In this paper we claim that religion can play an important role in place attachment and present a conceptualization of it. We provide an understanding of the role of place in the experience of religious place attachment, describing in detail place, design, aesthetics, and special characteristics that facilitate devotion. Next, we describe how attachment to place is learned through the process of socialization involving rituals, use of artifacts, story telling, and place visits. We argue that there is an active socializing component to religious place attachment in addition to the experiential one. We conclude with a brief discussion integrating the complex issues of religion, place, identity, and attachment. r

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The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of the interconnectedness between religion, identity and attachment to sacred spaces. This is done in three parts. First, we provide a general understanding of attachment to sacred spaces, settings and objects and create a typology of attachment to different sacred spaces, from macro to micro, from natural to human-made, based on a brief comparison of several religions. Second, focusing on one part of this typology (attachment to homes), we illustrate the creation, content and meaning of sacred space through a detailed analysis of the Hindu house. Third, we examine the emergence of place attachment and identity, the ways religion through ritual connects people to places, and how places as settings for sacred behavior and socialization connects people to religion. Finally, by including personal history and auto-ethnography we attempt to 'personalize' environmental psychology.

a b s t r a c tThis paper focuses on the role of home gardens in the lives of immigrants. An ethnographic research was conducted which included observations of 16 home gardens and unstructured open-ended interviews with 28 immigrants from India, Vietnam; Indonesia, Philippines, Iran, China and Taiwan, to Southern California, USA. The lessons from this study are that for immigrants home gardens can be: (a) religious space enabling everyday practice of religion as well as meditation and socialization; (b) culture space through plants, fruits and flowers that enable cultural cuisine, ethnomedicine, and identity continuity; (c) ecological space that assists with environmental/ecological nostalgia, reconnecting people with landscapes left behind as well as forging new connections to place; (d) family memorial space where gardens honor and memorialize family members and provide opportunities for intergenerational linkages. These enable immigrants to engage with, personalize, and experience their new environment in deeply meaningful ways.

a b s t r a c tHow does religion affect the ways in which immigrants create suitable and meaningful homes in their new places? Based on ethnographic naturalistic field study of Hindu immigrants in Southern California, this paper provides a detailed description of how religion influences and is inscribed into home spaces through dé cor, artifacts, and gardens. The processes of ritually appropriating a home, sacralizing it with religious artifacts, and landscaping it with significant trees and plants help an immigrant renew connections with past experiences, environments, and people. Offering the concepts of ''home as religious space'' and ''ecology of religion'' we propose that home can be a site for religion, and suggest that religion can affect homes in tangible/physical ways, helping create a sacred ambiance and ethos, which in turn facilitates a multi-layered experience of both religion and place.

Community and loss of community have received much scholarly attention, whereas community formation and placemaking have been less well studied. Similarly, several studies have documented the role of religion in the lives of new immigrants, but little has been written about religious placemaking and community formation. Through an empirical study of a new immigrant group-the Hindus of Southern California-this article shows how religious placemaking helped build community. It details three salient components, namely, place planning and organization, place design, and place rituals, and also how these helped form and sustain community. It describes some challenges encountered and strategies used to negotiate, mitigate, or minimize them. In providing these delineations, it shows how religio loci and place nostalgia influenced and aided community building.

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