PLACE OR SPACE?

MAIN IDEAS
Place and space come from two competing visions of what
geography is basically about
Spatial Tradition vs Area Studies Tradition
Spatial laws
Uniqueness of place--

ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: IS THERE AN EROSION

OF PLACE (PEOPLE RELATING TO PLACES)?
Vital importance for human beings to feel sense of belonging
Map grid?
Sense of place --

Sunken Gardens

UNL Campus

Memorial Stadium
Pinnacle Bank
Arena

Farmers Market

Who we are often includes where we are from

ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: IS THERE AN EROSION

OF PLACE (PEOPLE RELATING TO PLACES)?
Place stands for a set of cultural characteristics
Importance of interaction and patterns
Boston driving
How newcomers are socialized to place
Husker red on game day
The result is, place provides an anchor of shared experiences-

Spaces become places as they become time-thickened

ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: IS THERE AN EROSION

OF PLACE (PEOPLE RELATING TO PLACES)
Lived connection forms communities
When we feel alienation, isolation, aloneness
Urban areas often seen as more impersonal spaces
do they dehumanize landscapes or create reassurance of
the familiar in new places? --

ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: IS THERE AN EROSION

OF PLACE (PEOPLE RELATING TO PLACES)
Mistake of early public housing
facilities:
Blandscapes where people indulge
materialist tendencies
Feel less responsibility for the
environment or feel sense of
home? --

HUMANISM, SCIENCE, AND SPIRITUALITY

(AFFECTIVE LINKS OF PEOPLE AND PLACES)
Enlightenment Period and rationalized
science
Separates observer from the landscape
and imposes order
Authority of human reason over nature
Concept preserved in scientific,
technical approaches to
landscape even today
Romantics and the landscape
Painting, literature, art
National Parks

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
End of 19th c. and beginning of 20 th c. strengthened trend for abstract
ideas of space to dominate
Advent of railroad: space could be homogenized into units of
time

Then came telegraph brought near instant communication over

distance this only increased with development of radio and
telephone --

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
Came WWI, created weapons that could kill at mass scale
Enter the machine age
Fordism
Taylorism
Scientism and technology
Rise of suburbs

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
Humans exist in relation to the world around them
Leads to endurance and persistence
Dwelling is one of the essential properties of human
existence
Contrary to scientific approach
What Heidegger describes as being-in-the-world
How does this happen?
Use phenomenology and existentialism to explain --

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
Ideas related to phenomenology and existentialism are complex;
geographers pick out three:
1. Intentionality:

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
Intentionality: Intended Objects and Making Meaning
Things (phenomena) not only exist, they exist at different
levels of meaning can look at this through intent
Football https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8kZP4dRe3w
Places --

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
Ideas related to phenomenology and existentialism are
complex; geographers pick out
three:
1. Intentionality:
2. Essences:
Question: can people
experience places
differently or is the essence
or meaning of a place
universal?
This is where we speak of the geographies of culture . --

TECHNOLOGY AND EXPERIENCE OF SPACE

(PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS)
Ideas related to phenomenology and existentialism are
complex; geographers pick out three:
1. Intentionality:
2. Essences:
3. Embeddedness: --

Intention of this course is to broaden your level of care to more of the world around you