Protest, Despair, and Detachment: Reparative Responses to Place Attachment Disruptions During a Pandemic

In Chap. 1, we introduced place as a relational object of attachment. This conceptualization of place allows us to consider what happens when a global pandemic threatens the bonds that people have with places of significance. It also provides a framework for understanding how separation from a place of significance can lead to a reparative process in which people either rebuild their sense of connection to the place of attachment that has been disrupted or replace that attachment bond with an alternative attachment object. Using the framework offered by Counted et al. (2021), this chapter will explore the three theorized response phases—protest, despair, and detachment—that follow place attachment disruption.