: ‘upstream forces that drive the creation of place with power and wealth; professional practices of placeexperts; perceptions and attributions by ordinary people who experience places (and act on those understandings).’ On the other hand Friedmann (2010, p.157159) refers to destruction of places by the abstract forces of power, profession and economy in the process of creating new spaces. And though Friedmann (2010) claims that these professionally constructed spaces are non-places, Gieryn (2000) list them as places as well. This mix of understandings comes from the various positions that authors take. Friedmann (2010) is representing the understandings of the place from the local’s perspective, while Gieryn is making a more general proposition that includes both locals and planners. The issue is that though the process is unclear (Lefebvre, 1974, p.37) it is a process where all forces and understandings intertwine. This is why I find Friedmann’s (2010, p.161) idea that ‘making places is everyone’s job’ rightful and justified.

But also as a call, with the same reasons why Lefebvre (Gregory, 1994, p.402) created the trinity (Lefebvre, 1974): to bring importance to the views and understandings of the place by the locals (Friedmann, 2010, p.157).

Relational places, seen as dynamic, continuously change (Massey, 2005; Friedmann, 2010), and with this change the sense of place as well (Vanclay, 2008, p.4). ‘[…] space as a dynamic simultaneity, always in the process of being made, and open to alternative ways of being made.” (Massey, 2011, sec. Landscape as stories-so-far). In this consideration of the place making process it would be even expected that certain senses of place or even relational places may be destroyed in the process of the creation of new ones, as Vanclay (2008, p.4 & p.5) would say that even an alteration to a relational place is also relational place making. In this sense, there is hardly ever a real, out of nothing relational place making process, because there are hardly ever relational places that have not been with human interaction. There are only non-places for a certain individual or groups of people or institutions that have not had previous interaction there. Perhaps a new society that is occupying places from a previous society. Or seen the other way around, if a society does not produce own places,

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Review of the Academic Literature thus this society will cease to exist (Lefebvre, 1974, p.53). Something that Massey (2011, sec. A place on the planet) expressed it in other words: ‘It is a politico-geographical reflection: we must learn widely but in each place we must build something specific.’

A disputed element is the influence of the geographical setting to the relational place making. Stedman (2003b, p.823) argues that though ‘in theory people may turn “blank space” into “meaningful place,” in reality, physical features of the environment play an important role in producing sense of place.’ And he continues explaining that ‘Space is never truly “blank” because the physical setting contributes important raw material to place meanings.’ (Stedman, 2003b, p.823). However, Stedman (2003a, p.675) would in another relation say that ‘there are implicit within the place literature several potential models of how the physical landscape may produce a sense of place. However, none has been “tested” to assess the magnitude of the relationship between environment and sense of place, nor the mechanism by which it operates.’ Therefore it is unreasonable to enter into a dispute at this moment on the influence of the geography on the relational place making process.

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Materials and Methods

3. MATERIALS AND METHODS CHAPTER - the goals of the research and the way to carry it must be clearly described to allow any other researcher to repeat the work in the same way -

In the previous, Review of the Academic Literature Chapter (see: 2), I have portrayed and discussed the issues related to place and sense of place, the understandings that I should take with me in the process of researching sense of place. I also made an overview on how practitioners and scientists approach the researching of sense of place. I have considered the positive and negative sides of researcher’s approaches, and I have developed an understanding of the ‘betweenness of place’ (Entrikin, 1991).

In this chapter I explain how and why I approached the research of sense of place of National Park ‘Galicica’. This chapter has the aim to present the complete process of my thinking and the development of thought, to the extent that is possible. That way, any future repetition may lead to a result that is as closely same to the one I have received in this research process. I say closely same, and not same, because I am aware of the dynamic of place (see: Massey, 2005) and the changes that may happen in due time to alter the place and the sense of place.

I have organized this chapter along the hierarchy, but also chronology of the research process. I start by presenting my goals and then I explaining my research approach. I continue by stating my research question and my research objectives. I also give detailed explanation to how and why I have selected the literature that is cited. Finally, I give detailed explanation of the research process, the sample, the methods I used, the tools I used and the activities I have done in the process of the field research and writing the research report.

Perhaps I have described too many details on certain accounts, but I consider that knowing these details is best to portray the research process without leaving open questions, especially if someone intends to repeat it.

3.1. The Goal of the Research I start by going to the point of this thesis. In this first section I state my goals, both my educational goals and my research goals. And I explain how I treat these goals in the text.

My research has not been commissioned nor requested by any entity. In its own it is an attempt to focus my personal and professional interests into a scientific topic that I was introduced to during my studies following the program of Erasmus Mundus International Master of Science in Rural Development.

Therefore the intrinsic underlining goals of this research is for me to learn how to prepare and conduct research, and further more to do an analysis and report on the process in a scientific way (IMRD, 2011, p.1; 2012, p.1; Wageningen University, 2011, p.3). This is representing my personal learning goal, and the goal of the Master course I attended (IMRD, 2011, p.1; 2012, p.1).

However, the duality of the matter is that my research also has a scientific

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Materials and Methods goal that I want to reach, or better say learn. The main goal of my research is to explore the applicability of the concept of sense of place and how its inclusion can provide new perspectives for protected areas planning and management.

Considering this duality of thesis goals, the outlining objectives and focus throughout this report will be on the second, the scientific goal of my thesis.

Thus all subsequent objectives are deriving from this goal.

The primary - the learning goal will remain in the background, and will not be directly addressed. The reader is compelled to abstract it from the text focused on the scientific topic.

3.2. Research Approach Upon stating where I was going with this research – the goal, in the previous section, in this section I explain how I was going to get there. Or at least I explain my general approach that I had in the research.

My choice for this research was to have a qualitative approach. This decision was based on two issues. The first one is that I was researching place attachments, place meanings, place feelings that constitute sense of place, but I did not wanted to limit these to a list of only what I have considered as appropriate through a literature review. I wanted to see what the place attachments were, which senses of place exist on the territory of the National Park ‘Galicica’. The second reason is the fact that such a quantitative analysis of sense of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’ has not been made before. Therefore I lacked information on what is it that I can quantitatively measure in the first place (Kruger and Shannon, 2000, p. 463). Because, if I would have altered to a quantitative approach, I would potentially have neglected a number of attachments which have not been treated in literature or I was not able to imagine them, thus making a wrong image of the sense of place of the Park.

Additionally, though qualitative analysis is considered to be “soft”, not relating to any “hard”, measurable data/evidence, the information that is gathered is not limited to a set of predefined variables. In fact it conveys much more information, understandable to any other human being than what the number of a Chi square can be understandable to the general public. As Scott (1998, p.26) would say: ‘For many purposes, an apparently vague measurement may communicate more valuable information than a statistically exact figure.’

Another choice I have made was to have an inductive research. Therefore, I concentrated my data collection process in the line to provide answers to my main research question and the auxiliary questions set out through my research objectives. My decision to apply inductive research lies in the complexity of sense of place concept, and my consideration that it would be inappropriate to approach it with a predefined deductive approach, without previously having any knowledge on what is out there. I agree with Scott (1989, p.22) when he says: “[…] like a forest, a human community is surely far too complicated and variable to easily yield its secrets to bureaucratic formulae.” So I needed to understand what the contextual issues are, that needed to be considered for something coming close to a formulae to be developed.

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Materials and Methods I conducted extractive and participatory methods in my research. It was extractive because through my interviews I merely collected information for theoretical purposes, though with a dose of hope that it may find use in informing planners of the Park on the sense of place. The later still remains a hope. On the other hand I did a participatory approach, because I let my sample population lure me where and what to look, via my pre fieldwork analysis, and because I kept communicating my work to a number of actors and I have taken their comments. However, due to time constraints I was not able to conduct a full participatory approach to my liking that would involve the actors appropriately.

3.3. The Research Question To fulfil my research goal it was needed to identify the sense(s) of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’. Upon which I continued the process and made an analysis of the relation of the sense(s) of place of the Natonal Park ‘Galicica’ with the planning and/or management of the Park. Thus, providing a complementary understanding of the Park’s sense(s) of place to the needs of the Park’s management. In this sense, my research aimed to answer the question: “What kind of sense(s) of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’ exists, and how does it (they) relate to nature protection and the park’s development?”

For my research question I did not make a clear distinction whether it is plural or singular, but I rather choose to have both. Thus, the overwhelming use of the plural form in parenthesis. From one side, as I have explained earlier (see: 2.1.2) there are as many senses of place as there are people. But from another side, going for either plural or singular form would mean that I had a predefined understanding that I took with me on board the research. Therefore having a neutral approach made me open to what ever I would found in the field.

3.4. Research Objectives In this section I provide the objectives of the research that relate to the research goal, and should lead me to answering the research question. I also provide some explanation to terms that are related to the objective.

The objective of the research was to provide the perspectives on the Park by the actors with the aim to potentially integrate these perspectives in the management of the Park as a place. To further explain what I mean by actors I provide the definition here that is related only to this research.

I defined actors as individuals or groups of people and/or institutions that have direct or indirect relation to The Park. For the purpose of the research I divide the actors in three groups: • Local people - defined as people that permanently live on the territory of the park, or in the vicinity of The Park.

• Visitors - defined as people that visit The Park on a short term basis, but also people that own land and/or house in The Park or its vicinity, but have their permanent residence in a another town.

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Materials and Methods • Planners – defined as all those that are employed or somehow related to the Park’s administration/management.

My research focused on a central theme of protecting forests and nature as a result of intrinsic values, meanings and attachments that people make to the place. Thus, from the research I should have been able to extract which sense(s) of place contribute to the protection of the nature. In order to achieve this, I sought answers to the following questions: • Which meanings and attachments of actors to the National Park ‘Galicica’ are present?

• Which activities and interactions are present on the territory of, or related to the Park?

• What is (are) the history(s) of the Park, and what are the changes and/or events that influenced the perceptions?

• How do the perceptions, conceptions and lived experiences interact in making the sense(s) of place of the Park?

• What is the relation of the sense(s) of place to the Park and the Park’s management?

3.5. The Literature Selection In the previous chapter (see: 2) I explored the literature on relational place and sense of place. In this section here, I explain how I choose to read that particular literature. What the reasons were and how I got to those particular articles.

To make a selection of the place literature in the classical approach that is employed in standard literature reviews is very difficult. The difficulty comes from the issue that many elements of sense of place are being referred to in various researches without making explicit relation to sense of place (see: Massey, 2005, p.1). This difficulty is even more magnified due to the issue that sense of pace is a topic that is being a subject of research by many different scientific disciplines, and as I mentioned before, some are not even placing their focus on sense of place, e.g.: issues of matter on participation, valuation of intangible or non-valuated things, etc. Therefore the question which literature to select and more importantly how to select it, for me, was quite difficult to approach.

The concepts of relational place and sense of place are in itself a complex matter. Limiting one self only to literature by one scientific discipline is like limiting sense of place to only one element thus neglecting all other elements that may be even more important. Therefore I needed an approach that would provide me with state of the art literature on sense of place and at the same time that would provide me with various perspectives that would benefit my research.

My first step was to allow myself to be lured by a number of factors in my

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Materials and Methods literature search. For instance, I have taken up recommendations to read place related literature (see: Gregory, 1994; Scott, 1998; Jongerden, 2007, 2009; Friedmann, 2010; Massey, 2011) and sense of place literature (see: Vanclay, 2008) that was provided by my supervisor, Joost Jongerden. A peak into environmental psychology was recommended to me by Marjoleen Kloke (see: Stedman; Williams), while literature on sense of place and the spirituality it involves from an indigenous people’s perspective was recommended to me by Bas Verschuuren and John Studley (see: Studley, 2012). This provided me with a starting point as a gate to the vast literature that is available on relational place and sense of place.

Second luring element was my presence to two events that directly and/or indirectly addressed sense of place. The events were: International Workshop on the Spiritual Values of Protected Areas of Europe, Vilm, Germany 2-6 November 2011 and the IUFRO First Conference “Forests for People”, Alpbach, Austria 2124 May 2012. The events lured me to literature that relates to spiritual aspects and to participation and sense of place, respectively.

In order to make sure that I do have covered the latest, state of the art, scientific literature that is available, in the due process I did use a keyword search on sense of place using Web of Knowledge. The search done on Web of Knowledge was executed with search on all available databases via this search engine. To be precise, I searched four data bases using the Web of Knowledge search engine: Web of Science19, Current Contents Connect20, MEDLINE21, and Journal Citation Reports22. This process led me to a substantial amount of literature that addresses sense of place (see: 2.1.1), to which I had to do a selection process. I resorted to identifying literature by glancing through the titles of the papers, their abstracts, as well as the topics they covered, in order to mach literature that would best fit to my research goal.

I extended my literature search to other scientific and non-scientific, public documents and web pages on the issue of sense of place. I did this is in order to acknowledge the multifacetedness of the issue on sense of place, to recognize the existence of public knowledge, but also to make a link through the literature on sense of place from a scientific point and that with a practitioner point of view.

This decision of mine was not a weakness to the validity of this thesis. As peer reviewed scientific literature is increasingly found to be fraud23 the argument that scientific article is more valid than a blog writing is becoming questionable.

Therefore I approached reading the non-scientific writings with due diligence, just as I would approach any scientific article.

This expanding view and peaking into non-peer-reviewed literature was to avoid idiosyncratic view point of a sociologist, and even of a scientist (Molotch, 1994). To do so I used Google scholar24 and the simple Google25 search engines.

The results from these searches were vast as well. And as in the case of the search process via Web of Knowledge, also here I selected the articles and web pages I’d read depending on my judgement by glancing through the titles and abstracts.

Lastly, but not least, I used snow balling process, from the literature I already acquired and that was referring to other literature on sense of place. This process was in fact most influential, since it directed me to literature that was already in line to my research goal. The snowballing process also helped me to understand the core of concepts. So even though I aimed mainly to read recent literature,

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Materials and Methods at times I opted to read the source of significant thinking, such as Lefebvre (1974), Williams and Stewart (1998), etc. I did this because of the issue of clearly understanding the meaning of the concepts. In the due process I realised the consideration of Descartes (1637, part 6) that the words are changed when expressed by others, thus the meaning is changed. Therefore, looking to the original was a good way for me to form my own interpretation of the concepts.

Throughout my literature review process I did face limitations as well. I had two factors that limited my selection of literature: one being the limited amount of time that I have to read the vast literature; and the second one, the limited access to a great number of articles on the web, even though I had two university library access points, one via Wageningen University, and another one via Ghent University. More than half of the articles I identified through the Web of Knowledge search, about 353 articles out of 653 remained inaccessible to me.

In addition to the literature that I directly addressed in the thesis report, I have included an additional literature in the bibliography section. This literature represents various sources that I came into contact through snowballing process, from random references and through on-line searches I have made on the issue of sense of place. I have included this literature since it did have an impact to me and my thinking in the process of making this research. However, due to lack of significance and because they only served as a guide to a more appropriate literature, I did not cite it in the thesis report. Therefore I made a simple reference to it as a statement that I do not disregard its influence to my thinking process.

3.6. Data Sources and Methods In order to fulfil the goal of my research and to answer my research question I combined several data sources and I used various methods. In this section I describe which data sources and methods I used, how and why. I describe the function of those data sources and the methods I used to acquire them.

For the interest of clarity, I address the sources and the methods in two categories in accordance to the data sources types: primary and secondary.

Primary Data Sources In the course of the research I indulged myself in directly collecting data – having primary data sources. The types of data I collected and the methods I used to collect them I have described in this section of my thesis report. Here I portray and explain the types of data and the methods.

