Interpretations of "Place" in place-based social policy

How can the concept of place help to frame ways of facilitating inclusion in local living? I consider this question, first outlining the limited ways in which place has largely been understood in Australian social policy - in policy-thinking that sees place as a container for disadvantage, or in policy-thinking that identifies locations as advantaged or disadvantaged by the infrastructure they have. The paper then discusses more recent conceptualisations of place that may provide new avenues for social policy that is concerned to facilitate inclusion. More recent views of place see it as produced rather than imposed; this ‘production’ of place is in fact done by encounters between people in the contexts and environments in which they live together. Inclusion is participation in the forms of ongoing encounter that constitute a place. To facilitate inclusion thus requires identifying those encounters or interactions that make a place that is positive and welcoming in a local area, and seeking to facilitate these encounters so that they can be participated in by people, across their differences.