What is Place?

• Place is conceptualised as a particular location that has acquired a set of meanings and attachments.
• Place is a meaningful site that combines location, locale, and sense of place.
• Location refers to the geographical 'where' of place.
• Locale refers to the material setting for social relations - the way a place looks (the social construct).
• Locale includes the visible and tangible aspects of a place.
• Sense of place refers to the more nebulous meanings associated with a place: the feelings and emotions a place evokes.
• Meanings of place can be individual and based on personal biography (the phenomenological dimension) or they can be shared.
• Shared senses of place are based on mediation and representation, e.g. sets of meanings produced in films, literature, advertising, and other forms of mediation.
• Location becomes place when it becomes meaningful
• 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙏𝙒𝙄𝙉 𝙏𝙊𝙒𝙀𝙍𝙎:

  • had many shared meanings
  • projected American power, the importance of capitalism, phallic masculinity, etc
  • it was not just an attack on material structures but an attack on place - on meaning
  • shows meanings are never fixed
• Places are practiced; people do things in place.
• The sense we get of a place is heavily dependent on the reiteration of mundane, daily practice on a regular basis.
• Space becomes a place when it is used and lived; experience is at heart of what place means.
• The material topography of a place is made by people doing things according to the meanings they might wish a place to evoke.
• Meanings gain a measure of persistence when they are inscribed into the material landscape but are open to contestation by practices that do not conform to the expectations that come with place.
• Practices often do conform to some sense of what is appropriate (social norms) in a particular place and are limited by the affordances particular material structures offer.
• Places are not static or unchanging; they evolve and change over time due to various factors such as migration, urbanization, globalization, and climate change.
• Most agree that a place is a portion of geographical space.
• Places represent change, e.g. layered histories and changing connections.
• Places are not static and their rate of change is accelerated by globalisation.
• Unique landscapes derive from underlying physical geography and society shaping.
• Place "eludes easy definition" (Cresswell)
• Place is complex.
• "Place is security, space is freedom." - Yi Fu Tuan
• "When space has become thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place." - Yi Fu Tuan
• (YI FU TUAN)

  Topophilia - love of place

  Topophobia - hatred of place
• Place can be familiar to outsiders ("not home").
• Place is created from an emotional attachment to or sense of belonging in a space.
• 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓:

  • PERSON: cultural/group (religious, historical); age; sexuality; individual (experience, realisations, milestones); we attach differently because of who we become
  • PLACE: social (social arena, social symbol); physical (natural, built); the place itself can't make people feel marginalised
  • PROCESS: how far we are involved in the network; effect (happiness, pride, love); cognition (memory, knowledge, schemas, meanings); behaviour (proximity maintaining, reconstruction of place)
• What is the importance of locales?

  • each place is made up of a series of locales where everyday life activities take place e.g. home, the park
  • these locales dictate our social interactions and help forge attitudes, values and behaviours
  • naturally, we behave differently in each of these places.
• What is included in the Tripartite Model of Place Attachment?

  • person
  • place
  • process
• What is the person in the TMoPA?

  • who is attached
  • indicates that attachment to place can occur both individually and collectively
• What is the place in TMoPA?

  • what is attached
  • the social relationship that exists within the realm of an individual's significant place
  • the natural and built physical environments can be subjects of person-place bond
• What is the process in TMoPA?

  • how does attachment exist
  • collective effects of effective cognitive and behavioural aspects
• What is place attachment?

  the emotional bond between a person and place
• What is a media place?

  • places we have formed a perception of based on what we see in the media
  • makes the world seem smaller
  • give us a greater understanding of the world
  • to contrast other representations, can we understand a place if we never develop a sense of place there?
• Why do ethnic minorities suffer from exclusion?

  • they feel uncomfortable as they are the minority in an area
  • e.g. Marlborough is 93% white
• Why do homeless people suffer from exclusion?

  • people look down on them and don't want to interact with them
  • infrastructure (e.g. benches) designed so they cannot sleep there
• What is an experienced place?

  • places that people have spent time in
  • when a person visits/lives in a place their experiences shape their sense of that place