Civil Engineering and Architecture Vol. 13(3), pp. 1941 - 1957
DOI: 10.13189/cea.2025.130336
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Towards the Contextualization of Place Attachment Theory - The Case of Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt

Eman Sherif ^1,2,*, Mohamed A. Salheen ¹, Ahmed Abd Elrahman ¹, Ayat Ismail ^3
1 Department of Urban Design and Urban Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, Egypt
² Department of Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design, Faculty of Engineering, Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport, Egypt
³ Part-time Faculty Member, Department of Architectural Engineering and Environmental Design, Faculty of Engineering, Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport, Egypt

ABSTRACT

For many years, place attachment has been explored from various perspectives resulting with many definitions and approaches. This research works on further understanding the theory of place attachment with focus on the town scale which was barely mentioned in literature. The research also presents an exploration of the context through the lens of place attachment. Dahab, the focus of the empirical section of this research is a small town located in South Sinai in Egypt. Dahab's economy is based on tourism industry and has been recently the focus of development as a strategic plan was published in 2024. This research works on contextualizing the place attachment theory in Dahab, through in-depth semi-structured interviews with the residents and visitors. Factors from literature were used to categorize the information, and then various themes were identified, analyzed, and correlated to one another and to literature. As a result, the paper concludes with a comprehensive understanding of the place and a list of contextualized themes that adds to the understanding of the place attachment theory. Some of the results and relationships adhere to literature and others are new contributions of this study. These results also help in the understanding of Dahab which could aid decision makers and planners in approaching the town. This study explores a small sample of participants hence the results could only contribute to the understanding of place but not to decision making. Yet, the study could take part in designing a contextualized survey to measure the important aspects and characteristics of place that cannot be changed and the unimportant ones that could be change without affecting the users' sense of place. Therefore, future research could work on involving the visitors and residents experience of place attachment within the urban design and development processes.

KEYWORDS
Place Attachment, Sense of Place, Contextualization

Cite This Paper in IEEE or APA Citation Styles
(a). IEEE Format:
[1] Eman Sherif , Mohamed A. Salheen , Ahmed Abd Elrahman , Ayat Ismail , "Towards the Contextualization of Place Attachment Theory - The Case of Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt," Civil Engineering and Architecture, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 1941 - 1957, 2025. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2025.130336.

(b). APA Format:
Eman Sherif , Mohamed A. Salheen , Ahmed Abd Elrahman , Ayat Ismail (2025). Towards the Contextualization of Place Attachment Theory - The Case of Dahab, South Sinai, Egypt. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 13(3), 1941 - 1957. DOI: 10.13189/cea.2025.130336.