What is Place? If someone were to ask me this two weeks ago, the only answer I would have had would be "anything" is place and I would have felt like a fool for answering in that way. After reading Cresswell's PLACE, I have come to relize that, that answer isnt entirely wrong. Place can be anything or anywhere, to anyone. Not every place is a place for everyone. One place for me may not mean a thing for you, but everythplace can be a "Place"
To me Place is any givin space that holds a memory or feeling for someone. For example, my house is my Place. I grew up there, Igot hurt there, I had Christmas morning there, I put a hole is the wall there. There are reasons that that home is a place for me. I can associate myself with the walls ground and roof of that house and thats what makes it my place. Now if you take that same house and bring a random person from across the world to it, it is no longer a place. For that random person my place is sjust a space. It is a space with no meaning, no memories, nothing more than a house on a plot of land.
This example of my place is very similar to the example Cresswell gives in PLACE on page 9. On this particular page he talks ab out the native Americans and the settlers of the new world. These two different people had two totally different views on the world that they were both living in at the time. To the settlers the ocean that they crossed was a vast space in the way of the place that was the new land. They saw this new land as a place because of the great wealth that they could gain from it between the lumber and the crops and the gold. For this same reason the settlers saw the ocean as a space, that they recieved no direct benitis from. The Natives on the other hand saw this ocean a a mysterious place that was filled with monsters and obsticals.
This book puts in perspective evrthing that we take for granted in todays world. Place is a thing that can be related to everything and everyone.
I agree with your statement on how you would have described place prior to this class. I, too, would have not been able to give the proper answer I can today on the definition of place.
ReplyDeleteI also stated in my post that home was my place and the place that most people could relate to! Because home has so much meaning and comfort, there is no way that everyone could not consider home as a place or even their own place.
It is absolutely true that a lot is taken for granted with regards to place and more importantly the people in that place. Place wouldn't have any meaning without people. Those who chose to reinvent or change a place is in essence rewriting a persons history.
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