Sense of Place, Identity and the Revisioning of Curriculum

This book explores intersections between sense of place, the formation of identity, indigeneity and colonisation, literature and literary study, the arts, and a revisioned school curriculum for the Anthropocene. Underpinning the book is a conviction that sense of place is central to the fostering of the change of heart required to secure the survival of human life on earth. It offers a coherent overview of seemingly disparate realities on a geographically and historically sprawling canvas.

The book is a work of literary non-fiction, drawing on a range of sources: literary works and criticism, theoretical research, empirical studies and artworks. Of its very nature, the book enacts an extensive cultural critique. After establishing a cross-disciplinary foundation for “sense of place”, the book describes its relationship to identity with reference to such terms as attachment, dispossession, reclamation and representation. It shows how a hopeful narrative for planet stewardship can be developed by the uptake of indigenous and traditional discourses of place. It concludes with the envisioning of a place-conscious curriculum, and ways in which an activist agenda might be pursued in the Anthropocene.