From the primary data sources I had two types of data that I used: qualitative survey and interviews. The qualitative survey I used for building the researcher’s image, prior my fieldwork. For this activity I explain further in the report (see: 3.7). For this purpose I used a method of qualitative on-line questionnaire that I had developed specially for this purpose. The structure of the questionnaire was based on a Socratic Dialogue. The Socratic Dialogue is a good tool for

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Materials and Methods exploring personal experiences, thus I used this method which I altered to fit a questionnaire.

The interviews I had during my fieldwork. They were the basis for my interpretations. I have provided a detailed explanation of my fieldwork later in this report (see: 3.8). What is important to note here is that I used both informal interviews and unstructured interviews (Newing, Eagle, Puri and Watson, 2011, pp.100-101). The informal interviews were basically conversations with people that I met along my journeys through the park. I had no arrangements for these interviews. I relied completely on circumstances, my personal skills to extract information, and on, simply said, luck. The unstructured interviews, though less in number, were prearranged in terms of place and time. However, like with the informal interviews, I relied on the interviewees to lead me as to what they found important. I had but two unstructured interviews, one with the Park’s management and one with the local priest.

Additionally I used the method of readings (also known as observations).

Usually after an Interview I would look observe what the interviewee had just indicated and I would make photographic images and video recordings of those readings.

Secondary Data Sources In the course of my research I did not rely only on primary data. In some cases I would seek, or even receive books or other forms of secondary data that would allow me to cross reference certain issues.

Each of the secondary data sources and the methods I used had but a particular aim and function in the process of my research. I used two types of secondary data: photographs uploaded on the internet and books and official materials.

The photos I used were photos, uploaded by people to Flickr and set to public availability. To acquire these photos I used a photo images data base search on the key word ‘Galicica’. I used this method to provide myself with a researcher’s image for the place I was about to explore in my fieldwork. I explain further on this later in this report (see: 3.7).

I used books and official documents for cross referencing information that I have gathered from interviews. Some of these books I found myself, but most of them were recommended to me by the people I interviewed. In this sense I used the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010) of the National Park ‘Galicica’ to look into the conceived. The use of these secondary data sources was useful to see the relation of the conceived with the lived. Further elaboration on how and why I used these data source I provide in section 3.8 of this thesis report.

3.7. Pre Fieldwork Research As a researcher and more specifically as a sociology researcher I am in need to get to know the society that I will research in order to create an appropriate

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Materials and Methods image that will serve me through my fieldwork (see: Becker, 1998). This process of creation of an image will help me to avoid ‘misplaced demands for evidence’ (Molotch, 1994, p.232). In order to develop this image I have indulged myself in a layered process of getting to know the society at the place where I went to do the fieldwork - the informal interviews. This layered process was consisted of: 1. reading of available photographic images on Flickr26 as a visual introduction to the cherishable experiences by a number of people related to the place of research; and 2. survey related to experiences in the National Park ‘Galicica’ by various, random people.

Flickr Photos Reading The reading of photographic images was done by searching the publicly available photographs on Flickr with the key word ‘Galicica’. The search result was then analysed on several criteria: 1. spatial activities depicted in the photographs; and 2. places associated to The Park. Each photograph was examined and in a spread sheet was imputed the main visible activity, and the main landscape identifier: which is that particular place and what kind of landscape it represents.

The data was then analysed in R, summarising what are the activities, and locations most often depicted in the photographs.

This analysis had but one goal, and that is constructing the image that I carried with me in my fieldwork. I gained knowledge of how people look at the Park, their experiences in the Park and potentially their feelings and attachments to the Park. The summary of this reading is provided in Annex B of this thesis report.

On-line Qualitative Survey The on-line qualitative survey was designed to provide a researcher’s image of the Park that would give more personal information on experiences and feelings of people. The survey itself included 3 sets of questions and one set of demographic questions section.

The first set of questions asked people on their perceptions and knowledge of the park’s borders and scale.

The second set of questions related to the concept of relational place. In that set people wrote their perceptions, spatial activities, the networks and connections the Park has and on the symbols, meanings and specific places that represent the Park.

For the third set of questions I utilized the Socratic Dialogue method. The questions started from description of an experience related to the Park and worked its way into further elaboration of the experience into getting to the core behind it. This process led to acquiring most often, but not necessarily, the feelings, senses and interactions behind the lived experience.

The list of all questions is provided in Annex C of this report. However, due to the intimate nature of some of the answers I decided not to include the answers

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Materials and Methods as an annex to this thesis report.

The on-line survey was communicated to people of my wider social network, about 1000 people that had visited the Park. These people were also asked to circulate the link to the on-line questionnaire to other people and to ask them to continue the circulation. A period of two months was given for people to find time and answer the questionnaire.

Reading through the answers of this qualitative on-line survey enabled me to understand better the spatial activities that are conducted in the Park; the roads and connections that exist within The Park; the experiences of various people that they relate to the Park; the attachments that people have to the Park; the meanings people relate to the Park; the feelings that the Park provokes for many people; and the places that people associate as key for the Park. This image was a driving image in to how I should approach people in my informal interviews during the fieldwork. Because I gained the knowledge of what the Park could potentially mean, relate, feel, etc. for people. The summary of this reading is provided in Annex D of this thesis report.

The survey was placed on-line on a dedicated web page that was installed to serve also as an information and contact point between the general public and me as a researcher. Further information on the web page is found in Annex E of this thesis report.

3.8. The Fieldwork Implementation The fieldwork was done in and around the National Park ‘Galicica’, over the period from March till May 2012.

However, the total effective dedicated time on the fieldwork was less than one month. In total I made 21 days in research.

The work was organized around several visits to the Park. Each visit had a predetermined geographical identifier, whether that was a particular village, a settlement or a popular location in the Park. Thus each visit covered different, and even several locations in or around the Park.

I did not make appointments with any one, except the people from management of the Park and with one priest. I choose to have informal interviews with the people that I would meet randomly in my visits. While on

Image 3.1: Out on fieldwork

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Materials and Methods the occasions of having arranged the interview in advance, like the one with the people from the management of the Park, I altered to use unstructured interview.

For my fieldwork I prepared business cards related to the research I was making (see: Annex F). I would hand out to each interviewee one of these business cards as a way to invite them to follow the research. But, thus, I also provided the interviewees with the opportunity to contact me with further information if they wanted to.

The Sample The sampling unit for this research were individual people.

The study population was the individuals that are, were or have been in the territory of the Park.

The sampling strategy was to include at least one individual from each geographical identifier that is in the Park: villages and/or settlement. But also to include at least one unit of planners, that not necessarily are related to any geographical identifier within the Park, and also at least one visitor. In Annex G I provide a list of the geographical identifiers that I considered in the research.

The process was done with a non-probability sampling. I did both a convenience sampling and a quota sampling. What I mean by that is that I applied convenience sampling but also I had some quota sampling elements in the process. For the selection of interviewees I employed convenience sampling: accidental encounters with people I would meet along my path. However, I did have my quota of one individual from each village or settlement and the quota to have local people, visitors, and planners. Thus, I organized my travels in The Park in a manner that had strong geographical predeterminations to satisfy this quota.

Although I received a number of chain referrals, I opposed to them mainly due to lack of time to organize meetings in a different location at the same time.

The sampling size was set to a minimum of 20 individuals: one from each of the 18 villages and settlements located inside The Park; 1 planner; and 1 visitor. However, the total sample I managed to interview reached a number of 72 individuals.

The sample was consisted of people from 16 years old to 83 year old, and an average age of the sample was 55 years. The majority were men – 62 individuals, while there were only 10 women interviewed. Most of the interviews were conducted in Ohrid – 11 of them, then in the village of Velestovo – 9, in the villages of Ramne and Stenje I had 7 interviews each, in Dolno Konjsko – 6 individuals; in Pestani – 5 individuals, in the monastery of St Naum – 4 individuals, etc. Yet, a great deal of individuals although interviewed on various locations declared that they lived in Ohird – 20 individuals in total. Some individuals declared also that live places quite distant from The Park, like: Prilep – 3 individuals, Skopje – 3 individuals, Struga – 1 individual, Resen – 1 individual, even from another continent, Australia – 2 individuals. A list of the interviews is provided in Annex H, however due to the personal nature of the interviews I did not include them as an annex to this thesis.

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Materials and Methods

The Interviews Having informal interviews I did not think of specific questions that I am going to ask. On the contrary, I engaged in conducting the interviews in full confidence of the skills I gained both in professional and personal life in communication, but also from the training I got at Wageningen University in Facilitating Multistakeholder Processes where I gained skills in active listening techniques.

Thus, I relied on my ability to improvise and instantly invent questions and use techniques to make people open for a conversation. That is why at the beginning of each interview I provided an introduction to myself and to the research I was doing so people would be guided as to what I might want to speak to them about. That way I relayed the lead to the interviewees to tell me what they considered as important.

In the process of the preparation for the interviews I created a general guidance of points and issues that I could sometimes look into for merely checking if I had addressed all issues with the speaker. My general guidance contained a list of issues that was not exhaustive. The issues I choose were points I had got from the literature review, and I thought it would be good to keep them in mind. I had listed guidance as to the beginning of the interview, the experience with the park, and sense of place components. Most of these points I would state in my introduction to the interview thus helping the speaker to start talking on a certain issue. The guidance list was the following: • Introduction • Getting to know each other • About the past of NPG (activities, work, nature, people) • About the present of NPG (borders, aims, activities, relations) • About his/her experiences • Identity • Associations • Symbols • Belonging • Attachments • Behaviour • Gender issues • Sacred sites In the majority of the interviews I did, I did not even look at this guidance.

Instead, I let the speaker guide me into his world, his meanings, his values his sense of place. However, I had it just in case to serve as a reminder in case the conversation would go astray, or I would find a difficulty of coming up with questions to ask my speaker. In practice I would only look at it while preparing for my day to visit a certain area, as to stimulate my mind to be fast in getting the most out of the interview. Through the process I have picked up a number of additional points that I stored them in my mind list, e.g. ownership, feelings, livelihood, etc. The questions that I’d ask during the interviews would be related to whatever the people would have told me and I’d find interesting to explore in depth. Thus, making this start-up list as obsolete. However, it provided a

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Materials and Methods significant starting point for training of my brain to get the most out of the interviewees.

Most of the interviews were recorded in full length. There were but a several people that did not want to be interviewed, for which I resorted to making audio or written notes right after the interview.

All my movement that I made during the interviews, I recorded it geospatially with a GPS device. My original intention was to be able to provide a geospatial reference to the sense of place. One that could be taken into account and be incorporated in the planning procedures of the Park’s management. Also to link it to the geospatial indicators I took into consideration when focusing where I’d make the interviews. However, due to the time limit for my thesis report writing, I realised that such an analytical overlay would not be possible. Therefore I opted still to Figure 3.1: Map of the fieldwork make the geospatial referencing (Figure generated with the help of in order to be able to provide such Garmin Base Camp software) illustrations in the thesis report, and if needed to have it for further interpretation.

3.9. Interpretation In the process of interpretation I detached myself from the thinking I developed and the questions I posed during my fieldwork. The aim of this was very simple.

If there was a chance that certain contextual issue had biased my thinking in the process of the fieldwork, I would not be able to see the same issues arising when coding. This way I would introduce an additional impartiality to the process and nullify any thinking influences that may have had lead me to a wrongful conclusion during the fieldwork. Though I was aware that certain thought lingered, I indulged myself in having a break to refresh my mind, and prepare myself for the process that was upcoming. In this section I elaborate what I did and how I did it in the process of interpreting the interviews, which were the basis for my Results and Discussion Chapter (see: 4).

3.9.1. Interpretation of the Interviews To interpret the interviews I used Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) software to organize and code the answers I got. The process of analysing the interviews was

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Materials and Methods done in a step procedure. The procedure accorded to Bryman’s (2004, p.408409) recommendations. The steps of this procedure were: 1. Familiarisation with the interviews; 2. Marking and annotation of the interviews; 3. Coding of the interviews; and finally 4. Interpreting the interviews.

It is worth noting that this procedure took fairly more time than what I have initially expected. Perhaps a process of analysis that would not aid QDA software, but would traditionally be relying on coding on the margins of notes, would be faster. However, I found that the ability to constantly check codes, alter codes, develop new codes and easily get back to already coded texts, or merely code text with several overlapping codes; and later on simply extract just the text related to one code from various notes, was a very useful and clean way to interpret. Considering the great number of interviews I had, the QDA software provided a rewarding benefit. Trough this process I organized the interviews and notes that I took in a manner that provided me a good overview for the process of interpretation.

Understanding the Interviews After the interviews have been conducted I resorted to a simultaneous process of both going over my audio and written records and turning them into concise yet comprehensive notes. The part of going over the records is for me to familiarise with the complete answers I got during my fieldwork, but now with already a good knowledge on what is going on and what issues could be related to sense of place in The Park. Thus, being able to spot even more elements of sense of place in the interviews. The second issue is that the turning of the audio records into digital text is dearly needed for the process of interpretation using the QDA software.

Marking Annotations The second step of the procedure was to mark the important parts of the text of the cases. This process was intertwined with a process of error checking of the detailed notes I have extracted from the audio records. The marking was done on annotations that I find as significant for the sense of place interpretation.

The Coding I had several underlining questions in my research. In order for these questions to be answered and I to be able clearly to interpret any relations that may exist, with the help of the QDA software I coded my interviews and notes being watchful to a certain criteria. I was on the lookout through my notes on issues related to 1. sense of place; 2. spatial activities; 3. interactions in sense of place making; and 4. elements that relate to nature protection and/or the Park’s management; in accordance to my research objectives.

The coding of the sense of place I approached with a partial predetermination.

I took Vanclay’s (2008) set of identified components of sense of place because

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Materials and Methods of his comprehensive overview. The sense of place components that he lists are: Place Attachment, Place Identity, Place Dependence, Place Familiarity, Place Awareness, Place Commitment, Place Satisfaction, Belongingness, Rootedness, and Community Connectedness, and I created code categories according to this distinction. Then from there after I coded each sense of place component that I would identify in the cases, and place it in the appropriate code category. This approach allowed me to be aware of the many different elements of the sense of place, thus be diligent in the process of coding. But it also allowed me to see if I would meet other sense of place components that may not have been identified

by Vanclay (2008), so I would be able to create new components if needed.

The coding of the activities was done in a fairly simple manner. I had a main code category on activities, and whenever I would find an activity I would assign the code of that appropriate activity e.g. sheepherding, cutting wood, goat herding, etc. The activity codes were not predefined. Each activity code was newly created upon the first mentioning of that activity. However, in order to have a distinction of past occurrences, I created two code categories: one on past activities, and another one on current activities. In this way I was able to distinguish past spatial activities that made long term impact, but also to see if any past activities have ceased to be conducted or have continued throughout time.

The interactions in the process of sense of place making were coded in an inductive way. I generated codes that deemed appropriate for particular relations and interactions that I identified in the cases.

A step further in this part of the process was the ordering of the codes.

Grouping of codes and checking their inter relations. This process allowed me to check if certain codes can be grouped in code categories, or would appear in several code categories, but also if the code categories that I have predefined are the appropriate ones.

The Interpretation The last part of the interview analysis was the interpretation part. For this process I used the convenient option that the QDA software enables, and that is the retrieve function. With this function I retrieved annotations related to individual codes or code categories. In this manner I could easily compare and interpret what was mentioned in all cases on a given issue â&#x20AC;&#x201C; code. This interpretation of the results was then written and related to the literature.

Where it was deemed as appropriate the interpretation was cross referred with the pre fieldwork analysis and/or with the secondary sources.

3.9.2. Interpreting the Sense of Place in Nature Protection Context For the final part of the interpretation I took my readings on the sense of place. And I interpreted them in the context of nature protection. Whether the existing elements of sense of place were deemed as to have impact to nature protection and/or the development of the Park.

