An Assessment of the Relationship between Collective Memory and Place Identity

In the hustle and bustle of the day, the global world order has transformed into areas where people's lives are defined on the axis of living and working. Individuals and societies sustain their lives in an existential struggle in identity-free urban areas with a feeling far from the concept of belonging. The concept of identity basically refers to a concept expressed through people. Place identity defines the perception of identity transmitted to places and living spaces through people. In this context, places and spaces gain identity through the materialization of the emotional accumulation of feelings of belonging, experiences, and memories. This concept is expressed as urban identity through cities and place identity through spaces. Place identity represents the place or accumulation where personal feelings are found in social experience. Therefore, what becomes important here is the concept of memory. Because the images, memories, and accumulations formed in our minds regarding living spaces are all intertwined with a past and form the movement of holding on to life for the future. Emotional ties are decisive at this point, and place identity forms the identity of the place that is fed by the memories and experiences created collectively by the individuals living there. In this research, firstly the literature on the concepts of city and place identity is examined in detail and the concepts of collective memory and place attachment are evaluated on an environmental and spatial basis. The study is essentially presented as a reading and analysis study on the relationship between the concept of place identity and collective memory.