Concept of place

Meaning of place

Geographers define place as space plus meaning.

• The three ways to think about how to define place are location, locale and sense of place

• Location refers to a place on a map,

• Locale refers to the combination of social processes that occur within a location to give it meaning. Takes into account the effect that people have on their setting

• When there is an attachment between person and place due to lived experience, a sense of place develops 

• Sense of place can also refer to the distinctive or unique character of a place

• People form attachments to places through lived experience  

Attachments to place

• People form attachments to places through lived experience 

• Attachments can be negative - topophobia - or positive - topophilia -  and are determined by the strength of the experience 

• Yi-Fu Tuan proposed that our attachment, experience and understanding of places increase as we age

• People can also form attachments to places through perception gained from media or hearing the experiences of others 

• This engagement with places comes from books, television, film and the personal history of others

• It is possible to be attached to a place you have never been to

• The combination of lived experience and perception of place is called ‘place perspective’

Graph showing Relationship between attachment to a place and intensity of experience

Identy and place

• Our attachment to a place and the sense of meaning that we attribute to it may become a significant part of our identity:

  • Localism: Is a preference for the place closest to you

  • Regionalism: Identification with a distinct region

  • Nationalism: Often described as patriotism

  • Globalism: People who refer to themselves as global citizens

Place idenity

• The experiences and attachments people have to different places play a key factor in place identity

• In order for a place to have a unique identity it must have meaning, activities and a distinctive physical setting 

• Places and attachments to them are also incredibly important for many people’s personal identities

Placelessness

Particular landscape that could be anywhere because it lacks uniqueness,

This could occue when global factors have a greater influence on shaping places than local factors

Places like airports

Globalisation has made many places look very similar, creating clone towns and spreading the experience of placelessness

Insider perspective

People who feel like they belong in a certian place and it is their home

fluent in the local language, being born in the place, knowing the customs and norms

• People who have an insider perspective will usually feel safe in a place

  • They have friends/family and connections in the place

Outsider prespective

People can have outsider perspectives if they are not from the area or if they are but do not fit the social norm

• Those with different sexualities or genders, despite being from the place, may feel out of place as they do not fit the social norm 

• Immigrants or those from ethnic minorities will have outsider perspectives as they are not from the area.  Their outsider perspective can turn into social exclusion through their experiences

Social and spatial exclusion

• The place is a social construct which means some people can feel ‘in place’ and some can feel ‘out of place’ 

• Placemaking processes can be used to create spatial inclusion or exclusion 

• Dominant groups create a social norm and those that deviate from this norm can be socially or spatially excluded

• Exclusion from society is feeling out of place/not belonging like homeless

• Spatial aspects can be certaina reas being excluded by society for example gated communities

Places Near & Far

• Near places are those that we consider close to us

• Far places are those that we consider distant 

• This is subjective as in some countries a five-hour drive could constitute a near place whilst that in the UK would be a far place

• People tend to know near places better than far places, though this is changing:

  • Improvements in transport mean people can reach far places more quickly – this is known as time-space compression

  • Technological advances, including the internet mean it is easier to communicate with far places and to experience them

• Perception of people is also affected by whether they are considered near or far

Real or Constructed Places

• Real places are those we have been to or those that exist as a place to visit 

• Another way to think of real places is as those with a distinctive character or identity that has developed over time 

• Constructed places could either be:

  • Imagined places such as Hogwarts or Narnia

Experienced places

• A place where people have spent time and have direct experience of

• One view is that places can only have meaning if directly experienced, allowing people to gain an authentic sense of place

• Genius loci, or 'spirit of place', are the things that make each place unique are only understood by experiencing the place

• Experiencing a place creates emotional attachment and may change previous perceptions

Media places

• Places we have experienced through representations in the media

• These can be through reading, watching on tv or film, seeing on social media or internet

• The widespread use of social media and the internet means we may have experience of many places without ever having visited them

Endogenous and exogenous

• Endogenous-Characteristics which have originated internally

• Exogenous-Characterisitcs which are external and have a relationship to another place

Endogenous factors

• Factors that are internal to a place can affect its character 

• Examples of endogenous factors include physical factors like geology, location and climate 

  • Areas with specific topography and geology will have a specific character 

  • If an area is steep and mountainous settlements village can be quite isolated from other nearby population centres 

Human and physical endogenous factors

Exogenous Factors

• Factors that are external to a place and affect its character 

• These distant factors create a relationship between places and can have a significant influence 

• These factors are typically flows of people, resources, money and ideas 

  • flows of asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa into European states inevitably will impact the character of these places