62 Sense of Place of National Park â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Galicicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Materials and Methods Finally, I cross-referred this analysis with the existing management plan of The Park to see if any of these aspects have been already included. If I found that they have not been included, I discussed how they could be included, based on the findings I got already.

3.10. Technology Used So far I have addressed the process of thinking that influenced my research, and the ways I choose to do my research. In this section I portray a different side of my research â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the technological side. In my research process I used various hardware and software to aid my work. Therefore, I find this to be equally important to be portrayed as the literature I used. This way I am not allowing to remain an aspect of my research process that can be overlooked by a person trying to repeat it. In this section I provide an overview of all the hardware and software I used and that was in some way involved in the research process. I describe the tools I used and how I used them, though in certain cases I explained this already in the sections above (see: 3.8; 3.9).

Hardware In relation to the hardware I describe the tools I used in detail. Both providing the brands and models for those that are trained, and providing a general description for those that do not bother too much with the advances of the technology. The choice of brands is not exhausted only to the selection I have made, but should be taken as a reference that can be easily looked up if needed.

A person trying to repeat this research could alter using other hardware that he or she deems as satisfying. The description of the equipment portrays certain considerations on technological characteristics, but also on mobility that I had when choosing it, though most of it was not acquired for the purpose of this research.

The main hardware that I used was my laptop, a Hewlett-Packard, model: Pavilion dm1 Notebook Personal Computer, version: 4000SD. It incorporated a dual processor to provide me with computing power for the word and graphics tasks I conducted throughout the research and the report writing process. On the other hand, it had a fairly small screen of some 29,5 cm diagonal size. This way it weighted only 1,5 kg at a size that is easy to carry around during my fieldwork. Additionally this laptop offered a battery run time of 6 to 10 hours, dependent on the kind of use, that came in handy for prolonged days on the field. I used the laptop for basically all of my activities: searching for literature, reading literature, making notes, preparing the proposal, making a web page for the research, communicating with my supervisor as well as with a number of people and institutions, organizing my research, listening to the audio recording I did on the field, interpreting the readings, editing photos for the illustrations of this thesis, and finally, writing this thesis report.

For the audio recording of the interviews I used Zoom H2n Handy Recorder.

I used this field recorder due to its long battery life of about 20 hours, and the ability to record both directional and surround sound with adjustable sensitivity and with good quality. This way I could place the audio recorder on a non-

63 Sense of Place of National Park â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Galicicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Materials and Methods significant location, and go about the interviews with the people without worrying if the recorder is at a position to catch the sound or not. This particular, in a sense, de-positioning of the recorder in aspect of the conversation was helpful for people not to be too much distracted from it.

For making a good visual illustration of my reading throughout my report I engaged in making photographs of all that was deemed as important by the interviewees. I used a Digital Single-Lens Reflex photo camera Olympus E420 with interchangeable lenses. I used three lenses for various needs: Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 1:4.0-5.6 – a very wide angle zoom lens that enabled me to take photos of large objects at close distance; Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm 1:3.5-5.6 – a so called normal zoom lens that enabled me to take photos of landscapes or settings that had details to be accented; and Olympus Zuiko Digital ED 70-300mm 1:4.0-5.6 – a very big zoom lens that enabled me to take photos from distance in cases of inaccessible places or of details. The choice for the overall setting was made because of the fairly light body and lenses without compromising picture quality t the time of purchase, four years ago. I would note that current advances of the digital photographic equipment allow for much more compact and lightweight options that would have good picture quality.

To scan illustrations for the thesis report, from books – secondary literature that I deemed as valuable, but also film of photographs that I have taken in the past, I used Canon CanoScan 8600F. To record my movement and provide a geospatial reference I used a Garmin GPSmap 62s handheld device. The geospatial recording of reference was used just as the photographs, to illustrate. Unfortunately, I did not have time within the framework of this thesis to make a proper geospatial referenced interpretation to the readings, because the geospatial information would have been useful for planning purposes.

Software In order to aid the process of interpretation, but also to increase the precision and quality of the research, in my interpretation I had various computer aided interpretation. In this section I describe the palette of software I used and for which purpose was it used. I decided to take advantage of the open source or freeware available user programmes that could provide such assistance in research process, and in the case of their availability for the specific matter I opted to use them. For this particular purpose I used a number of user software: The basic operating system I used was Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit, Service Pack 1, with an Original Equipment Manufacturer Activation licence. The operating system came with the computer, so I decided to stick with it as a familiar environment, rather than to switch to Linux merely for sticking to open source software. Additionally, most of the software that came with the hardware equipment was developed only for Windows operating system. Thus, I took this advantage of already having the Windows already preinstalled.

For Internet search and other Internet needs I used Opera version 11.9 through version 12, as it was updated for a number of times throughout the research.

64 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Materials and Methods The research dedicated web page was built using the open source CMS: Joomla version 1.5x. The template for the layout of the web page was RHUK Milkyway template. Other extensions were used like Joom!Fish version 2.2.3 to facilitate bilingual web page.; and Bow Slideshow by VSmart Extensions to provide an added visual effect. RSJoomla! RSForm! version 1.0.7 was used to create both the on-line contact form and the on-line survey.

For simple image editing, such as cropping, resizing, improving contrast, etc.

I used Irfan View version 4.32, by Irfan Skiljan. While for more demanding editing of the images I used the software provided with my photo camera: Olympus Master version 2.0.

I used Open Office v3.3 for manipulating the data in spreadsheets as databases, or texts as research notes, but also for writing the thesis report itself.

In order to transcribe the audio files of the interviews that I took during my field research I used F4 version 4.2 by dr. dresingamp;pehl GmbH. For interpreting the data I used R Project v.2.15.00. However, for simplification purposes I used R Studio v0.96, a program that integrates R into a more user friendly, organized graphical interface27. The qualitative data was analysed with the help of the R Package ‘RQDA’, an R-based QDA package made by Ronggui Huang.

To archive my movement with a geospatial reference, to edit field records and to enable exporting of the data to other software I used Garmin BaseCamp version 3.3.3. I used Google Earth version 6.1.0.5001 to further manipulate the geo-spatial data and to provide geo-spatially referenced visual illustrations for the thesis report.

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Results and Discussion

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION CHAPTER - presenting the results of the experimental work, reaching some relevant conclusions and discussing their theoretical and/or practical relevance -

The previous chapters of this thesis report provide the background issues of this thesis (see: 1); It portrays the scientific discourse on sense of place and relational place literature (see: 2); It describes the thinking and the scientific method that I have undergone in my research (see: 3) to get to this point of writing this thesis. In this chapter is presented the results of the research. It is done in two main steps.

The first step describes the readings I have done related to the National Park ‘Galicica’ seen as a relational place. This part portrays the Park in the context of the layers of place that pertain to Lefebvre (1974): perceived, conceived and lived, that are explained in the literature section (see: 2.2.7). This section provides a well developed understanding of the Park, and portrays how the concept of relational place can be used to explain the location to a level where most, if not all actors are being represented.

The second step is the part in which is the interpretation of the sense of place.

This section is concerned with the different components of sense of place that are encountered in the Park. It relates to their significance in considering them in management plans and to the process of relational place making.

4.1. Reading the National Park ‘Galicica’ In this first section of the Results and Discussion Chapter I describe the National Park ‘Galicica’ under the terms of relational place. In particular, I portray it within the trinity of layers of relational place, as described by Lefebvre (1974).

Lefebvre (1974, p.40) says that this concept should be taken in consideration as a grounded concept, thus I do so and I apply it.

This section is organized in three sub sections. The three sub sections are the trinity: perceived, conceived and lived. It starts with the perceived because there lays the interaction and connection to the conceived and the lived with the geography. Then it goes onto the conceived, or the knowledge. And it finalizes with the lived. The fourth, or plus one part is the history. The element of time that is just as important to be portrayed as the activity, knowledge or feeling itself. This fourth layer is incorporated in the text of each of the three other sub sections, therefore it is stated that it is a plus sub section that is underlining present in all other three sub sections.

In the process of describing the readings, I retain myself in providing information only about the issues that I deem as most significant. I acknowledge that if I was to portray all the details it would take me a lot of time and pages to write, and potentially I would make the reader to feel lost in the abundance of data that is presented.

69 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion

4.1.1. Perceived The perceived, in this sub section, are described through the connections, the networks that exist in the National Park ‘Galicica’ and through the activities that occur there. Along this line of thought, this sub section is organized in two parts: connections and activities. The perceived is crucial for the sense of place of the Park because the interaction, through which the sense of place is being formed, happens at this level (Merrifield, 1993, p. 525).

The Connections What is key about the connections is that they are a source to forming certain place attachments, place dependencies and place familiarity. The depth of this relation I will address later in the interpretation section (see: 4.2). In this section I will only describe the readings I have made on the connections, thus present them in a sufficient detail.

The connections or the networks that connect, in relation to the National Park ‘Galicica’, can be considered from two levels. The first level is at macro level, thus pertain to relations at a wider scale. At this level the Park is the medium of connecting places outside the Park. The second level network is at a micro level, pertaining to a smaller scale. It is represented by the connections between places inside the park. In this text I am describing the connections from the wider to the narrower perspective. I start from the macro level and then focusing to the micro level.

The macro level network is related to the geographical location of the Park in a wider context. It is located in the South-West corner of the territory of the country Republic of Macedonia. The Park lies between two lakes and its south border is the state border with the Republic of Albania (in Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë). The Park, thus, is a connection between Macedonia and Albania.

To be more precise: a connection between the places surrounding the Park on the Macedonian side with the places in the South East Region in Albania – the Korca Region (in Albanian: Rrethi i Korçës). This is emphasized because many traders from the Korca Region do their businesses with Macedonia, thus daily travels occur at an outstanding rate. This somewhat cross-road position of the geography where the Park lies was influential in positioning the area as very active place for waging the First World War and again later in the Second World War (WW2). These roads were then controlled by Italian, Bulgarian, French, British, German as well as partisan solders (Interview 4; 6; 22; 34). The road that connect the North and South, Macedonia and Albania respectively, from the Ohrid (West) side was built in asphalt in the mid 1960s, in two stages, one in 1963 and the other one in 1967 (Interview 37). Prior this dates it existed in dirt or macadam. I did not find appropriate information on the North - South road on the Prespa (East) side. However, judging from other historic events I would say that it was too made into asphalt in the mid 1960s. This North - South connection, both on the Ohrid and Prespa side, present also a connection of the places in the Park with the outside places. Upon completion of the asphalt roads, it was enabled public transport to be organized from the early 1970s (Interview 37). These North - South roads enable connection of some internal villages with the cities of Ohrid and Resen that eased the daily migrations for work in the post WW2 industries built in these cities, and still do. In particular

70 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion the villages and settlements Racha, St Stefan, Dolno Konjsko, Elshani, Peshtani, Trpejca, Ljubanishta but also the monastery of St Naum, are connected via the Ohrid side North-South road connection to the city of Ohrid and also Albania.

While the village Stenje on the Prespa side of The Park was connected with the North-South road connection to the city of Resen and also Albania. The NorthSouth road connections are the main entrances to the Park and also access to the numerous coastal tourist facilities both on the Ohrid and the Prespa lakes.

Thus, making these two roads very vital for the connection of outsiders but also for locals.

Figure 4.1: Map of roads Legend: green dots - settlements red line - major road orange line - regional road blue line - approximate route of Via Egnatia black dots - state border thin black line - Park’s border light blue line - lake coast yellow dot - St Naum monastery

The Park also is an East - West connection between the two lakes to which it borders: the Lake of Prespa, located to the East, and lying at ~850 masl, with the Lake of Ohrid, located to the West, and lying at ~700 masl. This connection is taken mainly by visitors, and only in the summer season, because during winter the road is closed due to snow falls. The road today was built in 1969 (Interview 37). Historically, people from the Prespa side walked over the mountains to reach the Town of Ohrid, and to do trade. A sort of a remnant to this behaviour is the shepherds that travel on horses from Kodzhadzhik (in original: Коџаџик)28 for five days, about 80 km distance, from the Central West of Macedonia to the Prespa side of the National Park ‘Galicica’. They cross this distance every year, twice, taking the sheep from the summer pastures to the winter pastures in the Park, and back, for the last 15 years.

A valuable historical context is that the ancient road of Via Egnatia was passing about the historic area of the Park. For some interviewees (Interview 4; 21; 34) this may be the cause for the existence and/or naming of some villages. However, historic maps indicate that the road passed just about the North border of the Park. Never the less, this is yet another illustration that portrays that the geographic location of the Park was of significance and interest throughout history as being a connection even between the East and the West (speaking in European terms).

The micro network of connections is related to the geographical locations of the places within the Park. Unravelling the micro layer of the connections is a never-ending process. Because the micro network or perhaps I should better say the internal network can be considered even on individual level, thus making it

71 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion very dense. Therefore, I choose to describe the connections that are of greater significance for the Park as a whole.

Internally, the Park also has a network of connections that connect the places within the park. There are 18 settlements and a fair number of tourist and sacred locations throughout The Park. The majority of these places are connected via the main North – South connections that goes beyond the borders of the Park, but there are also smaller connections that run inside the park and connecting the places. These roads in the past, and many even now in the present are simple mountain, dirt paths or macadam roads that are still used, while only a portion of the roads that connect major settlements have been made into asphalt roads in the early 1970s. The villages like Ramne and Velestovo have direct asphalt roads that make connections to the town of Ohrid. While the other settlements like the villages and settlements Gorno Konjsko, and Elshani have connecting roads that connect to the North - South road, that goes along the Lake of Ohrid, connecting them to the town of Ohrid and to Albania. The village Leskoec has a connecting road to the North - South road that goes along the Lake of Prespa, connecting it to the town of Resen and to Albania. Unfortunately the villages Shipokno on the Ohrid side, and Oteshevo and Konsko on the Prespa side, though scarcely, still inhabited they do not have any asphalt road connections.

The shepherd’s places, many religious and sacred places, as well as a great deal of tourist places are connected via simple macadam roads or even mountain paths. These paths have been recently marked from the PINPG, easing the movement for visitors.

Another form of connections exists in the Park that pertains to the lived.

Connections that are not characterised by physical form, at least not easily.

Those are the connections to community or even spiritual matters. A first very obvious connection is the spoken language. But there are also others, hidden connections, such as the ethnic belonging of people, or the religious belonging of people. These hidden connections have non material paths, and stand out from those that I have already portrayed. Perhaps this non-materiality is the reason why they were not considered by Lefebvre (1974). These connections bare the same characteristics of connecting, and at the same time separating places, or people from places. And they do form networks of virtual paths that exist nonmaterially. Historically looking at these connections can provide understanding to the existence and origin of villages. In e.g. a local historian established a connection between the villages of the Park by examining the village churches and the saints to which those churches are dedicated to. He positions a route through which one church virtually moves from one village to another because the people took it with them on the newly inhabited place. Understanding these connections can reveal a lot about the sense of place.

The Activities The activities, the daily interactions that are conducted in the place throughout the Park, are key mediators in the formation of the Park’s sense of place. Virtually all sense of place components can be related to a certain activity that is ongoing or has been done in the Park. This relation may not happen directly, but could be considered via the conceived and/or the lived. Yet in this text I will only describe the readings of the activities that exist or have existed

72 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion in the Park. I will address this issue in depth later in the next section (see: 4.2), where I present the interpretations of the sense of place.

Considering that the activities are the mediators (Merrifield, 1993, p.525) to the conceived and lived, through which they relate to the physical side of the place. I grouped the activities in accordance to their relation to the other two layers of the trinity. Thus, having two groups of activities: ones that pertain to the conceived and others that pertain to the lived. Though further sub categorization to the activities is possible, I did not went deeper on this account.

