Institutionalizing Place: Materiality and Meaning in Boston’s North End

Abstract

Microfoundations of institutions are central to constructing place – the interplay of location, meaning, and material form. Since only a few institutional studies bring materiality to the fore to examine the processes of place-making, how material forms interact with people to institutionalize or de-institutionalize the meaning of place remains a black box. Through an inductive and historical study of Boston’s North End neighborhood, the authors show how material practices shaped place-making and institutionalized, or de-institutionalized, the meaning of the North End. When material practices symbolically encoded meanings of diverse audiences into the church, it created resonance and enabled the building’s meanings to withstand environmental change and become institutionalized as part of the North End’s meaning as a place. In contrast, when the material practices restricted meaning to a specific audience, it limited resonance when the environment changed, was more likely to be demolished and, thus, erased rather than institutionalized into the meaning of the North End as a place.

Citation

Jones, C., Lee, J.Y. and Lee, T. (2019), "Institutionalizing Place: Materiality and Meaning in Boston’s North End", Haack, P., Sieweke, J. and Wessel, L. (Ed.) Microfoundations of Institutions (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 65B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 211-239. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X2019000065B016