Blog #1 -Place
Place is defined as a specific significance to an individual that has meaning to it or a meaning was created by an connection to that place. For example, New York is significant to me because I have never been there and while visiting there it became significant through the people I was with and popular land marks I went to. Also, Helen Georgia means a lot to me because I have an annual family tradition to visit Helen and pick pumpkins in the fall. Picking the pumpkins is not what is meaningful to me but that it is with my family. Therefore, a place is what you make it or what it becomes, but ultimately the connection it brings to you as an individual.The place is defined as a "meaningful location"
I believe the narrative in a place is shaped by our own definition from how we interpret it to be. This interpretation can be positive or negative. Everyone creates their narrative of any place anywhere. An undifferentiated space can become a place because of people's narrative of the place. Before I went to New York, I didn't have a connection with it but then it became a place where I developed a connection. It is different for everyone because everyone has different backgrounds and experiences which then produces different interpretation. These interpretations are not wrong nor right but different, which is a huge part of what America is ... a whole bunch of people with different connections to a place.
The landscape of a place that is shaped by how people see each landscape of a place. It's like the saying, "someone's junk is someone's else treasure." To inhabit a place means that it is a part of you. Maybe you are not next to or around it but you take it with you where ever you go. Like the saying " you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl." There are things that will be with us that a place has had influence in who we are and it can stay there for the rest of our lives. The study of place reveals a part of America. It's not just a place or how people interpret that place, but an essential part of how we can define America. That America means something different to everyone.
I really like your concept of how humans connect a narrative to certain places. You connect your family and pumpkin picking to Helen, Georgia, so every time you think of it some similar images pop into your head. Just like a good speech or book, narratives provide a prime example of solidifying memories - whereas in some cases you may go somewhere for a week or two and not remember it, but you could go out one night and a series of ridiculous happenstance could occur in one area, one place, and that place becomes solidified in your memory by the narrative of that night.
ReplyDeleteYou make a lot of good points and I agree with all of them. Every person does hold some place special that someone else does not. You compared it to the saying "someones junk can be someone elses treasure". I think you hit it right on the head with that comment. My home is a sancuary for me, Its probably a crappy little apartment for you.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to your attachment to Helen, Georgia and your family reunions there. Every year my family has an annual Christmas party in Madison, Georgia at my grandparents house and because I associate Madison with family and Christmas, it makes Madison a meaningful place to me
DeleteI really like how you explained it as inhabiting a place meaning it's a part of you. What can really help to understand place is where you said "you can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl"... this makes so much sense to me as an explaination, but I hadn't put the two together before. Country is a space, made a place by characteristics and meaning associated. Country is as much a part of the girl as the girl is of the country because that is her "place". That was confusing how I just put it, but thanks for helping it make sense to me!
ReplyDeleteYou really made some good points. I liked how you brought up someone else's junk is is another persons treasure. this made me think about how ive always wanted to live in colorado. most people i talk to say they love the state but ive also talked to people that said it is the most depressing place on earth.
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