Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience

Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (2002 [1977])
By Yi-Fu Tuan

Synopsis: This book takes a humanistic approach to space and place, noting that "how the human person, who is animal, fantasist, and computer combined, experiences and understands the world is the central theme of this book" (5). It contains chapters dealing with the experiential perspective, body and spatial relations, the child and space/place, crowding and spaciousness, mythical space and place, architectural space and awareness, spatial ability, time, intimate experiences of place, attachments to homeland, and visibility. [As usual, his style is very poetic and flowy, and though it does contain many great stand-alone lines, I always feel like there isn't anything to do with his work.] His main argument seems to be: "Place is security; space is freedom: we are attached to the one and long for the other" (3). This book is very focused on the ways humans experience space/place - both how they negotiate their way in it and how they infuse it with meaning - though of course cultural influences are ever-present and infuse all negotiations with space/place. Tuan is concerned with the mystical and meaning-infused elements of place - i.e. the sacred meaning of certain directions (or lack of meaning - as in modern U.S.). My favorite part here is the use of symbolism to give people of a nation-state a sense of meaningful coherence. "Place is an organized world of meaning" (179). There is an overall mystical sense to his writing.

Interacts With:

This book supposedly helped establish the field of human geography.
Still not sure how this explicitly connects to everything, though it apparently does. Obviously connects to the anthologies in praise of him.

Place: A Short Introduction

Place: A Short Introduction (2004)
By Tim Cresswell

Synopsis: The goal of this book is "to scrutinize the concept of place and its centrality to both geography and everyday life," (1) and does this by showing place as a process more than as a static thing. The book then delves into an overview of the major conceptualizations of place, especially as seen through the lens of geography: 1) Defining Place (three human geography concepts: space, place, and landscape - landscape as a way of looking and being outside, while place is a way of being, and being inside; "place" as a concept wasn't big until the 1970s with the rise of humanistic geography founded on phenomenology); 2) The Geneology of Place (place as both object and process; Carl Sauer and the way mid-century geographers focus on "culture areas" and the way groups impact natural habitats; place as in flux and in motion, and some are bothered by that; three ways place is approached: descriptive, social constructionist [how do underlying power forces influence it], and phenomenological [place as connected to ways of being human; the most humanistic geography approach]); 3) Reading 'A Global Sense of Place' (idea that globalization bothered people's sense that place should be about rootedness and authenticity; Doreen Massey argues instead for new conceptualization of place in which it is open and hybrid and flowing - place as process); 4) Working With Place (what to focus on when doing place - such as memory, place identity, what's considered in/out of place). This book is more a synthesis of others' work as opposed to an argument-driven work, but he seems to be arguing for the primacy of "place as process." Says political geographer John Agnew defines place as a meaningful location via 1) location (fixed objective coordinates), 2) locale ("material setting for social relations"), and 3) sense of place ("subjective emotional attachment people have to place") (7). "Place, at a basic level, is space invested with meaning in the context of power" (12).

Interacts With:

All books obsessed with the importance of place/geography:
American Empire (Neil Smith),
Place as a process/a fluid thing, and not as a static entity. This idea connects to regionalism too:
The Middle West (James Shortridge - our concept/mapping of the midwest changes over time to meet present needs, and we keep shifting our definitional location of the midwest to the most rural parts; this shows that we have some kind of need as Americans to have a "heartland" that is rural and agricultural, even if this is no longer the dominant reality of the midwest).
Even books about presentist uses of the past, such as Shadowed Ground
This idea of the fluctuation and fluidity is central to all of the lists; the one thing that's constant in history in change - and we should embrace this. Change is what allows forces and entities to remain alive, relevant, and meaningful.
Doreen Massey with her idea that place is a process [what exactly does that mean though? Just that the realities and identities of place are always in motion?] David Harvey also sees place as a process.
Apparently this book has a great reference/resource section as the final chapter as well.
**This book is really useful - buy!!** Has lots of good definitions.
Idea that we can't exist without place, we need to construct it in order to be human (33).

The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society

The Lure of the Local: Sense of Place in a Multicentered Society (1997)

By Lucy Lippard

Synopsis: Lippard is an art-critic/teacher who's concerned with "The historical narrative as it is written in the landscape or place by the people who live or live there" (7). Mostly, she is advocating for “the possibility of an art boasting stronger contextual ties and audience access” (263); art that arises from the conditions of the place and says something to many people. This is because today local art is “about but not of a place” (283). Art governed by the “place ethic” would be: specific, collaborative, generous and open-ended, appealing, simple and familiar enough to attract people, layered and complex and unfamiliar enough to hold attention, evocative, provocative, and critical (286-87). Overall tone of the book is very activist-oriented, with the view that we need public art so that we can better understand each other and our connections to place. Seems to be advocating a kind of regionalism. Seems to be very influenced by early 1990s "decline of place" trope - esp. Kunstler and Margaret Crawford- hence her belief that place needs to be rescued from its current "homogenization." Tone is also romantic, poetic, personal, and activist.

