Concept of place

• Define the concept of place:

  • space is one dimensional and only physical landscape
  • Masey > place created when physical attributes, emotional connections, psychological perceptions combined to create individual meaning and value > multi-layered and subjective
• How geographers see aspects of place - after Agnew (1987)


  1. Location > defines species place e.g. grid reference > positivist
  2. Locale - the material setting for social relationships, or the 'actual shape of a place within which people conduct their lives as individuals' > combination of social processes that occur within a location to give it meaning. > social constructionist
  3. Sense of place - reflects subjective and emotional attachment people have to place, When there is an attachment between person and place due to lived experience, a sense of place develops
• EXAMPLE: Glastonbury > location:

  • country in Somerset
  • located 23 miles S of Bristol
  • at a dry point on low-lying somerset levels
• EXAMPLE: Glastonbury > Locale

  • own unique character
  • Glastonbury Abbey and Glastonbury Tor
  • religious, historical, mythical
  • walking routes
  • claimed King Arthur buried among Abbey ruins
• What does the holistic definition of place mean?

  • the physical, social, economic, cultural, historical and political influences as well as the behaviours and perceptions of users and what the community needs and aspirations are, now and for the future
• Theoretical approaches to place:

  • descriptive approach > the world is a set of places and each place can be studied as distinct e.g. what it is like > e.g. physical, human geography
  • Social constructionist approach > a place is a set of social processes occurring at a certain time e.g. Trafalgar Square in London was built to commemorate a naval victory > understood as a place of empire or colonialism
  • Phenomenological approach > interest in how a person experiences a place > personal attachments
• Meaning of place:

  • a place is just a space but with meaning
  • people form attachments to places through lived experience
  • attachments can be negative > topophobia > or positive > topophilia
  • Tuan > our attachment, experience and understanding of places increases as we age
  • attachments can also be formed to places via perception from the media or others experiences so can be attached to a place you've never been to e.g. in books
  • combo of lived experience and perception is called 'place perspective'
• EXAMPLE: Brick Lane, London > place with multiple identities:

  Brick Lane in East London has had multiple identities over time.

  • In the eighteenth century, it was a haven for persecuted French Huguenots from Europe
  • In the nineteenth century, Eastern European Jews came to the area fleeing massacre but by the 1930s they had left the area for areas like Golders Green and Hendon
  •  In the twentieth century, Muslims from Bangladesh came to the area and gave it yet another identity.