We are delighted to share the latest report from the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Place Programme with our colleagues at the Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Hub. The report engages with one of the key themes for the LPIPs: felt experiences and pride in place and puts them into the context of how we can advance people-centred, place-based approaches. The first part of this blog outlines the approach the authors of the report, Rebecca Madgin and Michael Howcroft, took in the AHRC Place Programme and finishes with some thoughts from Charlotte Hoole, Research Fellow on the LPIP Hub, as to how the report could help support their work with the LPIPs.
What are People-Centred, Place-Based Approaches?
People-centred, place-based approaches hold the lived, felt, geographic, and economic dimensions of place together to ensure that policies and practices are developed in equitable partnerships with individuals, communities, and professionals in ways that can achieve improved socio-economic outcomes for people and place. The AHRC Place-Based Research Programme catalyses research, supports knowledge exchange, and nurtures partnerships that can advance people-centred approaches to place-based work. Within this, we believe that felt experiences are a crucial aspect of how we can meaningfully advance place-based approaches and are at the heart of the Place Programme’s work.
What are Place-Based Felt Experiences?
Felt experiences can be defined simply as the “way we feel in and about places and the felt relationships we have to and within place” (Madgin, 2022). However, they have a much more complex background as they connect to diverse work across the arts, humanities, social, and other sciences. In the report we suggest that there are multiple areas of established academic research that explore our feelings and experiences of place. These can include emotional responses such as pride, and can engage with literatures that are concerned with affect, atmosphere, the senses, belonging, and attachment. As such there is a significant body of multi-disciplinary literature that enables us to explore how we feel in and about place.
Advancing Place-Based Work
In the report, we ask what is possible if we validate felt experiences and put them at the heart of place-based decision making. We engage with this question by focusing how we can
- Deliver place-based rather than space-based policies and practices
- Evidence socio-economic outcomes resulting from place-based policies and practices
- Catalyse future people-centred, place-based policies and practices
- Imagine people-centred, place-based policies and practice
Deliver: Place Not Space
A crucial thread running through this report is the need to deliver place-based rather than space-based policies and practices. Adopting the well-accepted academic definition of ‘space’ as geographic location and ‘place’ as “meaningful geographic location” (Cresswell, 2014) shows that many place-based policies in the United Kingdom, should actually be characterised as ‘space-based’. Under this characterisation policies and practices that are designed to improve geographic locations are, ironically, ignorant of place, in that they fail to recognise the everyday, intricate, and intimate knowledges that ensure spaces become places and thus centres of meaning (Dovey, 2009).
We suggest that meaning is derived from our feelings and experiences. In so doing, our aim is to ensure that the intimate, everyday, and embedded relationships that people have with their places are centred within place-based policies and practices.
Evidence: Socio-Economic Outcomes
The report shows that ‘felt experiences’ are not just a ‘nice to have’ but instead are essential to achieving positive socio-economic outcomes. We do this by focusing on just three concepts that are a crucial part of understanding why place matters to people: attachment, belonging, and pride. The below graph from page 21 of the report shows some of the main outcomes derived from a review of academic and grey literature.
| 13 psychological benefits | Greater life satisfaction / enjoyment of life | Greater life satisfaction/enjoyment of life |
| Positive sense of future thinking | Cognitive and emotional restoration | Manage stressors |
| Allay negative emotional states | Individual well-being | Social well-being |
| Social capital | Participation in community activities | Pro-environmental behaviour |
| Place stewardship | Engagement in community planning | Ethic of care |
| Place-protective behaviour | Relationship between attachment and GDP | Local spend |
| Higher Productivity gains | Destination loyalty | Social cohesion |
Catalyse: Felt Experiences in Policy and Practice
The report moves on to consider how the lens of felt experience might help us to catalyse policies and practices that can secure socio-economic outcomes for people and place. To achieve this we draw together key examples from across architecture, arts, culture, design, and heritage to show the importance of 1. Designing for belonging and attachment, 2. Valuing emotional infrastructure, and 3. Nourishing engagement with arts and culture within place-based policies and practices.
Imagine: Call to Action
The report finishes with a call to work together across the place sector to ensure people-centred, place-based approaches can become embedded in our work. Here we outline a framework for action which suggests that we can be bolder, braver, and more human in the way we tackle some of the profound socio-economic challenges that we are living through.
For more information please see: Madgin, R and Howcroft, M. (2024), Advancing People-Centred, Place-Based Approaches, AHRC Place Programme Report, University of Glasgow
Supporting the work of the LPIPs
The report provides strategic guidance for the LPIP Hub in its mission to address nationwide challenges through place-based partnerships and policy development. Its emphasis on community meanings and lived and felt experiences offers a robust foundation for advancing people-centred approaches, enabling the Hub to support LPIPs in developing responsive, place-specific policy solutions that address local challenges and contribute to a more equitable policy landscape. This framework particularly strengthens the Hub’s commitment to “what works here” approaches and meaningful community engagement across the LPIP network.
The report’s methodological insights can enhance the Hub’s capacity-building activities, especially in creating inclusive decision-making processes and developing partnerships that respect local characteristics. As an intermediary between local partnerships and national stakeholders, the Hub can use these approaches to improve policymakers’ understanding of local challenges and opportunities. The emphasis on equitable partnerships and inclusive processes aligns with the Hub’s objectives of strengthening collaboration between researchers, policymakers, and local stakeholders while maintaining community voices at the centre of policy development.
This blog was written by Rebecca Madgin, Professor of Urban Studies, University of Glasgow. Rebecca is a member of the LPIP Hub Board. It was also written by Charlotte Hoole, Research Fellow II, City-REDI.
Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this analysis post are those of the author and not necessarily those of City-REDI or the University of Birmingham.
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