Interesting Specifics:

“Each time we enter a new place, we become one of the ingredients of an existing hybridity” (6).

“If space is where culture is lived, the place in the result of the union” (10).

The Western world views Nature as something apart from humans – to be held at a distance and in awe, or else “raped.” [This idea connects with Jennifer Price, etc.]

Rebecca Solnit quote: “[Suburbia] seemed to me a voluntary limbo, a condition more like sedation than exile, for exiles know what’s missing” (225).

“If the city has stood for vice, and nature for virtue, then the suburb is morally somewhere in between” (226).

Interacts With:

Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs, Elvis Culture,

Country of Exiles: The Destruction of Place in American Life

Country of Exiles: The Destruction of Place in American Life
By William Leach (1999)

Synopsis: Asks: What is this cast landscape of the temporary doing to us, and how did it come about? Since the 1970s or so there has been an incredible weakening of place in the lives of ordinary people, and the wearing away of this sense of place-connection is dangerous. We've become too obsessed with a freedom from history and freedom from place, and we need to reestablish the importance of place in order to connect to one another and to feel whole. Includes a discussion of transportation and the flow of global goods; yuppies and businessmen have replaced bohemians and the literary "higher goal" types by constructing a bland landscape of the temporary full of extended-stay hotels; Indian casinos (ironic) and gambling places as substitutes for "real" place; universities are more linked to global flow; "new cosmopolitanism" says it's good to not be tied to anything, but Leach says this is bad. Basically, Leach is all about regrounding us in a stronger sense of place and of the local. Says that all great art has arisen from a strong sense of place. Without this, we weaken and fragment as a nation. I think this can be seen as kind of a nostalgic and conservative book - seems like it should have appeared in 1993 and not 1999.

Interacts With:
Lure of the Local, Variation on a Theme Park (not on this list), Celebration Chronicles, Geography of Nowhere (not on list)

Mapping American Culture

Mapping American Culture (1992)

Eds. Wayne Franklin and Michael Steiner

Asks us to reground American studies in place. A compilation largely indebted to the work of Yi-Fu Tuan. Book includes ideas that support American dichotomy of restlessness/mobility and home/rootedness.

Yi-Fu Tuan:

Place and culture are “inextricably intertwined” (29)

Geographers and anthropologists just foreground different things

Humans have a seen to see order and patterns

Humans area unique and isolated, and place and culture “are a salve…for the threatening awareness of being alone in a world that is ultimately unresponsive” (39).

We are basically intensely alone.

Mondale:

Describes the experience of a first-generation migrant from a Tuanian-perspective (54).

“Clustering” as a strategy for those leaving home

Wants someone to further explore the experiences of those who migrate by force or by choice

Schultz:

How do we reconcile the tension immigrants feel between the Old World and the New World?

Rolvaag’s book is infused with a folkloric landscape; “physical landscape as repository of supernatural power” (100).

Question is, to maintain or lessen the culture’s heritage and traditions?

Allen:

Focuses on Southern identity and black gospel culture

How do Southern rural black transplants to urban places maintain a “southern/rural” identity?

Urban/North, Rural/South dichotomy is still strong

Authentic Southerness as backward-looking (129)

Old South as a state of mind that can be transferred to other locales

Souther-style Black religiosity as social capital transportable to new urban situations; used to increase a feeling of connectedness

“Aspects of traditional and modern social identity are simultaneously expressed in public performance, as this community of southern, rural church people strives to bring meaningful order to the northern, secular urban environment they now call home” (133).

Scheese:

*This is a good one*

Connection between mental and physical space

“Because they are alienated, inhabiters and travelers often separate themselves from society and seek transcendence in the natural world.” (143).

Thoreau felt one could not find wildness without unless it exists within.

“What takes place in mental or verbal space is as important as what occurs in physical space” (145).

Meyer:

Writers of 18^th-19^th century sought to mentally possess land as the new settlers had physically; hence such literary tradition “enacts a desire for landscape as both whore and virgin – the eternally possessible and the eternally unpossessed” (154).

Poetic representation as a an act of ownership

Wallace:

Concerned with way “language structures and articulates experiences of place” (170).

Lake Wobegon

What about diff between myth and reality?

Davis:

Landscape photography

Walker Evans and use of photos as vehicles of thick description

Evans’ work as canonization of the Depression-era landscape

FSA project as changing how we viewed landscape; took voice away from those who actually lived the situation

New Topographers as unsympathetic to reality of inhabitants

Postmodern anthro as giving back the insider voice

Bill Owen’s inclusion of quotes as example of polyvocality

AMS scholars should blend technique of photographers and anthropologists

Simon:

Shopping mall as formal garden of today, as gardens represent the ideal society of the time [so consumption is out ideal now???]

The new flaneur has “turned the city back into a place of play” (via consumption) (247)

Hales:

Manhattan Project; all site steeped in Am. Landscape mythology

Labels: Place, Yi-Fu Tuan, photography, appropriation, migration