Concept of Place (AQA A Level Geography)

Meaning of Place

• Geographers define place as space plus meaning.

  • Consider your school sports hall, it is a space that can be many places depending on the meaning it is given.  It can be a sports final venue, exam hall, or party location

• People form attachments to places through lived experience 

• Attachments can be negative - topophobia - or positive - topophilia -  and are determined by the strength of the experience 

• Yi-Fu Tuan proposed that our attachment, experience and understanding of places increase as we age

• People can also form attachments to places through perception gained from media or hearing the experiences of others 

• This engagement with places comes from books, television, film and the personal history of others

• It is possible to be attached to a place you have never been to

• The combination of lived experience and perception of place is called ‘place perspective’

Identity and place

• Our attachment to a place and the sense of meaning that we attribute to it may become a significant part of our identity:

  • Localism: Is a preference for the place closest to you

  • Regionalism: Identification with a distinct region - a person may describe themselves as 'Cornish' rather than 'English'

  • Nationalism: Often described as patriotism

  • Globalism: People who refer to themselves as global citizens

Defining Place and Identity

• Place = space + meaning 

• The three ways to think about how to define place are location, locale and sense of place

• Location refers to a place on a map, it is a positivist way of defining place. 

• Locale refers to the combination of social processes that occur within a location to give it meaning.  This is a social constructionist view 

• When there is an attachment between person and place due to lived experience, a sense of place develops 

• Sense of place can also refer to the distinctive or unique character of a place

• The experiences and attachments people have to different places play a key factor in place identity

• In order for a place to have a unique identity it must have meaning, activities and a distinctive physical setting 

• Places will often have multiple identities

  • Brick Lane in East London has had multiple identities over time.  In the eighteenth century, it was a haven for persecuted French Huguenots from Europe.  In the nineteenth century, Eastern European Jews came to the area fleeing massacre but by the 1930s they had left the area for areas like Golders Green and Hendon.  In the twentieth century, Muslims from Bangladesh came to the area and gave it yet another identity. 

  • Many buildings in the area reflect these multiple identities over time, the Brick Lane Mosque has been a synagogue and church throughout its history. 

  • Many areas have multiple identities at the same time due to a range of immigrant communities coexisting.  The UK’s second city, Birmingham, is extremely culturally diverse. Birmingham has more than 100 balti houses in the city’s famous Balti Triangle but there are also cuisines available from 27 other countries, showing the multiple layers of cultural identity in the city.

• Places and attachments to them are also incredibly important for many people’s personal identities

Placelessness

• Some places, such as airports, experience placelessness 

• Relph (1976) argued that placelessness is:

• Globalisation has made many places look very similar, creating clone towns and spreading the experience of placelessness