Disrupting sense of place in a northern English city: The assemblage of everyday encounter

Focusing on the “small stories” of everyday embodied encounter with place, this study investigates how sense of place manifests itself amongst residents of a northern English city. The study employs map drawing and “go-along” interviews and the paper presents data from a sample of these. The study draws on the assemblage thinking of Deleuze and Guattari to elaborate a concept of sense of place as assemblage with three dimensions: the affective / sensorial, the temporal / mnemonic, and the political. Sense of place, seen as an opening up of oneself to the potentiality of the encounter with space, is characterised as a disrupting concept. The paper considers the implications of the research for how residents might be engaged more effectively in future debates about the city’s development.