People, Place, and Attachment in Local Bars: An Ethnographic Study in West Baton Rouge, Louisiana [Hardcover]

In the United States, places of drink are historically linked to community and social interactions, and such establishments often possess loyal patrons for whom going to the local bar is a natural and routine part of their daily life. In People, Place, and Attachment in Local Bars, John McEwen places drinking establishments at the fore of American geography as containers of material culture and collective history. McEwen draws on ethnographic data collected in four local bars in West Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to present a new unified theory of people-place relationships. McEwen highlights sense of place, place attachment, and the concept of rootedness.John W. McEwen, PhD, is independent scholar.

At last, a much needed thorough and deep study of sense of placelocal bars!in a world of self-absorbed texting that seems to marginalize place even though it anchors the core of our being. Yi-Fu Tuan, University of WisconsinMadison

John McEwen has done a great job in highlighting the multidimensionality of people-place relationships in everyday life. McEwen defends local bars as important spaces that evoke a sense of attachment and rootedness to place. People, Place, and Attachment in Local Bars is certainly an important book for anyone interested in the study of place, as it advances the concept further. Victor Counted, Western Sydney University

John McEwen presents a unique and holistic view of people-place interactions through a particularly intriguing perspective of the American bar. His deliberate interrogation of the nuanced differences between sense of place, place attachment, and rootededness is an important contribution to place scholarship. Rex J. Rowley, Illinois State University; author of Everyday Las Vegas

Chapter 1 Place, Place Relationships, and a Plan to Study Them

Chapter 2 West Baton Rouge Parish History and Contemporary Perspectives

Chapter 3 Bars in General and Four in Particular

Chapter 4 Sense of Plal%