Journal of Environmental Psychology 24 (2004) 455–473 Dislocating identity: Desegregation and the transformation of place John Dixon a,Ã , Kevin Durrheim b a Department of Psychology, University of Lancaster LA1 4YF, UK b School of Psychology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa Available online 14 November 2004 Abstract Whatever other changes it engenders, desegregation invariably produces a re-organization of space and place, a fact whose implications the psychological literature on the process has generally disregarded. The present article begins to address this gap. Drawing on research on place–identity processes, we argue that desegregation may alter not only the relationship between self and other, but also the relationship between self and place. As such, it may be experienced as a form of dislocation: an event that undermines shared constructions of place and the forms of located subjectivity they sustain. In order to develop this idea, we analyse a series of interviews conducted with holiday-makers on a formerly white but now multiracial beach in South Africa. The analysis demonstrates how white respondents’ stories of desegregation evince an abiding concern with the loss of place, manifest in terms of an erosion of a sense of place belonging, attachment and familiarity and an undermining of the beach’s capacity to act as a restorative environment of the self. The implications of such accounts for understanding personal and ideological resistance to desegregation are explored. The paper concludes by arguing that this problem provides an opportunity to conjoin environmental and social psychological work. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The issue of desegregation has preoccupied social psychologists for several decades, yielding two closely related traditions of inquiry. The first has been concerned with measuring attitudes towards the deseg- regation in contexts as diverse as neighbourhoods, housing projects, schools, universities, churches, indus- try, and the armed forces (Clark, 1953; Ashmore, 1954; Greely & Sheatsley, 1971). From its outset, such work pursued the goal of advocacy as much as description. Seeking to promote racial integration, psychologists surveyed social attitudes to desegregation in order to discover the conditions under which ordinary people tend to embrace or reject its implementation. As it turned out, the lived experience of desegregation in itself proved to be an important determinant of attitudes, for as Clark (1953, p. 59) anticipated in his influential summary of the early evidence, ‘‘ywhen desegregation takes place it is generally evaluated, even by those who were initially sceptical, as successful and is seen as increasing rather than decreasing social stability.’’ The second, and more substantial, tradition of work on desegregation has been conducted under the rubric of the contact hypothesis: the idea that regular interaction between groups tends to reduce prejudice and is therefore a precondition for a more tolerant society. Building on Allport’s (1954) classic summary, genera- tions of researchers have studied how, when and why contact produces this kind of social psychological change. The emerging consensus is that it works primarily by decreasing intergroup anxiety, increasing perceptions of outgroup variability, and building more positive emotional responses to others (cf. Pettigrew, 1998; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2000). However, these consequences tend to occur only if contact unfolds under facilitating conditions. Notably, it should be cooperative, institutionally supported, and geared ARTICLE IN PRESS www.elsevier.com/locate/yjevp 0272-4944/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2004.09.004 Ã Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1524 593 829; fax: +44 1524 65 201. E-mail address: j.a.dixon1@lancaster.ac.uk (J. Dixon).