MALIBU, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy presents a two-day conference to examine one’s sense of “place” Friday, Mar. 11, and Saturday, Mar. 12. Titled “A Place in the World: Geography, Identity, and Civic Engagement in Modern America,” panelists will consider place as a necessary condition for the construction of character, citizenship, and membership in society. Events will take place in the Drescher Graduate Campus Auditorium on Pepperdine’s Malibu Campus.
Participating speakers include city managers and geographers, planners and historians, activists and policy makers. The sessions will explore complex themes such as “Mobility and Membership,” “Cosmopolitanism and Place,” “Place and Community in Tomorrow’s Cities and Neighborhoods,” “Building a Place: The Shape and Scale of the Good Life,” “The Public’s Role in Defining Place,” and “Public Engagement: A Chance to Build Community in the ‘New Normal.’”
“The sense of belonging to a ‘place’ is very important for people to be able to engage well with those around them,” explains program co-director and School of Public Policy professor Ted McAllister. “It allows them to find out who they are and understand the sources of their identity and therefore what purposes they have in life.”
Friday’s schedule will conclude with a dinner and keynote address by Yi-Fu Tuan, the J. K. Wright and Vilas professor emeritus of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He will discuss “Place/Space, Ethnicity/Cosmos: How to be More Fully Human.” On Saturday, award-winning poet and former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia will present a lecture titled, “Is Los Angeles a Place?”
Other discussions will emphasize the importance of rootedness in good citizenship and being capable of engaging in the political and policy process. “Without good places, we would not have good citizens,” asserts McAllister. “If we don’t tend carefully to how we make and preserve ‘place’ or don’t think about all those questions that help create a sense of belonging and connectedness, then we can’t really expect democracy to work.”
The aim of the conference is to allow participants to think critically about current local and practical questions and problems by encouraging the integration of theory and practice in the same conversation. “In some ways, the conference is how the School of Public Policy approaches policy in the context of much broader concerns about history and the constituent elements for human flourishing,” remarks McAllister. “We live in an age of great insecurity,” he continues. “With the vast and incomprehensible economic forces of global capitalism and with an ever greater distance between individuals and the forces that control their lives, many people yearn for a stronger attachment to place and they want their places to be scaled so as to make their world explicable. When we try to turn space into place and when we engage actively in place-making, we express our need for home—a safe and secure place to be and become.”
For registration information call (310) 506-7490 or visit: http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/news-events/events/2011/a-place-in-the-world/