The activities that pertain to the conceived are the activities that relate to knowledge, science, administrative decisions and other forces that are of the mind. Amongst these activities I would name: various taxations; subsidizing agriculture production; planning related to management; construction of objects and/or facilities that are for the needs of the outsiders, such as the drinking water supply system for the Town of Ohrid, or building new electrical hydropower plants near the village Racha; tourism development constructions like hotel capacities, plans for ski centre, beach bars, etc; but also restrictions such as not allowing for the locals to cut fire wood from the forest, or preventing people from wondering in the Park during the summer period without a permit, etc. But also those of education, such as the schooling of the children that gives them conceived knowledge about matters of the Park, like statistical data or toponyms.

Another form of activities that relate to the conceived is the bordering. The delimiting the border of the Park in 1958 itself was a conceived activity. These bordering activities are activities that have happened in the past. A different kind of bordering was the delimitation of the current state borders with Albania in the end of WW2 on the Yalta Conference in 1944 (Interview 34). Or the bordering of the current territory of the National Park ‘Galicica’ between Italy and Bulgarian occupation during the WW2, just at the South end of the village Velestovo. One interviewee (Interview 22) remembers having to cross the Bulgarian-Italian border in order to go to his forest to cut some firewood, almost every day.

Similar bordering that provided greater impact was the setting of the WW1 front line right in the middle of the mountain Galicica.

Yet there is another set of activities that pertain to the conceived. It is the activities of the church. I do not say of the faith or of the religion, but only those of the church, the Macedonian Orthodox Church to be precise. The priests serve, but they also educate the people of the ways of the Orthodox Christianity (Interview 42). And by this I do not consider the atheists or members of other religions, but those that are considered as Orthodox Christians. In this relation their activities are related to knowledge, and to the locals it is an outsider’s knowledge. This connection of the church with the conceived is also noted by Lefebvre (1974).

To make the transit towards the activities that pertain to the lived, I will continue with the above stated activities of the church. Considering that this is a sensitive issue and people may misinterpret it. What is interesting is that the church, via the priests, also has activities that relate to the lived. There are the marriages, the christenings, the deaths and the numerous religious festivities that are related to the Saints - protectors of the village or the house, or family celebrations. Even the knowledge that the priests teach becomes a matter of the lived, in due time. Yet there is another kind of activities of the church that relate

73 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion to the lived. It is the ceremonies that relate to the pagan believes (Interview 41). An example is the celebration of the Annunciation that is conducted at midnight, the night before the day (it was on the night of 6 April in 2012), at the church of the Holy Annunciation near the village Racha. The church considers this to be a blasphemy against God, even though the priest still goes and does the ceremony he is asked from the locals.

The activities related to spirituality are not only these. There is strong reverence present amongst the locals, and even planners to places related to the church. Prayers, candle lighting, meditations are but a few of the activities that the locals practice at sacred sites. The strong historical presence of the spiritual activities is expressed through the existence of numerous churches, monasteries or other sacred sites.

The activity of dreaming is also related to spirituality. People dream of Saints or God, and they conduct other activities that the Saints or God told them to do, like: building churches on unexpected locations, or digging water wells which water is supposed to heal or have other magical powers. In a sense, healing and magic is also a spatial activity that occurs in the Park.

Let me move away from the spiritual activities and look at other activities that pertain to the lived. I would write about activities that relate to the livelihood of people. These are activities that produce income or food to the locals, but also to outsiders, like visitors or even planners. The activities of the locals are mostly traditional, such as cattle herding, planting crops, fishing, wood cutting, picking tea or berries, irrigating, etc. Though some, in time or at certain occasions have become illegal, such as wood cutting, fishing or even tea picking. Looking at these activities through time significant changes can be noted, like the one on cattle herding. Sheep herding was a significant occupation some 50 years ago. There used to be about 60000 sheep on the mountain Galicica in the past, around the turn of the 19 to 20 century. Today, an optimistic estimate is that there are about 1000 sheep. Goat herding was another activity that people remember with bitter anger (Interview 38). It was banned in the 1950s because it was considered to destroy the forests. All goats were annihilated. People from the village Velestovo consider this as destruction of their livelihood. Thus the act itself of banning the goats pertains to the conceived and to the lived, as it has such influence. It portrays how the activities of the conceived interact with the activities of the lived, as described by Lefebre (1974) and Gregory (1994, p.401).

The outsiders, the visitors and the planners also have activities that pertain to the lived. The planners, at least the Parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management, consider the wood harvesting as source of their livelihood. The visitors have both memory cherishing experiences by activities of gazing, leisure and sporting, or even livelihood related activities of tourism, catering, guiding, etc.

Yet another form of activities must not be forgotten. The greatest activity of all is the activity of living. People are born and spend parts or their whole lives in the places of the Park. It is an introduction to a whole set of activities that may be related only to them, individually.

74 Sense of Place of National Park â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Galicicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

Results and Discussion

4.1.2. Conceived The conceived, the abstract representation of the Park is embodied in the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’. Its presence can be seen all over the Park itself. Numerous maps of the Park are positioned along roads, portraying roads, places and points of potential interest. Most of these maps are placed by the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’, though a number of maps are also placed by the appropriate Municipality or by a local leisure establishment such as a hotel or a restaurant in order to enable outsiders to find their way into the Park.

The most authoritative abstract representation is the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ itself with its administrative centres and the signs that indicate that from there onward is the territory of the Park. The Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ has one main building located in the vicinity of the Town of Ohrid, and a tourist info centre in the village Stenje. The signs declaring the territory of The Park are located along the NorthSouth roads of connection. Though, interestingly enough, there are such signs located in the inside of the Park along roads that connect the coastal areas with the inside, mountainous parts of the Park.

Other form of abstract representations exists also in form of billboards that inform people of the legal limitations. These billboards are placed by the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Macedonia along the many beaches on the shores of Ohrid Lake.

Economic centres (Lefebvre, 1974, p.33), like tourist centres, hotels, restaurants, etc. are another form of the conceived of the Park. Their number is growing and continuously making pressure over the locals.

Abstract forms of the park can also be found from the locals. There are numerous books that locals have decided to write in relation to their villages or sacred sites, like churches. Such books Image 4.1 (up, right): Road signs Image 4.2 (right): Info house of the PINPG in Stenje

75 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion exist on the village Konjsko, the church of Velestovo, two books on the village of Elshani, and an incredible number of writings related to St Naum. Though the later books are by outsiders, they worth being noticed. These, knowledge based writings find their way easily in the lives of the locals.

Yet, the most influential abstract representations of the Park are those that can not be easily seen. Those are the Management Plan for the National Park ‘Galicica’ together with the Special Forest Management Plans for each section of The Park that are prepared and implemented by the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’; the Spatial Plan of The Republic of Macedonia; The Law for the Proclamation of the National Park ‘Galicica’; The Law on Nature Protection; all kinds of laws that are applicable to the Park and to the country; international commitments such as conventions or even the Prespa Park Biosphere Reserve; the Urban Plans of the Municipalities, both Ohrid and Resen; the infrastructure network plans of the electricity service, water and telecommunication service companies; the military plans; and all those other plans that overlap in authority on the territory of the Park. However, without the intention of neglecting, there are also the low level plans of individual houses and hotels; permits for conduction of various activities; plans for building temples, etc.

4.1.3. Lived The lived can be described at various levels. These levels pertain to the scales of the experiences that the people have. It could be the settlements or villages that are in the Park: Ramne, Velestovo, Racha, Shipokno, St Stefan, Ljubanishta, Elshani, Lagadin, Istok, Trpejca, Dolno Konjsko, Konjsko, Oteshevo, Leskoec, Konsko, Stenje. Though for some villages it is difficult to differentiate the abstract from the lived. Examples are the villages Racha and Velestovo. Though

Image 4.3: Village Dolno Konjsko

76 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Results and Discussion physically they are on different locations, local people experience them as they are the same. A historical note that is related to the administrative works of the Municipality in the 1960s is that the Municipality did not allow for this new settlement to be named the same – Velestovo, but instead gave the name to the location - Racha (Interview 12/2).

The level of the settlements can be looked at a smaller scale a swell. The houses people live in, or the land they own are a lower level of the lived. There is family history embodied in these places. Many of that land were bought by ancestors, and even the houses were built by the people’s ancestors. In some cases the settlements were established due to that particular house that was built by the grandfather. Or the centre of the village is located on a land that was once owned by someone’s ancestors. This is a very personal, family related level.

Outside the villages the lived is found in relation to the livelihood. Like the fields where people did farming. Many villages had dedicated farm areas up in the mountain. Or there were places where the sheep would stay during the summer period, and also related to specific villages. E.g. the sheep owned by the villagers from Velestovo were in the place called Dzafa (in Macedonian: Џафа).

Great emotional memories are tied to this place for former shepherds. The people of the village of Ljubanishta historically had their livelihood connected to the monastery of St Naum. Their lived places are the monastery pastures like the place called Vojtino (translation: Watery; in Macedonian: Војтино). Even later, after the Second World War, when church land was nationalized, people continued this relation but through the established agriculture cooperative that farmed the expropriated monastery land. However, after the 1970s, when most people begun working for the industry in the towns, this lived space lost its meaning to the new generations.

Image 4.4: The well at Dzafa

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Results and Discussion Much of the lived places are orbiting around water. Water is the source of life, or at least it sustains life as we know it. Thus the villages, but also the places that are dedicated for work are related to water. E.g. Dzafa has a well; Lokvine (translation: The Ponds; in Macedonian: Локвине) are rain water accumulations, built by shepherds; the villages are located near water springs; even the sacred sites are related to water springs. Many water springs that are considered as magic or healing have the name of a Christian saint or of Christian importance. e.g. St Friday, a water spring in the monastery of St Naum that is believed that if a person washes him/her self with the water, he/she will forever be beautiful.

Or a cave near Shipokno that is believed to be magical. If a couple cannot have children, they need to collect the water that drips from the ceiling of the cave and drink it; the woman will surely become pregnant afterwards. Though not related to Christianity, people placed a cross at the entrance of the cave.

Image 4.5: Water springs of St Naum

The Park is abundant of religious sites. There are many churches, both new and old, dating as back as the ninth century, such as ruins from Roman Basilicas.

Churches are sometimes related to water, as I explained above, e.g. church of Annunciation near the village Racha, the church of St Parasceva in St Naum, Holy Mother of God in St Naum, St Naum monastery itself. Other churches are there because a person dreamt a Saint that told him to build a church there, e.g. the church of St Athanasius in the village Ljubanishta, the church of Annunciation near Dolno Konjsko. Some other churches are related to a magical event that happened in the past, e.g. the church of Holy Mother of God at Zaum, church of Annunciation near the village Racha, church Holy Mother of God in the village Velestovo. Or simply people wanted to commemorate a church for the health of

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Results and Discussion the family, e.g. the church of Holy Mother of God in Velestovo. And as I showed, many of the churches are on places out of several meanings, not just only one. Stories that people tell about these churches differ from storyteller to story teller.

Image 4.6: Church of St Friday, at St Naum Monastery

The sacred is also related to trees and forests. There are a number of trees in the area in and around the villages of Elshani and Peshtani that are considered sacred by locals. In old times the locals made ceremonies every year when a priest would bless a tree around the village. Local people do not cut these trees. They even do not take the fallen branches, as they believe they will be cursed and have unfortunate future. The locals call these trees as Panagia29 (in Macedonian: Панагија).

Sacred forests, but also fields or even vineyards, are considered to be those that are of the church.

These lands have been given to the church by wealthy man in the past, mainly as a token for good health for their family members.

Just like the case of the panagia, local people do not use this forest for themselves. It is only dedicated for the use of the church. As for the fields, people would ask permission from the church to farm the fields, and in return would give part of the crop to the church. These places are known with two different names. The people from the North part of the Park, call these lands as ‘lakoski’ (in Macedonian: лакоски), meaning of the church, or of the ‘lak’ (in Macedonian: лак), as the local people refer to the church.

However, in the South part of the Park, these lands are known as waqf30 (in Macedonian: вакуфски).

Image 4.7: Panagia near Elshani

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Results and Discussion The normal forests, those that do not have such explicit sacredness are a source of livelihood for the locals. Local people use the forests for acquiring firewood for their daily purposes. In the past this was done freely and they even sold firewood in the towns. However, nowadays the firewood cutting is forbidden and local people can only get the wood from the local forests only from the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ (PINPG). Local people now sometimes resort to illegal ways of getting firewood from the local forest. It is interesting to observe the changes over time. Now the forests of the Park are a source of livelihood for the employees of the Park management.

Image 4.8: Harvested firewood in the Park

The lived places that are related to satisfaction, like leisure or recreation, are found throughout the park. Sometimes they are overlapping the lived places pertaining to livelihood or even the sacred places.

The mountain peaks have a special meaning. From there people experience the scenic view of the two lakes (Lake Prespa and Lake Ohrid) on both sides of the mountain and the Park. This is also a symbol of the park, an image that people relate to Galicica.

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Results and Discussion Visitors and local people have another set of lived places pertaining to experiencing satisfaction and of importance to their livelihood. Those are the places along the coasts of the Ohrid and the Prespa Lakes. It is the leisure activities of visitors, and potential income from tourism for the locals, but also outsiders that relate to these lived places.

Yet, there are another set of lived experiences related to the Park. Those are the experiences of smell, of taste and even touch. The smell of fish and the smell of water in the morning in the costal areas. The taste of eel, Ohrid Trout, Ohrid Carp, Prespa Carp, and all those small fishes that are even endemic to the lakes. The taste of the typical Ohrid fish soup. The feeling of the small pebbles on one’s bare feet of the beach of Trpejca village. The smell of the Galicica Mountain tea. The smell of the mountain field of Galicica rich with medicinal herbs, such as Wild Thyme, St Jon’s Worth, etc. The taste of the extremely cold waters of the springs of Galicica. These are but a few of the sensory experience that the National Park ‘Galicica’ has.

Image 4.9: fish at a local restraurant

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Results and Discussion

4.2. Interpreting In this section I am elaborating on the multifaceted aspect of the sense of place in the National Park ‘Galicica’. I organize this discussion in two steps.

Firstly I discuss generally about the sense of place of the Park. The second step is related to the issues from the senses of place that pertain to the management of the National Park ‘Galicica’.

4.2.1. The Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’ Here I discuss the various components of sense of place that are evidenced in the Park. But I also go beyond the mere portrayal of the sense of place. I discuss the relations that the perceived, conceived or lived have to these components of sense of place. For the purpose of this discussion, and for the purpose of developing a basis for the continuing part of the text, I will address the sense of place from the three perspectives of locals, visitors and planners.

Locals’ Sense of Place The local peoples’ sense of place is related, but not exclusively, to the lived experience of the place. What can be said that is universal for all locals is the place rootedness and the place belonging. To Vanclay (2008), rootedness and belonging are one and the same. However, in the case of the National Park ‘Galicica’ there is a slight difference to the two. Place rootedness is a relation to place which is more of a historical perspective. Its main element is the connection to the family history in relation to the particular place. An example to this is the story of a person (Interview 23), whose grandfather was the first settler to the place Eleshec, a previousely non inhabited location. His attachments to the place were very strong as the place itself is a symbol of his family, and family history.

Yet this place rootedness is also present amongst people that decided to leave the village. A man from the village of Dolno Konjsko, left for Australia and he lives there with his family (Interview 20/1). However, there is a tight place rootedness to the village Dolno Konjsko as the interviewee explained that the old village centre is on the land that was owned by his ancestors. Looking at the examples, I could say that place rootedness is a component of sense of place that is related to the act of living, not in the present, but in the past and could be related to the person him/her self, or to his/hers ancestors.

