Perceptions of Place

These are some of the differing perceptions of place, and some of the criteria that can be used to create a notion of place through the imagination, or by evaluating past experiences. Each of these factors also considers place through different scales, from personal knowledge and experiences right through to local to global perception/ images; a key factor to bear in mind when examining concepts of place, as thoughts and feelings, as well as actual places can change over time and in space.
One way place can be explored is through the use of examining pictures and evaluating how that place makes people feel, how it may be percieved by others, and what we learn from that place, or feeling of place in a snapshot. Place can also be considered as the concept of how individuals fit into a certain place/ places, their feelings and experiences surrounding that place, and how this feeling fits into the individual's own world (or own 'place').

-Local newspaper
Take a local newspaper and analyse the images it present of the place. Whose identity is presented in the paper? Which groups are represented? Which groups are not represented? Why might this be?
-Clothes and fashion
A person's identity is related to the clothes he or she wears. Where do these clothes come from? With which places in the world is the person's identity linked? Where are the strongest links and why?
-Food
A person's identity is related to the kinds of foods they like to eat. What do pupils like to eat most? Where do these foods come from? To what extent is the food we eat English and to what extent does it come from other countries and cultures? Does this give us a hybrid identity?
-Belonging
Mapping places where they feel they belong (streets, shopping centres, leisure areas, areas in school/school grounds, etc) and areas where they don’t belong. Discussing and explaining own maps A fair view of England - see pages 184-7 of Learning Through Enquiry (Roberts, 2003).
-Local representations of place
On postcards or promotional brochures - how are local places represented? To what extent do I relate to these representations? How would I represent the area differently? Taking photographs to represent the identity of area with digital camera.
-Personal biographies
Of people who have lived in different places: migrants, refugees – and mapping their experience of place.
-Representations of Britain
In tourist brochures, in advertisements, in photographs in geography textbooks - How is the country I live in represented in texts/photographs etc? Do I identify with this country? Do I identify with these images? What images would I select of local/regional/national to include my sense of identity?

http://www.geography.org.uk/projects/valuingplaces/cpdunits/furtheractivities/#953

New ways of exploring Place..

Hi!

hope everyone is ok, this is the next installment of our blog on exploring place and how place is percieved to those who are in certain places, and differnt perspectives looking in on place. The previous blog, along with this one are designed to act as resources, to provide a few varied insights into place, and what place means to everyone.

Hopefully these provide a chance for you make your own minds up, and from a few opinions of your own, on the concept that is Place!! unfortunately we cannot upload the following videos so we have provided some hyperlinks, and a brief outline of what we felt was being portrayed in them, please have a look if you can, any feedback would be welcomed!!

1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/grace-nichols-wherever-i-hang-poem-only/1370.htmlive - Grace Nichols reads her poem 'Wherever I Hang' accompanied by video of high rise flats, graffiti and other urban images that are described through the poem; one person’s sense of her place explained through a poem.

2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/urban-on-urban/1449.html - urban perceptions from people who live in urban environments.

3) http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/a-trip-to-school-in-the-countryside-pt-2-3/4729.html - exploring urban and rural places, from a young persons perspective, as their sense of the place and space around them is changed.

4)http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/google-s-street-view-goes-live-in-the-uk/6995.html - an example of how Google earth and changing technologies can play a part in visualising place, and allow us to be part of other places from where ever we may be.

5)http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/google-s-street-view-goes-live-in-the-uk/6995.html - an example of how Google earth and changing technologies can play a part in visualising place, and allow us to be part of other places from where ever we may be.

Thanks for now

Thoughts to consider...

'.. the significance of place depends on the issue under consideration and the sets of social relationships that are relevant to the issue' (McDowell, 1997: 4)

'The fundamental fact is that...places...become diluted and diffused in the...(new) logic of a space of flows' (Castells, 1996)

'...the significance of place had been reconstituted rather than undermined' (McDowell, 1997)

'People and things are increasingly out of place' (Clifford, 1988)

'...even local identities are completely caught up in a web of global interdependence' (Mitchell, 2000)

'Life chances are materially affected by the lottery of location' (Crang, 1999)

Place

Place is among the most complex geographical ideas. In human geography it has three meanings; a point on the earths surface; the locus of individual and group identity; and the scale of everyday life.

Place has not explicitly been a primary focus for physical geographers, although it has been implicit in much of the development of physical geography for more than a century. The description of place was essential as environments were explored.

In the wake of globalisation there have been renewed challenges to conceptualise place differences and place interdependence, instead of having a notion that different perceptions of place were discrete and singular, the metaphor of switiching points is slowly enabling us to see places, and the concept of place, as unique and connected.

Here is a wordle that we prepared earlier.....with a few terms that relate to place :-)

What is Place?

AIM: We are trying to research the key concept of place, its part in the National Curriculum and what it means to us. This is what will be identified using this blog.

Place is an understanding of the physical and human characteristics of real places, and within education the aim is to develop 'geographical imaginations' of places.

Every place has unique physical and human characteristics which can be interpreted and represented in different ways. Recognising that there are many different perceptions of place is a good starting point as starting enquiries are based on real places.

Feel free to add comments :-)