Changing Places

Question 1

what is a place?

Answer 1

A place is a key term used in geography, it is an area that has an emotional meaning and attachment with people while still having a location on a map and human or physical characteristsics.

Question 2

What are the three ascpects to a place?

Answer 2

location- physical point of where a place is on a map with latitude and longitude coordinates.

Locale- settings where everyday life activities or events happen ie. an office, a park or a home. These settings influence social interactions and cultures of inhabitants.

Sense of Place- subjective, emotional attachment to a place which gives it meaning and is developed through experience.

Question 3

What are the three approaches to describe a place?

Answer 3

descriptive- idea that the world is a group of places with each being studied and is distinct

Social Constructionist- The idea that a place is a product of a set of social processes occuring at a particular time- historical or modern

Phenomenological- how a person experiences a place and their relationship with it

Question 4

Whats the difference between topophilia and topophobia?

Answer 4

topophilia- love of a place and having a strong attachment to it

topophobia- dislike of a place (still able to have a strong attachment to it).

Question 5

Talk about the importance of place.

Answer 5

As a newborn baby, the first environment we form an attachment to is a parent and as we grow older, we begin to notice the absence of our primary carer.
Yi-Fu Tuan described the way that our understaning of the environment and our attachment to it expands with age which is parallel with our physical ability to explore. In summary: The attach,emt we have for a place is influenced by the depth of our knowledge and understanding of it.

However, research also shows that our attachment to a place is influenced by the quality or intensity of xperience we have there. So the more enjoyable an experience, the greater degree to which we feel safe in a place and the more attached we feel to it. It becoms home.

Question 6

Talk about how place relates to out identity.

Answer 6

Localism- An affection for or emotional ownership of a small-scale place. It can be demonstrated in nimbyism- when people are relucant to have their local area affected.

Regionalism- Loyalty to a distinct region with a population which share similarities that unify them ie. dialect

Nationalism- loyalty and devotion to a nation which creates a sense of national conciousness. Unifiers include languages and flags

These can be affected by:
- nationality
- politics
- Religion
- Ethnicity