A woman from the village Ramne expressed herself very strongly in relation to place rootedness: “We would go [to the village Ramne] back because here is our habitat; here are our graveyards - our parents.” (Interview 2/2). Now, I could have stopped my inquiries at this point, however in the days that followed after interviewing this lady I discovered that she was not born in the village.

In fact she was just married there, quite young though. And her actual parents are buried in the village where she was born, some 5 km outside the borders of the Park. This point pertains to gender issues, a topic that I did not address in my literature review, and I have seen it being present only in the article of Gieryn (2000). However, even at this point without the wish to discuss it in

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Results and Discussion depths of gender relations, I have to note that on several occasions I have seen this issue being present. The place rootedness among older women was experienced through the ancestors of the husband, and not their own ancestors.

And it is important to stress that these women now live on places other than the place of the husband’s ancestors. It is so, because these women have had a strong patriarchical upbringing. For them, their parents are the parents of their husbands. Which issue, is an added explanation to my claim of place rootedness that is related to the act of living of the ancestors. Though ancestors does not imply a direct blood line, as I explained it could be a family relation.

Another thing that is worth noting about place rootedness is that it does not relate to the whole Park. People do not feel rooted to the Park, but only to the intimate scales of geographies, such as a village or a settlement.

The second element that pertains to place rootedness, but it also transcends to place belonging is the notion of birthplace. In a sense, the birthplace notion is secondary in place rootedness, but it is the primary element in place belongingness. The notion of birthplace, like for the family history is related to an intimate scale of geography, and not to the whole Park. A man from Ramne said that he does not feel the National Park ‘Galicica’ as his birthplace, but the village Ramne: ‘I was born here [Ramne], I lived here [Ramne], I spent my whole life here [Ramne].’ (Interview 1). This intimate scale of geography pertains to the Friedman’s (2010) understanding of relational place, as being of human scale, and to this account he may seem that is right with limiting it. However, the further interpretation on the sense of place of National Park ‘Galicica’ will explain the down side of this limitation.

Perhaps a funny side of the notion of birthplace is that most, if not all, people have been born in the Town of Ohrid or Resen, both outside of the territory of the Park. To their consideration of what they express as being their birthplace is the village where their parents lived when they were born, or spent their early life there. For them, birthplace is not the physical place where their mothers had actually given birth to them. That place was the town hospital in Ohrid or Resen.

In this sense, for local people, the act of birth was not important as the act of living in a place to create a sense of rootedness, or of belonging.

What is important about the notion of birthplace and relational place is the strong bond that it makes to a specific geography. With great level of repeating of this same statement, many interviewed people said: ‘the birthplace pulls you’. The attachment to the birthplace is being compared as an attachment a child has to the mother. In this relation of this bond of the people with their birthplaces, place rootedness is, to my consideration, the strongest, emotional component of the sense of place of local people in the Park.

I said that the notion of birthplace is related also to place belonging. And to this point the idea of Vanclay (2008) that place rootedness and place belonging is the same is valid. However, looking at place belonging, there are two activities that pertain to place belonging: giving birth and the actual living, and both of them are from the lived layer of relational place. And yet, there is one more element, and that is ownership. People with strong sense of place rootedness, when their ownership is being under dispute, their sense of place belonging is being disturbed as well (Interview 30/1). In this sense, place belonging could also have an element of attachment to the place of living. Something that relates to past memories of, and to the current lived experiences. Looking at place

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Results and Discussion belonging from this perspective, one may poses a sense of place rootedness but not have a sense of place belonging. In this relation, I would not agree with Vanclay (2008) that it is so easy to overlap the two together as being one, but I’d rather keep them as separate: place rootedness and place belonging in a sense that place rootedness is on a personal level, while place belonging pertains to a community level.

But sometimes the issue on family is not only about place rootedness or place belonging. It can be also about place identity. Many ancestors of the local people had important roles in the history of the village. Whether they were who built the first house of the village (Interview 23) or the old village centre is on their grandfather’s land (Interview 20/1), this connection transcends from the family history to a place identity of the village. In the case of the village Trpejca, and of the village Velestovo, there are stories that claim that the names of these villages are according to the oldest inhabitants called Trpe and Vele, accordingly.

It is interesting to see that place identity, place rootedness and place belonging overlap in one single issue – family. To make the issue even more complicated family is also a very strong place attachment. His brings back the issue of the sense of place components, and the validity of the categorization (see: 2.1.3). It seems that place attachments are a cause that manifests or forms meaning into the other components of sense of place. Thus, understandable is the consideration by some only to account for place attachments. However, the other components of sense of place are in greater importance in sociological terms, and therefore their consideration can give answers on sociological and psychological level.

Place identity, like place rootedness and place belonging, is not related to the National Park as a whole. The place identity is closely defined to the village and the village area. Historically, villages have had fights over territory for pastures, forests and agriculture land (Interview 6). Thus, village areas have been tightly related to the life of people and the dependency of the land. But in terms of place identity, the names play an important role. An example is the village Konjsko and Dolno Konjsko. For the uninformed person there could be no relation between the two. The story is quite different. It is two locations, but one place. The people from Konjsko moved to the location of Dolno Konjsko in the process of exposing them selves to greater connectedness with the Town Ohrid. In doing so they marked the new place with the same identity of their old village – the name, adding merely a prefix ‘lower’.

Another, though hidden example is the village Velestovo. In the terms of the borders of the village area, for which in the past fights have been done with neighbouring villages, the area spreads from the shores of the lake all the way up to the peaks of the mountain, limited from both other sides with the areas of the neighbouring villages Ramne and Shipokno. The village in history moved four times, and the current location is the third movement of the village. The first village was in the lowlands at a location called ‘Kromidnik’, but due to the problems that the Ottomans made to them, they moved the village up into the mountain next to a water spring. This second location of the village was on a location called Selishte. However, this second location did not last that long as the villagers were under constant attack by a dragon, or perhaps a wild beast (Interview 6). The choice of the third location was done by a miracle. Two cowboys were herding the cows when they saw glimpse of light in a rock. This

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Results and Discussion was a sign that the people should move there and re-establish the village there.

And here lies the currently known village Velestovo. The name presumably related to the Slavic god Volos, or due to the great number of oxes the village had, in Macedonian ox is called ‘vol’, thus Volostovo that eventually became Velestovo (Interview 8/2). Though, a story exists that it is named by a person called Vele, as well. This village is the carrier of the identity of the people that live in the village area. There was yet a fourth movement of the village. In the 1960s people moved in the lowlands to a place called Racha, so they would be closer to the Town of Ohrid, thus gain greater connectedness. The interesting historical story to this is that the villagers them selves made a request to the local municipal government that the new village should be called Lower Velestovo (originally Dolno Velestovo), a name that would carry the identity. However, the local municipal government rejected this initiative and ruled that the new village should be called according to the name of the location it occupies – Racha (Interview 12/2). The illustrated process is a clear domination of the conceived over the lived. Therefore road signs were made to indicate a village Racha. This abstract dominated decision is now, after 40 years, accepted by the villagers, as they call the place Racha, stating that they live in Racha. The conceived managed to alter the lived and in time it became the lived. However, the place identity still remains attributed to Velestovo. People declare them selves as people from Velestovo, regardless if they live all their life in Racha.

This place identity that is tightly related to the name of the village is comparable to the issue of the Roma camp as explained by Langer (1953, p.95), but also to the multifaceted side of the place. A same geographical location having two, fully recognized place meanings: one being a place where the river makes a fork – Racha, and another one being a place which is inhabited by people from the village Velestovo. This notion is what Jongerden (2007, p.30) describes as turning into a territory, though from a locals’ perspective. Thus, for the locals Velestovo is a name that bares the place identity and marks the territory of the wider place they live in.

Place identity is not only about the name. For the locals, place identity is also about architecture and about senses like taste of food, and smell of herbs.

Though these elements may pertain only to a specific place, like to the villages, on questions what they identify the Park with, many of them said that the view on the two lakes is the identity and symbol of the Park. Thus, the locals have a place identity of the Park that is inseparable from the Lake Ohrid and Lake Prespa. On this account the geographical location has an impact to the formation of the relational place and the sense of place. I argued that geographical location should be considered with caution in general (see: 2.1.4; 2.2.7). However in a case of a rural area, especially a national park where landscape plays an important factor, the geographical location is a dully recognizable component of a relational place.

Another component of sense of place that is very typical for the local people is the place dependency. For locals, the Park is livelihood. Perhaps in the past, when people were oriented towards cattle herding, the place dependency component was stronger. This presumption comes from the an interview with a shepherd (Interview 1). His relation towards the Park was strong and pertained to having clean pastures for the sheep. He was very angered by people that would leave garbage all over the park. Because the sheep would eat the garbage and there was a potential for them to die afterwards. His dependence from the sheep as a source of income had transposed to a place dependence to the Park, or at least

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Results and Discussion a part of the Park. In the sense that Friedmann (2010) describes that social activity can be an indirect measurement of sense of place, the shepherd was engaged in cleaning up litter from the areas he would go with the sheep.

In a historical perspective, though also in a current perspective, place dependency is linked to water. As seen in the reading of the lived, many lived places are linked to water. It is not just an expression ‘water is life’. People need water for drinking, but also for farming and for the cattle. In this relation wells and water ponds were built all over the highland pastures by shepherds for the sheep. Thus all main places in the highlands, where people would stay with the sheep are next to these wells. Nowadays these water sources remain as a memory of the abundance of sheep that the Park had.

An interesting note to this place dependency is the case of the village Racha.

The village was abundant in water. However, a water supply system was built that captured these waters and took them to Ohrid, so the people from the town could have water for drinking. Then, the available water for Ramne decreased.

This process of depriving the villagers of Ramne from the water destroyed their place dependency. Locals point out the lack of water as one of the main reasons why many people left the village (Interview 3). This issue is a very nice example how the conceived influences the lived, neglecting the sense of place, thus diminishing people’s livelihoods.

However, even in today’s context people have place dependency. These place dependencies are manifested through the people’s livelihood dependent on tourism. The issue that arises is that most tourists visit the Park not just for the park itself, but for the lakes that are there. Thus the place dependency of the local people is blended with the Park and the lakes. Yet, there is another point to this. That is the spirituality. There are also many people that visit the Park just because of the monastery of St Naum. The sacredness of this place is so high that it becomes a source for income for locals, though for a limited number of locals. Thus, St Naum also finds its way in the blended place dependency.

A simple relation that is evidenced from the interviews and described by Vanclay (2008) is that with the greater lived experience that people have, they ‘know’ more place names, thus more places, but also have stronger place attachment. In this relation shepherds poses great place familiarity that to them is also a strong bond to the area. I say the area and not to the Park, because this bond is restricted to the area they herd their sheep, and not to the whole Park. Usually that area is identical to the area that the appropriate village has.

In this relation shepherds also know well the borderlines of the neighbouring villages (Interview 1). In my attempt to challenge the interviewees in making emotional statements, I would pose a question whether they’d be willing to move to a different place. The answers varied, but there was one comparable correlation. If the person had strong place dependence, then their answer would express their place familiarity and unwillingness to leave because they are not familiar with that other place. But if the person had low place dependency or even the place dependency was under threat because of the conceived, they would gladly leave, even ‘to Africa’ as an interviewee declared (Interview 30/1).

This relation poses a consideration that for locals, place familiarity is increased through experiences that are pertaining to place dependency. But what is more important is that diminishing place dependency can cause detachment, and eventually people would leave the place.

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Results and Discussion In Interview 44 a very explicit relation of the experiences and the attachments that a man forms were expressed, as if from a text book. The man explained how his love for the Park grew with each activity he would undertake that gave him new experience of the Park. Though he was very aware of this process, he, him self, did not engage into those experiences by ‘free’ will, but rather as part of work engagements he had. A process that confirms that sense of place should be addressed through the mode of production (Lefebvre, 1974; Studley, personal communication). Perhaps this mode of production should not be limited perversely only to money, but also to production of satisfaction or any other kinds of personal goods or services. It is the experience that matters, while the mode of production is merely the context of that experience.

Visitors Visitors express a more general sense of place towards the Park, and not so chopped up as local people do. Though, this sense of place is indirectly related to the Park, via one of the places of the Park. This relation gives understanding of the issue that sense of place is not related to the Park, but to the person him/ her self (Vanclay, 2008, p.7). Since one can have a sense of place of a much wider scale through an experience occurred at the scale of a very local place, a place that would be preferably described by Friedmann’s (2010) understanding of relational place. This relation comes due to the influence of the conceived over the lived experiences of the visitors. For them the Park may contain many villages, places that local people relate to, but they see it as one whole – National Park ‘Galicica’.

Amongst visitors an evident component of sense of place is place commitment.

Though every person makes emotional attachments to the beauty of the landscape, place commitment compels visitors to return and experience it again.

The place commitment comes out of owning a house in the Park, whether that is a weekend house or a mountain lodge managed by the mountaineers club, place commitment is equally present. To a potential challenging notion to this place commitment a mountaineer said: ‘If the Park’s management takes that mountain lodge away from us, then we’ll go to a place where we do have a facility.’ (Interview 4). It is an issue that Massey (2011, sec.Reversing the terms of belonging) addresses quite well by paraphrasing a well know quote from the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy (1961): ‘Ask not “do you belong to this landscape?” but “does this landscape belong to you?”’

Place belonging is also present amongst visitors. Example is the mountaineers that repeatedly come to hike the Mountain Galicica. They feel like at home there.

Though this feeling of home transcends place belonging and is also a matter of place familiarity, there is an additional feeling that the mountaineers attach: ‘I feel there [National Park ‘Galicica’] as it is mine, because I started with mountain climbing there. I feel Galicica as a mother mountain. Every mountaineer has a mother mountain.’ (Interview 4). This feeling of ‘mother mountain’ is something that came up from the act of living, the lived experience. In this relation place belonging is different from place rootedness, as I also pointed out earlier.

Visitors that do not have a sense of place rootedness can create a sense of place belonging. This makes the biggest distinction between the two, contrary to Vanclay’s (2008) understanding that it is one and the same.

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Results and Discussion

Planners First and far most that should be understood is that planners are also people.

Regardless of their professional engagement with the Park they do have individual experiences from which they form their sense of place of the Park. In this relation I see Friedmann’s (2010) understanding of place limited, because he is taking only the local people’s perspective. However, there is an issue that there are planners that have more direct, lived experiences in the Park, thus with stronger sense of place, and that there are planners that have less experiences in the Park, thus with weaker sense of place. This greater/weaker sense of place is not related to a measurement system, but to the various components of sense of place that can be identified amongst the planners.

The weaker planner’s sense of place is related to having a sense of commitment and/or a sense of dependency, since their work – their source of income is gained through the process of planning/managing the Park. They rather have a professional perspective – an abstract understanding of the Park, stripped from emotions. Their symbol of the Park is ‘work’ (Interview 45/6). Through this relation with the Park, they do not build strong attachments to the Park, thus I say they have weaker sense of place. However, they still do have a sense of place.

The stronger planner’s sense of place involves other components of sense of place. There can be identified place familiarity, place identity, place belonging, and even emotional place attachments to the Park. This is primarily due to the longer and greater lived experience in the Park in comparison to the other planners. However, like for the other group, these planners also see many issues through the eyes of their profession. The place attachments they make, and the place familiarity they have are related greatly to their professional conceptions of the place, like biodiversity, forest management issues or even dealing with various actors of the Park. Their sense of place is very much different in comparison to that of the locals, because of the great influence the planners have from the conceived. Thus their place awareness and place familiarity relates to species, biodiversity and ecosystems that most other people from the locals and visitors do not relate to. But this does not mean that their sense of place is any weaker than that of the local people. In fact as an interviewee noted, ‘the Park management values the Park too highly.’ (Interview 4), planners do have strong sense of place. The only issue is that planners have very different impressions from the park that are influenced from knowledge, in comparison to those of locals or visitors.

