From Familiarity to Fragility

Space, and embodied movement through it, produces place meanings and senses of belonging as individual and environment act upon each other. This co-constitution, however, remains changeable over time with each new or repeated experience. Following an autoethnographic walk around an Italian city, this article charts how passage through and between different parts of the city can evoke often consistent yet sometimes challenging understandings of place and one’s position within it. In so doing, six “zones” of belonging are identified, each accompanied by various thoughts, feelings, and memories as they are navigated on foot. The importance of passage through place in building a knowledge of both place and self is therefore highlighted. Facilitated by reflections upon visual materials collected during the walk, this knowledge and associated feelings are shown to be changeable across neighboring spaces. Moreover, such change is experienceable even within the same space over time as previously hidden yet nonetheless existing entities become visible to the individual for the first or successive times. This tension between absence and presence may thereby result in disruptive shocks and fragility that alter everyday place interactions and belongingness. This can include decisions around how once familiar spaces are subsequently navigated or subject to recollection on the basis of shifting knowledges and expectations that result.