Constructing a sense of home: Place affiliation and migration across the life cycle

Abstract

This study of place identity analyzes how mobile Americans construct a sense of home through place affiliations. Based on interviews with 432 migrants to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, this research indicates that migration does not preclude an emergent sense of home but that migration at different stages of the life cycle does produce different patterns of place affiliation. Where younger migrants more often base their identity on affiliations of friendship, family, and emotional self-attributions, older migrants do so in terms of dwelling and prior experience with place. Thus, this study challenges the view that place identity is eroded by mobility, arguing instead that place identification must be understood within the process of life cycle change and place mobility.