4.2.2. Sense of Place in Consideration to the National Park ‘Galicica’ Management So far, I have given an interpretation of the sense of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’. I have interpreted how the layers of place interact and influence the sense of place. However I did not relate the sense of place directly to the management of the Park. I do this in this separate part of the section. Here I make an added interpretation of the sense of place actors in relation to the management of the Park. I compare the sense of place to the Park’s management plan and I give my interpretation how the sense of place can either be included in the plan or be utilised in the process of management to achieve better results.

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Results and Discussion Firstly, I will focus on one underlying aim of the management of the Park.

Even in its conception in 1958, in the study that provided justification to the proclamation of the Park it is said that the management of the Park should aim at enabling conditions for tourism development and strengthening the economic situation of the local people (Draft Law for Proclamation of the Forest Parts of the Mountain Galicica for a National Park, 1958, p.920). This idea of improving the economic situation of the local people is still present in the latest Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010, pp.208-209).

This measure is in fact a process of strengthening the place dependency of the local people. But also it is alteration of the place dependency, because people are required to build a different place dependency in relation to tourism. Now, looking at the current place dependency of local people, this has been fairly achieved. However, looking at a different angle of this process, locals do not feel place belonging towards the Park. Their place belonging is directed towards the places they live, but not to the Park. Even though, many local people have attachments to the Park. This sense of negative place belonging is due to lack of activities and non-material connections of the Park’s management that are directed to the local people. As local people express ‘I feel the Park as mine, but the Park’s management does not feel us as part of the Park.’ (Interview 3; 30; 43; 44). This sense of place not belonging is also present amongst some visitors, like the mountaineers (Interview 4). Thus instead to be created place attachments towards the Park it self, there exists quite an opposite feeling. In fact, the Park’s management is seen as the conceived that prevents the people to realize their traditional activities that pertain to place dependency. And the most noted of them activities is the firewood collecting from the forest. Which is forbidden for local people to do so.

However, locals do not make always a clear distinction between the Park’s management or the Municipal Authorities, or the Governmental Authorities.

For many locals, and even visitors, authorities – the conceived are one entity.

The prohibition of activities that pertain to place dependency, but also to place satisfaction by authorities, lead to a statement of one interviewee that portrays the National Park ‘Galicica’ very simply as the conceived that wants to invade, and change the lived (Gregory, 1994, p.402): ‘They [all authorities both on local and on national level] made living monuments out of us, but forgot that we are people.’ (Interview 14). This statement portrays the inconsideration of the sense of place that local people have, by authorities. The emotions of the statement are so powerful that at the same time it pertains to providing a sense of negative place satisfaction, and even place detachment.

Unfortunately I did not have amplitude of available time to make attempts to interview planners from municipal, regional or national level, to see their sense of place of the Park. But the interviews I made with the Park’s management do not show such a terrifying image. Looking at the management plans of the Park there are no specific considerations for local people’s sense of place (National Park Galicica, 2010). However, the Park’s management has demonstrated consideration to the local people’s sense of place, such as shutting an eye over minor illegal activities that pertain to place dependency, or even avoiding harvesting trees in areas that the locals consider as sacred – related to the church (Interview 48). The downside of this is that this kind of consideration is dependent on the particular person from the Park’s management, and his/ hers awareness about the locals’ sense of place. Not having a study that may indicate what to be considered, leaves opportunity for unintended activities that

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Results and Discussion can be threatening to the place attachments of local people and even visitors.

Therefore if the management attempts to consider local’s sense of place in their daily activities, it should also plan them to the extent possible. By expressing awareness on the local’s sense of place the PINPG expresses respect towards the locals, thus it strengthens its relation and the sense of place of the locals.

The place attachments by both locals and visitors relate to landscape and nature. These aspects are amongst one of the most often mentioned attachments to place. However, unlikely to the planers’ sense of place, in the locals’ and the visitors’ sense of place the lakes play an integral part. The moment of gaze on the landscape of the park where the two lakes are being part of is the greatest single most related feature of the park that people, both locals and visitors, mention as a place attachment. It is a lived experience that is even considered as a symbol of the park. However, the planner’s sense of place of the Park is limited to experiencing the Park without the lakes. An interesting point is that in the study that justifies the proclamation of the park, it is actually said that the Park is founded so with measures of protection it may be more afforested, thus improve the attractiveness of the lakes (Draft Law for Proclamation of the Forest Parts of the Mountain Galicica for a National Park, 1958, p.920). Thus, placing the Park in a subordinate position in relation to the lakes. However, the latest Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010) does not consider the lakes as part of the landscape. In this relation the Park’s management should reconsider their sense of place of the Park and go beyond the conceived and the borders of the Park, and move towards the lived experience and the connections that the Park make.

Looking at the connections that the Park makes much of them have been considered in the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010). People’s place dependency is not only connected to activities that pertain to livelihood, but also to connections that enable them better livelihood.

Such is the access to a road that connects the place of living with the town of Ohrid or Resen, appropriately on each side of the Park. And it is good that the Plan (National Park Galicica, 2010) recognizes this relation to the connections.

An issue that I have considered as interesting is the misperception of the borders of the Park. Local people and visitors often are not aware if the place they live in or visit is in fact part of the National Park ‘Galicica’. What was most often perceived was that the coastal area along the Ohrid Lake is not part of the Park. The reason to this is the spatial activities that are being conducted there. People consider that giving the coast under concession to people and companies that then build concrete constructions is not an activity of a protected areas, thus they build a perception that it is not part of the Park (Interview 11).

However, the same issue is similarly present amongst people that do know the borders of the park. For local people the activities of intensive development of the Ohrid Lake coast is destroying their place attachments (Interview 44).

Even more, as there is no communication with the local people on development issues, and these beach developments happen practically in front of the yards of local people, for them it is a process of diminishing the sense of community connectedness (Interview 23). These matters of administration are set so that the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ has no jurisdiction over the territory it manages. However, to the consideration of locals, as I have noted earlier, it is the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ that makes the decisions. Thus the anger related to the diminishment of their sense of place is directed towards the

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Results and Discussion Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’. This understanding could be taken into consideration for two potential matters: 1. reason why integrated management should be preferable; and 2. the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ could find way to make allies with the local people in securing greater nature protection over its territory.

As sense of place can be related to people’s attitudes and behaviour in a place (Jorgensen and Steadman, 2006), promoting a positive sense of place of the Park amongst actors can lead to improving the individual engagement of people in the Park’s maintenance. In a sense like Friedmann (2010) claims that people’s involvement in citizen’s work can be an indirect indicator of the place attachment people have. Thus, the reverse of this understanding would be that increasing people’s place attachment would provide greater people’s engagement in citizen’s involvement in the maintenance of the Park. Local people that have a sense of dependence via their work, like shepherds that need clean pastures (Interview 1), or mountain guides that take tourists in the Park (Interview 4), exhibit will to take action to clean and maintain cleanliness of the Park. The Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ seems aware of this issue, as in the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010, p.345) there is a provision of establishing a Small Grants Program for Local Communities. Such an approach would stimulate added lived experiences amongst local people, thus creating new place attachments and increasing their positive sense of place. However, to this point implementation is not evidenced.

Local people state that they would be satisfied if they could see that the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ is involving local people in the process of protection and maintenance of the Park (Interview 43; 44). Such a measure would make a positive sense of place belonging amongst local people and establish a sense of community connectedness between local people and the Park’s management.

An interesting example in relation to the issue of the perception of Park’s management activities was provided by an interviewee (Interview 43) that made a comparison between the activities of the Park’s management at the time of the Park’s establishment and now. He said that on his 16 years of age, he was engaged by the Park’s management to collect seeds from the local trees so the Park could be afforested by seeding. He added that at that time in 1959 and 1960, when he was engaged, there was no tree harvesting in the Park.

The only thing that he would do was cut the branches of trees alongside roads.

In contrast, presently the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ harvests the forest. To him, those past activities are a lost place attachment that got diminished by the current activities.

Perhaps the Public Institution National Park ‘Galicica’ would not be able to plan a very precise model for establishing a specific sense of place amongst local people (see: Lefebvre p.37). However, from the discussion I portrayed above it is certain that it does have an implication to people’s sense of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’. With this understanding, knowing the local people’s sense of place, and inviting them to a participatory management of the Park would contribute in increasing the place attachments that people make. Thus would make conditions for people’s involvement in the process of nature protection in the National Park ‘Galicica’. Which is an aim of the Management Plan for the Peiode 2010-2020 (2010, p.197) as well.

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Results and Discussion On a last note I would like to refer to the Interview 44, and the gradual forming of place attachments through working engagements. This issue takes me to a completely different issue – the Scout Movement. The Scout’s programme of character building is based on a particular method that includes: work in nature; gradual progression; and learning by doing (World Scout Bureau, 1998, p.9).

To the concern of the management of the Park, this method is a good starting point for the PINPG to engage the locals in the work around the Park. In simple words, only through learning by doing will the locals form place attachments that pertain to the whole Park, thus will create a stronger sense of place of the Park and finally engage in voluntary social work to preserve the values that the Park possess.

Image 4.10 (up): View on Lake Prespa

Image 4.11 (down): View on Lake Ohrid

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Conclusions

5. CONCLUSIONS

For my thesis research I chose the concept of sense of place, and I had set a goal to explore the applicability of the concept of sense of place and how its inclusion can provide new perspectives for protected areas planning and management. However, for my research question I choose a very specific question: “What kind of sense(s) of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’ exists, and how does it (they) relate to nature protection and the park’s development?”

I set out to research sense of place and to give answer to the issue of relating sense of place to protected areas management and planning.

This thesis report presents the journey I went through in finding the answer and meeting this goal. In the process I have not only answered the questions I have set, but I also looked critically on some of the literature considerations in relation to their applicability in practice. In this last part of this thesis report, in the chapter of conclusions I present, in summary the issues that relate to 1. specific sense of place considerations to the case of the National Park ‘Galicica’; 2. abstract considerations on how sense of place can be utilized in protected areas management and planning; 3. new perspectives in addressing sense of place; and 4. recommendations to the further research on the concept of sense of place.

5.1. Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’ It is very difficult to answer in detail as to what are all the senses of place that exist in relation to the National Park ‘Galicica’. The reason is that the sense of place is an individual imaginative concept, thus an interview with all people that ever had an experience with the Park would be needed to be done. However, a general understanding to the varieties of sense of place that exist in relation to the Park can be achieved.

The first aspect that is needed to be considered is that the National Park ‘Galicica’ is an inhabited place. It is a place where people are born and live their lives, as their ancestors did. Therefore it exists a strong sense of place rootedness. Perhaps this is related to the smaller in scale relational places, such as the settlements, villages or the whole areas that relate to the villages. Yet this component is present, and ties the local people to the territory to the park.

The sense of belonging is also present amongst the locals. However that is being shattered by activities of the PINPG. It is as if their sense of belonging is not being recognized by the PINPG. Though activities to involve the local people into the activities of the PINPG are provisioned in the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010), it seems that there should be stronger note to their implementation. These activities of involvement of the local people may lead to affirming the sense of place, thus making the local people more inclined to the Park as a whole and to the work of the PINPG. The issue that relates to the place identity of the National Park ‘Galicica’ is the issue that local people and visitors have strong relationship to the view on the

95 Sense of Place of National Park ‘Galicica’

Conclusions both Lakes of Prespa and Ohrid - a recognizable symbol of the Park. The park planners do not have the same relationship to this park symbol and as a result it is not considered in the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010). Thus this particular issue should be considered by the PINPG to alter its understanding of the Park and their management approach.

The lakes, even though they are outside of the jurisdiction borders, should be considered in the processes of planning and management of the Park. This issue for the people is a matter of place identity, but for the park is matter of lack of place awareness. Taking it into consideration may provide new ways on how to manage the Park. Visitors and locals value greatly the scenic views of the lakes.

This consideration will also keep the management in line with the initial aims of the proclamation of the Park - making the lakes to be a more pleasant place (Draft Law for Proclamation of the Forest Parts of the Mountain Galicica for a National Park, 1958).

Another issue that I consider part of the place identity is related to the ongoing activities along the coastline of the Park, especially on the Ohrid Lake side.

People form a sense of place identity that the coast is not part of the Park.

They form this negative identity over the issue that the activities undertaken along the coast are not related to any nature protection activity, in fact, they are opposite. Though the PINPG does not have jurisdiction over its own territory to prevent such activities, this consideration could be used by the PINPG in activities to prevent further nature degradation along the coast.

Place commitment can be considered from two aspects. The first aspect is that locals as well as visitors feel a significant amount of place commitment and they express desire to be active in nature protection or activities that are related to the management of the Park. This existing sense of place should be further supported and strengthened by the PINPG, similarly to the case of place belonging. People should be involved in the activities of the PINPG, so that they can realise their place commitment on a greater and recognized level.

The other aspect is the side of the visitors, such as the mountaineers. They exhibit place commitment in regard to the mountain lodge they use. Thus their presence is related to this commitment they have, through which they also form place attachments. Just as with the loals, the PINPG should equally involve the mountaineers and other groups that have place attachment to the Park.

The last aspect is place sacredness. Though there are no such provisions in the Management Plan for the Period 2010-2020 (National Park Galicica, 2010), it is evident that there are such considerations practiced by the PINPG. Therefore, it would be more appropriate if such considerations are included in the planning as well. Currently there are a number of lands that have been returned to the church through the process of restitution, but if there are more lands that are yet to be restored, having a consideration for them in the management plan would show respect towards the local people.

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Conclusions

5.2. Sense of Place and Protected Areas Management I mentioned that Williams and Steward (1998, p.18) suggest that ‘the concept [of sense of place] offers managers a way to anticipate, identify, and respond to the bonds people form with place.’ Taking this consideration, in my sense of place interpretation I have shown how certain sense of place components can be beneficial for the management of the park, and I have expressed considerations that engagement in the strengthening of these senses of place can improve management practices. In doing so I have underlined three most important aspects that managers need to have in mind: awareness of the sense of place; people’s participation in management activities as a process to strengthen the sense of place; and finally respect towards the sense of place of people.

The examples that are case related to the National Park ‘Galicica’ showed that by maintaining place commitment the Park can obtain partners in its activities for nature protection. And that potentially by increasing the involvement of local people in the management activities, it can even further strengthen a sense of place amongst people that will contribute to protection. These considerations are in fact in line with the consideration of Friedmann (2010) that making relational place is everyone’s job.

But by knowing the existing sense of place that local people have, the management can even avoid getting into misunderstandings. Perhaps in relation to a sacred forest that the people revere, but according to the management plan wood is to be harvested from there. Therefore, by knowing the sense of place, the management can respect the locals’ sense of place and do not disturb the things that the locals value.

5.3. A New Perspective to Look at Lefebvre Lefebvre (1974) developed a threefold concept of relational place that, to his own words: ‘[…] loses all force if it is treated as an abstract “model”.’ (Lefebvre, 1974, p.40). In my thesis, I have used this model to portray place in a very concrete way, a way that Lefebvre (1974, p.40) would wanted to. And to that point it served as a very successful portrayal of the concrete place. One that incorporates complexities and yet it is easily readable for both outsiders and locals. The magnitude of this trinity model is that through its use, many relations amongst the layers of place, but also to specifics of place become visible. Making Lefebvre’s (1974) threefold model an incredible tool for further analysis of place, once it is being used to comprehend place.

However, Lefebvre’s (1974) model does not come without shortcomings. The notion that it is an integral model, and that each of the layers should not be considered independently is confirmed in the process of description of place using this model. Because many of the specifics related to a place become intertwined in all three layers of place as developed by Lefebvre (1974): the perceived, the conceived, and the lived.

