Geographies in writing: re-imagining place
Päivi Kymäläinen
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Abstract
Place is one of the most important concepts in human geography. In recent years, it has become necessary to re-evaluate the idea of place in order to use it in changing social, cultural and political situations. Different methodologies have contributed to this rethinking of place. Poststructuralist thinking is one of these approaches, as it has emphasised textuality and writing. This has promoted seeing places not as stable and bound things, but rather as becoming or ongoing events. This research approaches place as a discursive question, and explores the poststructuralist and postmodern ideas of place in relation to other conceptions. The research questions are the following: 1) What kinds of frames for writing place have there been? 2) How can place be thought of as becoming, process or event, and how are such conceptions reflected in the methods and conditions of writing places? 3) What kinds of textual strategies are used while writing places, and what do these tell about politics in writing? The textuality of place is studied from methodological and conceptual points of view. The material consists of geographical and philosophical texts, through which the limits of writing place have been explored. In addition, there are literal, visual, and architectural texts of urban space, which illustrate different textual strategies in the practices of writing. Close reading of these texts allows place to be approached discursively. The question of method is also reflected throughout the study, as the possibilities for “methods of becoming” in addition to the “methods of being” are thought through. Place has usually been defined in terms of location, human experience, exclusion, or social construction. In poststructuralist thinking, there have been efforts to deconstruct the central role of the subject, the logic of exclusion, and thinking in terms of being. The challenge has been how to think spatially without locating, or without reducing differences into categories, oppositions and binaries. Signification, temporisation, spacing and displacement are examples of themes that have promoted those efforts and problematised the assumed limits of writing places. Promoting the idea of becoming place has not demanded radical changes in textual strategies. The idea of movement has been delivered into the texts for instance by multimodality, undecidability, context-sensitivity, or by thinking beyond the divisions of subject/object or world/text. The effort in the last option lies in writing with places instead of writing about them. This research gives conceptual and methodological tools for thinking place. These can be applied particularly in the fields of cultural geography, urban studies and cultural studies. The reformulation of the question of place in this research may be useful especially in studies in which movements, events and changes of places are of interest, or in which the limits of writing places are studied critically.
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then.proceeds. to.demonstrate.how.students.progressively.develop.an. understanding.of.place..The.intent.here.is.to.build.on.these. ideas.through.discussion.of.a.wide.range.of.thinking.about. place.with.most.examples.chosen.from.Australia.and.the. Asia-Pacific.region. Place.is.a.rich.geographical.concept.that.fires.the. geographical.imagination..Place.is.teased.out.here.by:. examining.theory,.or,.'grand.narratives' ,.as.well.as.stories. that.people.tell.about.place;.the.experience.of.place.which. emphasises.the.connection.between.'being.in.the.world' 1. and.the.sense.of.place.associated.with.living.in.specific.places. (Agnew,.Livingstone.&.Rogers,.1996.370);.and.place.as.a.locus. of.identity.because.people.invest.their.surroundings.with. meaning.and.can.develop.a.sense.of.place.(367). Places and Place Firstly,.it.is.necessary.to.differentiate.between.places.and. place..Places.occupy.the.high.ground.in.many.primary.school. geographies.and.have.taken.up.much.desk.space.in.high. school.geographies.. Glacken.spoke.evocatively.about.places,.'In.1937.I.spent. eleven.months.travelling.in.many.parts.of.the.world..The. yellow.dust.clouds.high.over.Peking,.the.dredged.pond.mud. along.the.Yangtze,.the.monkeys.swinging.from.tree.to.tree. at.Angkor.Vat,.a.primitive.water-lifting.apparatus.near.Cairo,. the.Mediterranean.promenade,.the.goat.curd.and.the.carob. of.Cyprus,.the.site.of.Athens.and.the.dryness.of.Greece,.the. shrubs,.the.coves,.the.hamlets,.and.the.deforestation.of. the.Eastern.Mediterranean,.the.shepherds.of.the.Caucuses,. the.swinging.swords.of.Central.Asians.in.the.markets.of. Ordzhonikidze,.the.quiet.farms.of.Swedish.Skane.-.these.and. many.other.observations.made.me.realise.as.part.of.my.being. the.commonplace.truth.that.there.is.a.great.diversity.both.of. human.cultures.and.of.the.physical.environments.in.which. they.live' .(Glacken,.1967)..
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