2. How do we understand place?

• A place is somewhere with emotional meaning for a person, whether positive or negative, however a space is an empty geographical space. One person’s place may be someone else’s space and vice versa. These can be impacted by personal, social and attachment emotions/experiences. 
• Factors impacting how people perceive places

  • Gender
  • Religion
  • Age
  • Sexuality
  • Performing roles
• Geography of fear


  Constrains our mental map, impacting how and where we go
• Gender stereotypes


  Constrain driving in Saudi Arabia or lead to gender pay gaps
• Spiritual and cultural connections to places


  Lead us to respect these places
• Age


  Impacts our priorities and how places meet these, as we move through the life cycle
• Sexuality


  Impacts our perception of safety, with certain types preferring 'gay hubs' where they are safe in numbers
• Performing roles


  Influence our actions and degree of care
• Emotional attachment


  Influences how we care and act in an environment
• Levels of emotional attachment


  • Developed through personal, social experiences and attachments
  • Can be positive or negative
• Negative emotional attachment


  • Discourage future visitors
  • Avoid the location
  • Act anti-socially
• No emotional attachment


  Can lead to either being interested or not caring and not paying attention
• Minds


  • Instinctive (unconscious) mind influences behaviour and perceptions
  • Rationally thinking mind takes more time and effort, is logical and indecisive
• Daniel Kahneman research suggests that our minds have an instinctive mind (unconscious) and a rationally thinking mind
• Globalisation and time space compression can impact our perception of places. The ‘three T’s’ of trade, technology and transport are often seen as being the main causes of globalisation: growth of a global village, inter-connected, global spread of wealth, food & goods across continents, increased trade between countries. Globalisation can be economic, social, cultural and political.  
• Time space compression


  The shrinking of the inter-connective distance between countries due to advancements through technology, trade and transport meaning globalisation has created a global village
• Time space compression


  • Has altered our sense of space by:
  • More spaces have become places to us (more familiarity – less exotic or far flung, living in a global village)
  • Globalisation has led to a more homogeneous culture: a loss of differences between cultures; harder to distinguish between places and they feel more familiar. Rise of the clone town
  • The demographics of some places have changed leaving some people due to their perception of a loss of traditional heritage. Loss of 'Britishness' - link to Boston, Lincolnshire case study (Brexit Capital)
  • Some people feel dislocated now in a place that previously felt like home as the culture has changed
  • Some people think that there has been an improvement in their local plans due to globalisation; more exciting/advanced due to economic development including FDI from TNCs
• Informal representations


  Graffiti, TV soaps, literature, photography
• Informal representations


  • Use people's personal and lived experiences to describe what a place is like
  • Can contrast from one another
• Art portrayal of a place


  Can be idyllic positives but only through one perspective
• Photography portrayal of a place

  May be more reliable, capturing a little more reality
• TV portrayal of a place

  • Can sometimes highlight the more negative
  • Zoom in more on the demographic area, focussing on the socio-economic (such as social/culture, e.g drinking cultures)
• Film portrayal of a place

  • Often highlight the physical geography and visual presentation
• TV portrayal of a place


  People are more reflective of place
• Graffiti portrayal of a place


  • Can show a sense of living there, possibly linked to the socio-economic of the area
  • One perspective and not holistic
  • Can be used as an output of anger/discontent
• Formal representations


  Census, Highways England, official crime statistics (police.uk), UN maps/data
• Informal representations


  Google Maps, GIS data
• Census data


  Can highlight the productivity of an area which we can use to compare to others
• Crime data


  Can highlight the causation and reasons behind census data, including social-economic data
• Factual data may not be representative of daily life
• Google Maps


  Can highlight the daily life of Colchester, what is around you and the urban area
• GIS focus on physical geography shows characteristics but cannot show the visual presentation or activity in these areas
• Informal data can often be skewed, possibly with those who had rare bad experiences who overshadow positives meaning it is not holistic
• Informal data is also harder in rural areas, whereas Census is everywhere