In this thesis, I have used Lefebvre’s concept of relational place as a starting point to seek understanding not only to place, but also to sense of place. Taking the notion that sense of place is tightly related to the unique experience of place, Lefebvre’s (1974) concept enabled me to portray the sense of place and analyse

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Conclusions it through the understanding of the mode of production – that is capitalism.

While by being able to relate various senses of place with individual activities and/or connections, I was able to deploy an understanding of the sense of place that can also be usable for managers in the process of making and/or maintaining sense of place.

The sense of place analysis portrays how certain management practices are perceived by locals or visitors. In a sense, sense of place can be taken as an evaluative tool where image and perceptions are of importance to be evaluated.

This consideration can have policy implications as well.

5.4. Considerations and Recommendations to Sense of Place Concept With my research, in a sense, I made an attempt to answer the call of Beckley (2003). In his call, Beckley (2003) invites scientist to go beyond describing place attachments and focus on analysing the processes through which the attachments are formed. And I support this consideration that this is a good way forward in sense of place research. That is why I took the concept of relational place, as described by Lefebvre (1974) to link sense of place with the activities that form the sense of place. In that way, providing an understanding of sense of place and the interaction with activities, I was able to provide answers to issues of management concern. Yet I would add that looking at the diversity of scientific disciplines that address sense of place, it is needed for researchers from different fields to join together in their research to sense of place. Researchers from environmental psychology, human geography, sociology, even arts could jointly provide much more comprehensive understanding to sense of place than each individually, isolated from the others. Let this be a call for an initiative where various sense of place researcher would join in one research in providing an understanding that will pertain to the various levels of human life.

In the literature review I have addressed the issue of components of sense of place. I said that I took the list of 10 (ten) components of sense of place that Vanclay (2008, p8) describes. Through my research I have looked deeper into this issue. What I can add to this is that each of those 10 (ten) components of place: place attachment, place identity, place dependency, place familiarity, place awareness, place commitment, place rootedness, place belonging, and community connectedness are components that are rightfully of their own.

Though I have found that for some there are minor differences, these differences do exist. I would even add that there is yet an eleventh component, and that is place sacredness. A component of sense of place that portrays the relation of the spiritual aspects of man with the relational place. However, I would also approach this segregation of sense of place with caution. Because one segregation may be functional in a given contextual environment, however, in a different contextual environment, where people’s experiences are different on the account of the different understandings to life or pertaining to a different mode of production, it would be needed perhaps for a new categorisation that would be appropriate to those conditions.

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Conclusions

5.5. Issues for Further Research In the short time that I had of researching sense of place of the National Park ‘Galicica’ I have managed to portray many senses of place that exist, and to interpret them in a consideration that is to the benefit of protected areas management. What would be a step towards providing an operational research results would be a quantitative analysis. However, it would need to be a geostatistical analysis that will provide results that can be easily incorporated into plans.

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END NOTES 1.

In this thesis report to use the term relational place is used as term in stead of merely place in order to avoid confusion in the minds of the reader as the term place has many common meanings that some do not relate to the concept of relational place.

2.

Tuan is considered as the founder of human geography. But certainly he is the first one to address the issue of sense of place, though under the name of ‘topophilia’.

3.

Throughout the report local transcripts of the names are provided, as well as translations of the meanings of those names. The reason to this is because names are not just nouns, but much more. An issue that is addressed in chapter 2, section 2.2.5.

4.

Republic of Macedonia – it is used the constitutional name of the country. For clarification, some people may know this country by one of the numerous acronyms: FYROM, TFYROM, YROM, which came from the UN temporary reference: ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’.

5.

Both bearing the topic ‘Forests for People’

6.

Web of Knowledge - a subscription only available internet search engine on scientific work, provided by Thomson Reuters.

7.

The origin of scientific, or also referred to traditional forestry, is in 18 century in Germany, and very soon after in France. It appeared as an answer to the State’s needs for control of the resource – the availability of wood. For more details see Scott (1989).

8.

Aristotle was an Ancient Greek philosopher, lived from 384 BC till 322 BC.

9.

René Descartes was a French philosopher. He was born on 31 March 1596 and died on 11 February 1650.

10. Isaac Newton, knighted in life and became Sir Isaac Newton, was an English philosopher. He was born on 25 December 1642 and died on 20 March 1727, according to the Justinian calendar.

11. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, sometimes also referred to as Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, was a German philosopher. He was born on 1 July 1646 and died on 14 November 1716 12. Ernst Mach was an Austrian philosopher. He was born on 18 February 1838, died on 19 February 1916.

13. Albert Einstein was a German theoretical physicist. He was born on 14 March 1879, died on 18 April 1955.

14. Polysemy is the capacity for a sign, word or phrase to have multiple meanings.

15. Lefebvre originally refers to the threefold as pertaining to social space.

Or at least that is what is being translated into English from the original language - French.

16. A simple Google Scholar search provides information that Henry Lefebvre’s translation of The Production of Space is cited in 9 280 scholarly works, while David Harvey’s The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry Into the

103

Origins of Cultural Change has been cited incredible 15 764 times.

17. The words of Halfacree (2006) in relation to Lefebvre (1974) have this characteristic to provoke slightly different interpretation, than when one reads Lefebvre (1974) directly. This issue caused a discussion amongst lecturers at Wageningen University that they had to resolve it by contacting Halfactee directly.

18. Hester originally refers to sacred places or as later he refers to as sacred structures, though not all places in the lists that the local people identify as being sacred is a building, but also an open space like a park or street intersection.

19. Web of Science - World’s leading scholarly literature in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities and examine proceedings of international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops, and conventions.

Articles available as of 1945.

20. Current Contents Connect - Complete tables of contents and bibliographic information from the world’s leading scholarly journals and books; also includes relevant, evaluated Web sites and documents. Articles available as of 1998.

21. MEDLINE - The United States National Library of Medicine premier life sciences database. Articles available as of 1950.

22. Journal Citation Reports - Journal performance metrics offer a systematic, objective means to critically evaluate the world’s leading journals.

23. The examples related to Dirk Smeesters from Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands in June 2012, and to Diederik Stapel from Tilburg University, The Netherlands in November 2011, as well as others in the past, that have committed data fraud in their articles are devaluing the significance of any scientific writing. These scientist that ‘taint’ their data to fit a breakthrough findings is placing a question of how much actually ‘scientific’ writings is more plausible than any ordinary non-scientific writing.

24. Google scholar – a freely and publicly available internet search engine on scientific work provided by Google Inc. See http://schollar.google.com 25. Google – a freely and publicly available internet search engine for the whole world wide web. Generally accepted as the fastest, most comprehensive and most accurate internet search engine available in the period of preparation of the thesis 26. Flickr – an on-line community of photographers, but also an on-line album of family or vacation photographs for many people. (See more on: www. flickr.com) 27. R Studio is new, free, open source software that supplements R. It was first set for public access in February 2011. For further details you can go to www.rstudio.org 28. Kodzhadzhik (in Macedonian: Коџаџик; in Turkish: Kocacık) is a mountain village in the Central-West part of Macedonia (Latitude: 41° 26’ 35.44” N, Longitude: 20° 35’ 57.64” E). It is located in the Municipality of Debar (in original: Дебар). Its hidden fame is that it is the birth place of Ali Riza (in Turkish: Ali Rıza), the father of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (in Turkish: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk), the first president of the Republic of Turkey.

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29. The ceremony of blessing the trees stopped in the 1960s in Elshani and Peshtani. However, such sacred trees, baring the same name - panagia, also exist in the village of Kuratica, some 10km North of the border of the Park, where it is said that the ceremony of blessing the trees still exists even today. The name most probably comes from the Greek language where Panagia means Virgin Maria, the Mother of Jesus. In Greek it is written Παναγία. These trees are also found in the North-West of Greece.

30. The term comes from the Arab language: waqf, meaning land dedicated to religious purposes. The term is not pertaining to any religion, though in the cases in Macedonia locals relate it to church land. In Arab it is written ‫فقو‬.

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TABLE OF TABLES Table 2.1. Quantified search results on sense of place scientific literature using Web of Knowledge, all databases search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Table 2.2. Number of scientific articles on â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sense of placeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, published per year, according to search results using Web of Knowledge, all databases search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Map of Europe with accent to Macedonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Figure 1.2: Map of protected areas in Macedonia with accent to National Park ‘Galicica’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Figure 2.1: Number of scientific articles on ‘sense of place’, published per year, according to search results using Web of Knowledge, all databases search . . . 22 Figure 2.2: Number of books related to ‘sense of place’, published per year, addressed in book reviews available through the Web of Knowledge, all databases search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Figure 3.1: Map of the fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Figure 4.1: Map of roads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

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TABLE OF IMAGES Image 1.1: A hotel resort on the coast of Lake Ohrid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Image 1.2: The highlands of Mountain Galicica . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Image 1.3: Village Peshtani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Image 1.4: Monastery of St Naum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Image 1.5: Church of St Naum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Image 1.6: Field Maple . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Image 1.7: Mountain Galicica Tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Image 1.8: Cormorant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Image 1.9: Pelican . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Image 3.1: Out on fieldwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Image 4.1: Road signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Image 4.2: Info house of the PINPG in Stenje . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Image 4.3: Village Dolno Konjsko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Image 4.4: The well at Dzafa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Image 4.5: Water springs of St Naum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Image 4.6: Church of St Friday, at St Naum Monastery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Image 4.7: Panagia near Elshani . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Image 4.8: Harvested firewood in the Park . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Image 4.9: Fish at a local restraurant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Image 4.10: View on Prespa Lake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Image 4.11: View on Ohrid Lake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

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ANNEXES

Annex A: List of Number of Papers on Sense of Place by Subject Topics . . . 123 Annex B: Flickr Photos Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Annex C: On-line Survey Questionnaire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 Annex D: On-line Survey Reading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Annex E: Thesis Web Page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Annex F: Business Card. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Annex G: List of Geographical Identifiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Annex H: List of Interviews. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

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Annex A: List of Number of Papers on Sense of Place by Subject Topics This list represents a list of papers on sense of place. The list is ordered by subject topic thus provide an idea of the number of papers on sense of place in various subject topics. The papers are gotten through a revised result of Web of Knowledge search on sense of place literature by topic and title. The result has been checked if it is in fact a paper, thus search results like book reviews or editorial materials have been omitted.

Please note that many papers have two or more subject topics, thus some topics may look awkward as standalone, but in reality they are in combination with other topics. Therefore this list is only provisional to understand merely the kind of scientific topics have addressed sense of place directly so far. Otherwise, the total number of papers is 653.

Number of papers in this topic 139 114 49 48 47 44 37 37 31 31 25 23 21 19 19 19 18 15 14 13 12 10 8 7 7 7 7 6 5 5 4 4 4

Subject Topic Environmental Sciences & Ecology Geography Literature Urban Studies Sociology Social Sciences Architecture Psychology History Public Administration Arts & Humanities Business & Economics Education & Educational Research Anthropology Art Computer Science Public, Environmental & Occupational Health Forestry Engineering Physical Geography Communication Biomedical Social Sciences Archaeology Government & Law Information Science & Library Science Music Religion Transportation Social Work Water Resources Area Studies Cultural Studies Geology

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Number of papers in this topic 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

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Subject Topic Linguistics Marine & Freshwater Biology Optics Psychiatry Womens Studies Agriculture Biodiversity & Conservation Construction & Building Technology Ethnic Studies Health Care Sciences & Services Rehabilitation Science & Technology Social Issues Demography Energy & Fuels Film, Radio & Television General & Internal Medicine Geriatrics & Gerontology History & Philosophy of Science International Relations Neurosciences & Neurology Nursing Telecommunications Behavioral Sciences Criminology & Penology FoodScience & Technology Imaging Science & Photographic Technology Library and Information Studies Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Oceanography Operations Research & Management Science Physiology Plant Sciences Poetry Reproductive Biology Social science & medicine Theater

Annex B: Flickr Photos Reading To understand how people look at the National Park ‘Galicica’ I conducted a simple on-line photo search. The photo search was done on the public photographic server Flickr – a web site that provides services for image and video hosting, and is also a community of photographers. I searched the publicly available photos with the keyword ‘Galicica’. At the time when the reading was done, prior the fieldwork, the search provided 753 results. The photos were uploaded by 99 users, thus I trust that this is approximately the same number of people that took the photos.

I used the photos as source of information about the Park. Photos represent a data source of what people value to commemorate with a photographic image. In the reading of the photos I looked at what was the photo of, what the activity that the photo represented was, and what the particular object of focus was on the photo.

At a first glance it is obvious that amongst the photos dominates the mountainous landscape. Galicica is a mountain, thus the background of almost all of the images is mountainous. However there is a great deal of images that focus on the mountain, on the peaks, and involve activities such as hiking, mountain climbing, mountain biking or simply gazing at the landscape.

Taking a more critical perspective, the photos could be divided into two major groups on the account whether there are people in the photo or not. This distinction is important because in the photos where there are no people, the main object of focus is the Park it self, or a particular element of the Park.

The photos that are without people express what people think that is valuable, meaningful to which they relate to the Park. It is evident that gazing of the landscape is a source of personal experience of the Park. The landscapes that are on the photos are either of the highlands of the Mountain Galicica or of the lakes surrounding the Park. It could be argued that the geographical position of the Park is such that one can not avoid not looking at the lakes, but in a number of photos it is obvious that the main object of focus is the lake it self. To be precise, the photos with the Ohrid Lake are much more dominating than the photos of Prespa Lake. In any case, the Ohrid Lake with the reflection of the setting sun and the Prespa lake with the reflection of the rising sun are an important part of the landscape of the Park. They contribute to the forming of the impressions that the people create about the Park.

Another kind of landscape is the built landscape. There are photos that depict village houses or religious temples that pertain to this built landscape. There are not many of these kind of photographs. However they show that people also relate the villages and the sacred sites to the Park. The monastery of St Naum is being accented from this group as most dominant.

Yet there are another set of photos without people. Those are the photos that depict details. Since the Park is a habitat of a number of endemic species, there is also a great deal of individual plants that are even named in accordance to their scientific names. They also depict a value of the park, that certain people appreciate and relate to the Park as a meaning, thus as a place attachment.

Though most of these experiences of the Park are influenced from the conceived, there are also those that are merely impressed from the beauty of an unknown

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flower. The biodiversity of the Park is not only a matter of science, but also of lived experience related to beauty.

The photos that have people, show the numerous activities that people do.

The majority is related to the mountainous areas, as I said in the beginning, but there are also those that relate to the coast. Activates along the beach, like swimming, boating, sun bathing, or even eating, drinking are present there.

What is interesting about the photos where people are involved, most of the time the main focus of the photo are the people them self. Those pictures are showing that the experiences that people relate to the Park are not merely individual, but that they can be of a group of people. Also sometimes, the experiences seem more related to the people than to the Park. Even though those experiences could take place anywhere, the people that have had them, relate those experiences to the Park. Amongst these activates are: sunbathing on a mountain peak, making barbecue in the mountains, having fun with friends, etc.

One note concerning the use of these photos for further analysis should be taken into consideration. Amongst the photos there are a number of those that have been tagged with the word â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Galicicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, however the images are of places far from the Park. Such are the mountain peak Kilimanjaro, which was easy to spot, as well as other mountain peaks or landscapes that did not belong in that setting.

However if one is not careful may overlook these elements and consider them as well as part of the Parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s landscape. Though their number, about 15 of them, was not so significant it still is a consideration that should be noted. In this interpretation those photos are disregarded, though there may be others that I did not manage to identify as being intruders.

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Annex C: On-line Survey Questionnaire Page 1 Dear participant, Thank you for taking your time to take part in this research on the sense of place of the National Park Galicica, and filling out this questionnaire.

