The Concept of Cultural Attachment and Its Policy Applications

The concept of cultural attachment is in the vernacular in the Appalachian region of the United States and served to stimulate policy attention to the concept when a 765 kV electric transmission line was proposed through Peters Mountain on the border between Virginia and West Virginia. The environmental impact statement of the U.S. Forest Service examined the extent of cultural attachment in the project area using our social science consulting company, which resulted in a rejection of the line in 1995 and an acceptance in 2002 when the proponent changed routes to avoid communities with high cultural attachment. The concept has been noted and used in several other settings and has evolved into a policy tool that accommodates the three pillars of cultural attachment-attachment to land, to place, and to kinship and social networks. We contend that use of the concept as evolving is an appropriate way to consider "endangered cultures." The use of the concept of cultural attachment in decision making means there is now a track record and precedence that give legal weight to the concept, value to local residents in manifesting their voice, and improved prospects that we can continue to shape life in sustainable and human-affirming ways

Business · Environmental ethics · Kinship · Place attachment · Political science · Public relations · Service (business · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Vernacular · Community Health and Development · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Place Attachment and Urban Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology · Marketing

• Devaluation without Dispossession

  L M Chau•Journal of Contemporary Asia•2026

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• Root Shock

  Mindy Thomson Fullilove, Mindy Thompson Fullilove•Root Shock•2016

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• Symbolic Ties That Bind

  Low, Setha M Low•Place Attachment•1992

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• Space and place

  Steven Hoelscher, Yi-Fu Tuan•Space and place•1977

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• Place Attachment

  Open Access•Low, Irwin Altman et al.•Place Attachment•1992

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• You Have a Culture to Conserve Here, But We Have a Power Line to Stop”

  Melinda Bollar Wagner, Kristen L Hedrick•Practicing Anthropology•2001

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• Indigenous peoples

  Open Access•Marcus Colchester•Environmental Science & Policy•2004

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• A Widow, a Child, and Two Lineages

  Open Access•E D Lowe•American Anthropologist•2002

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