Please understand that the questions presented here do not have right or wrong answers, and it is of great importance for the research that your answers be honest to your personal opinion, knowledge and feelings. Please do not make attempts to find answers by searching on the Internet, but answer at your own free will, how you perceive and feel that the answer is.

To fulfil this questionnaire it usually takes 30 to 40 minutes. Please do not try to answer the questions in a hurry. Take all the time that you need to type the answers.

This questionnaire is anonymous.

Thank you for your cooperation in this research.

Page 2 Where is National Park Galicica?

Is

Is Is Is Is Is Is

Answer: Please write your answer here. the beach Lagadin inside the National Park Galicica?

Please select the answer.

Yes No Maybe the village Kosel inside the National Park Galicica?

Yes No Maybe Select one: the monastery of St Naum inside the National Park Galicica?

Yes No Maybe Select one: the camp site Otesevo inside the National Park Galicica?

Select one: Yes No Maybe the island â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Golem gradâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; within the National Park Galicica?

Yes No Maybe Select one: a part of the Ohrid lake coast within the National Park Galicica?

Yes No Maybe Select one: a part of the Prespa lake coast within the National Park Galicica?

Yes No Maybe Select one:

Page 3 To your opinion, are there borders of the National Park Galicica? If they exist, can you describe where the borders are?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

To your knowledge, were there borders that delineate Galicica, before it became a national park? If there were, could you explain where they were?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

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Is there a gate to the National Park Galicica? If there is, could you explain where it is?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

To your knowledge, what do you think was the reason why it was proclaimed for a National Park?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

To your opinion, what is the aim of the National Park Galicica?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Are there any locations with economic activities present in the National Park Galicica? Which and where are they?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Are there any monuments that represent the National Park Galicica? Which and where are they?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

What kind of activities (professional and recreational; permanent and occasional) do you know of that are happening in the National Park Galicica?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

What activities does the National Park Galicica management do in the park?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

To your opinion, which activities are damaging the National Park Galicica?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

What do the roads in the National Park Galicica connect? What or which of the roads do you like?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Page 4 When you are in the National Park Galicica, what do you do there? If you are local, can you list your daily routine activities and the things you do in the National Park Galicica to earn money?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

How would you explain to a stranger, what activities can he or she do in the National Park Galicica?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

What were the main sources of livelihoods for the inhabitants of the National Park Galicica in the past?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Do you know any significant event(s) that happened in the past on the territory of the National Park Galicica? What is their effect?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Are there any locations in the National Park Galicica where you like to go to meet other people? Which and where are they? What do you feel when you are at these locations?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Do you know the meaning of the name Galicica? What does it mean?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

In your experience, what does National Park Galicica mean to you?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

To your experience, are there any symbols of the National Park Galicica? Could you explain these symbols? What do you like about them?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

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Depending if you already live in the National Park Galicica or not: would you like to live there and why, or is there a reason you do not like to live there?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Can you portray at least one thing that relates to the National Park Galicica for you, to each of the senses (smell, touch, sight, taste, hear)?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Can you say what should never be changed about the National Park Galicica? That if changed you would not recognize the National Park Galicica.

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Can you list 5 most valuable things/ locations of the National Park Galicica (In order of their value)?

Answer 1: Please write the first place here Answer 2: Please write the second place here Answer 3: Please write the third place here Answer 4: Please write the fourth place here Answer 5: Please write the fifth place here Page 5 Your experience: Please describe in writing one personal experience of something that happened, something you did or perhaps even you do everyday in the National Park, which for you represents something that you always/regularly remember on when thinking about the National Park. There are no limitations to what kind of experience, as long as it causes strong feelings for you and in a sense it something that you cherish and value. Take as much as time and space you need to write it.

Answer: Please write your experience here.

Page 6 Is this experience of yours something that you do on a regular basis or something that happens very rarely Answer: Please write your answer here.

When did this experience happen? Describe if there is any significance with the particular date.

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Where did this experience happen? Describe the location where it happened.

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Why on this location? What or who made you be there?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Were you alone there? What were the other people doing there, if any?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

How did you get there, which road and mode of transport did you use, and why?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Were there other people taking this same road? Were they going to the same location, or?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Did you meet other people on this location? What were they doing there?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Was there anything man built, like a house, or monument, or water fountain, or was it nature?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

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If there was something built, do you know who built it, and why?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Can you say what did you see/hear/touch/smell/taste on this location?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

When you think of this location, can you describe your thoughts?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

What do you feel about this location?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Is there something (object, activity, thought or feeling) that you would like to be/have there, on that location every time you go there?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Would you go again to this location, and why?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

If you did go there again, how did you feel and what did you do there, each time youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been there? (if you go there very often, you may generalize, and not state for each time) Answer: Please write your answer here.

The experience you describe, to your feelings, is it something that is universal for the whole National Park Galicica, or is it something that you attach it only to that specific location?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Have you had same or similar experiences on other locations in the NP? Could you explain your thoughts and feelings and how they differ (if they differ) from the one you just explained? But if you did not, could you explain why not?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

What was crucial for this original experience of yours (objects, friends, environment, activity, etc.)? If this crucial thing was different, would you still have your experience and the feeling you have now?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Are you aware if anything changed on that location of the experience you describe, from your first time being there? If yes, what do you think about it and how do you feel about it?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Would you be able to repeat this experience of yours? If yes, how? If no, why?

Answer: Please write your answer here.

Page 7 What is your age group?

What is your gender?

Please select the answer. <15 16-30 31-45 56-70 71< Please select the answer.

Male Female

Where were you born?

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Please select the answer.

Macedonia - Ohrid Municipality

Macedonia - Resen Municipality Macedonia - other municipality in another country Where do you live?

Please select the answer.

Macedonia - Ohrid Municipality: ___Ohrid ___Velestovo ___Ramne ___Sipokno ___Raca ___St Stefan ___Istok ___Dolno Konjsko ___Lagadin ___Konjsko ___Elsani ___Elesec ___Pestani ___Trpejca ___Ljubanista ___other Macedonia - Resen Municipality: ___Resen ___Otesevo ___Leskoec ___Stenje ___Konjsko ___other Macedonia - other municipality in another country If you do not live in the park, how often do you visit NP Galicica?

Please select the answer.

Once a week Once a month Once a year Once in few years Never If you live in the park, how long do you live there?

Please select the answer. <5 years 6<15 years 16<30 years 31<45 years 56<70 years 71< years Do you work for the administration of the park?

Please select the answer.

Yes No Is your work related to the parkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management (Ministry, forestry, care, etc.)?

Please select the answer.

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Yes No

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Annex D: On-line Survey Reading The on-line qualitative survey was set at public availability on the dedicated web page www.galicica.rantasa.net (see: Annex E). The questions (see: Annex C) were mainly open ended questions, that made the filling in the questionnaire a lengthy process of more than 30 minutes.

The questionnaire was accessible for a period of two months, in the months of March and April. During this period, there were 178 people that accessed the questionnaire, out of which only 75 people answered the questions till the end. A significant drop-out of the people is evident once the open-ended textual questions appear on the screen.

The people that answered the questionnaire were just visitors of the Park. In this sense all the answers were predefined from the experiences of a visitor. Thus, the questionnaire lacked contribution from locals, which was a down side of this on-line questionnaire.

The first set of questions addressed issues related to the knowledge about the Park, and the familiarity that people have on the Park. Due to these questions, a number of people contacted me in order to say that they had to look-up information on the internet in order to answer those questions. This aspect led me to a conclusion that it would be biased to use these answers in the process of interpretation. However, even though people had looked-up information to provide ‘right’ answers, there were many that answered ‘wrong’. I prefer to say that all people answered right, because the answers are reflection of their perceptions, but only some do not comply with the conception of the Park. Thus a great deal of people were not aware about the exact borders of the Park, and if certain parts belong to the Park or not.

These answers merely confirmed the background problem related to the research.

The most often mentioned road was the road that goes over the Mountain Galichica, and connects the two lakes. It is pinpointed as a source for many experiences that create place attachments to the Park. Other roads that were mentioned are the road that connects the Town of Ohrid with the monastery of St Naum, as well as many mountain trails that people take either hiking or biking. It seems that each road is a source of unique experiences through which people form place attachments. For some it is the landscape that they gaze from various points of thee roads, while for others it is the moments of encountering wild animals.

The questionnaire revealed the activities that mainly visitors do. Such as: hiking, climbing, paragliding, biking, skiing, travelling, etc. Mainly related to recreational activities, as the visitors come with that intention. The activities are just as well source of unique experiences. People refer to ascents to a mountain peak as an experience they will not forget. Or a flight with a paraglider that enabled them with the opportunity to have an incredible gaze of the landscape of the Park together with the lake (mainly Ohrid Lake). Yet another activity, though not specifically indicated is the socialization. Many people visit the Park with friends or groups, and they refer to this socialization also as a source of unique experience. Though, at the same time people emphasize the feeling of solitude while being on the Mountain Galichica. As if the Park offers isolation from the outside world, even from civilization. Thus, providing peace and quietness which people relate to the Park.

For people, visitors to be precise, the peaks of Mountain Galichica are places to be.

People relate their sense of place to these highlands. And in particulary the peak

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Magaro â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one of the highest peaks of Mountain Galichica. There are other places that are mentioned, but these are with a lot less frequency. Like: the monastery St Naum, village Trpejca, village Konjsko, village Stenje, the island Golem Grad (translated as: Big Town), place Vojtino, the spring Korita, etc.

People through the unique experiences give meaning to the Park, and they form place attachments with this meanings. For some it is the magnificent view on the lakes as being unique; for others it is the feeling of being close to nature, wild animals, even danger from them; then there is adventure and excitement that follows cycling or paragliding; or even the moments of being with someone. The National Park â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Galicicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is truly an inspirational place that can trigger feelings and attachments of various kinds.

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Annex E: Thesis Web Page www.galicica.rantasa.net

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Annex F: Business Card

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Annex G: List of Geographical Identifiers The fieldwork, and thus the interviews were organized around several geographical identifiers. The geographical identifiers are listed here.

Administrative geographies The territory of the National Park ‘Galicica’ is located on two municipalities.

One is the Local Self-Government Ohrid and the other one is the Local SelfGovernment Resen. The Ohrid Lake (West) side of the park is in the Local SelfGovernment Ohrid, while the Prespa Lake (East) side of the park is in the Local Self-Government Resen.

Local community geographies Within the territory of the Park there are 18 settlements, as identified by the Park’s management. Each of these 18 locations was a focus for interview in my fieldwork. The settlements are as follows: In the Municipality Ohrid: Elshani, Konjsko, Trpejca, Ljubanishta, Peshtani, Racha, Velestovo, Ramne, Shipokno, Lagadin, Dolno Konjsko, Istok, Elesec, and St. Stefan.

In the Municipality Resen: Oteshevo, Leskoec, Stenje and Konsko.

Church geographies The territory of the Park is also divided amongst several churches. In fact it is divided amongst priests that serve dedicated regions. In this sense there were 4 regions: A priest from Ohrid, serving the North West part of the Park, the area closest to Ohrid. It included the villages: Ramne, Velestovo, Racha.

A priest from Ohrid serving the central West part. It included the settlements: Dolno Konjsko, Konjsko, Eleshec, Elshani, Peshtani, Istok, Sv. Stefan, Shipokno, Lagadin, and Trpejca.

A priest from Resen is serving the whole Prespa part of the Park.

The monastery of St Naum is separated entity and it includes only the village Ljubanishta.

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Annex H: List of Interviewees No coded name 1

note

gender

place of interview

Interview 1

part time shepherd

male

Ramne

Interview 2/1

husband of Interview 2/2

male

Ramne

Interview 2/2

wife of Interview 2/1

female

Ramne

Interview 2/3

Youth on a bbq

male

Ramne

interview 3/1

subsistance farmer

male

Ramne

interview 3/2

Gueshouse owner

male

Ramne

interview 3/3

Subsistance farmer

male

Ramne

Interview 4

mountain guide

male

Ohrid

Interview 5/1

Interview 5/2â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wife

female

Megdani

Interview 5/2

Shepherd

Interview 6

Retired shepherd

male

Megdani

Interview 7/1

Father of Interview 7/2

male

Velestovo

Interview 7/2

Goatherd

male

Velestovo

Interview 8/1

Church keeper

female

Velestovo

Interview 8/2

Part time shop keeper

male

Velestovo

Interview 8/3

Full time shepherd

male

Velestovo

Interview 8/4 18 Interview 9 19 Interview 10 20 Interview 11

Retired Leather craftsman Shoemaker

male male male male

Velestovo Velestovo Ohrid Ohrid

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

21 22

Interview 8/1

Strong christianity believer The god father of Blagovestenie festivity

male

Raca

male

Raca

Shopkeeper Waiter

female male

Lagadin Lagadin

Retired

female

St Stefan

Retired

male

St Stefan

Interview 16

Goatherd

male

Shipokno

Interview 17

Guard in a camp

male

Shipokno

Pupil in Ohrid

female

Dolno Konjsko

Taxi driver

male

Dolno Konjsko

Shopkeeper

male

Dolno Konjsko

Interview 8/2

23

Interview 13 24 Interview 14 Interview 25 15/1 Interview 26 15/2 27 28 29

Megdani

Interview 18 Interview 30 19/1 Interview 31 19/2

format audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio note written note written note audio recording audio recording audio recording written note audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording

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Interview 19/3 Interview 33 20/1 Interview 34 20/2

Interview 27

Apartments owner

male

Pestani

Interview 28

Retired

male

Stenje

Goatherd

male

Stenje

audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording

Season Worker

male

Stenje

audio note

Policeman

male

Stenje

audio note

Wife of Interview30/2 Retired

female male

Stenje Stenje

male

Stenje

Retired Retired general

male male

Leskoec Konsko

Fisherman

male

Konsko

Retired Part time shopkeeper Keeper of the monastery

male male male male

Konsko Velestovo Velestovo St Naum

audio note audio note audio recording audio recording audio note audio recording audio recording audio note audio note audio note

Religious visitors

female

St Naum

audio note

Religious visitors

male

St Naum

audio note

Religious visitors Priest in the North-West region of The Park

female

St Naum

audio note

male

Ohrid

Priest in the coastal region of Ohrid Retired

male male

Ohrid Trpejca

audio note audio recording audio note

32

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Programmer

male

Dolno Konjsko

Retired

male

Dolno Konjsko

Retired

female

Dolno Konjsko

Interview 21

Retired

male

Konjsko

Interview 22

Camp guard Nephew of the founder of the settlement

male

Ljubanishta

male

Eleshec

Shepherd

male

Elshani

He wrote a book on the village

male

Elshani

Teacher and inn keeper

male

Elshani

Unempluyed

male

Pestani

male

Pestani

male

Pestani

male

Pestani

Interview 23 Interview 24 Interview 25/1 Interview 25/2 Interview 26/1 Interview 26/2 Interview 26/3 Interview 26/4

47

Interview 29 Interview 48 30/1 Interview 49 30/2 Interview 50 30/3 51 Interview 31 52

Interview 32

53

Interview 33 54 Interview 34 55

Interview 35

56

Interview 36 57 Interview 37 58 Interview 38 59 Interview 39 Interview 60 40/1 Interview 61 40/2 Interview 62 40/3 63

Retired

Interview 41

64

Interview 42 65 Interview 43

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66 67 68 69 70 71 72

Interview 44 Interview 45/1 Interview 45/2 Interview 45/3 Interview 45/4 Interview 45/5 Interview 45/6

Restaurant owner

male

Trpejca

Director of NPG

male

Ohrid

Responsible for nature protection

male

Ohrid

Responsible for nature protection Responsible for sustainable use of natural resources

male

Ohrid

male

Ohrid

Responsible for fire protection

male

Ohrid

Responsble for sustainable tourism

male

Ohrid

audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording audio recording

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