Abstract
Space and place together define the nature of geography. Spatial analysis or the explanation of spatial organisation is at the forefront of geographical research. Geographers appear to be confident of both the meaning of space and the methods suited to its analysis. The interpretation of spatial elements requires an abstract and objective frame of thought, quantifiable data, and ideally the language of mathematics. Place, like space, lies at the core of geographical discipline. Indeed an Ad Hoc Committee of American geographers (1965, 7) asserted that “the modern science of geography derives its substance from man’s sense of place”. In the geographical literature, place has been given several meanings (Lukermann, 1964; May, 1970). As location, place is one unit among other units to which it is linked by a circulation net; the analysis of location is subsumed under the geographer’s concept and analysis of space. Place, however, has more substance than the word location suggests: it is a unique entity, a ‘special ensemble’ (Lukermann, 1964, p. 70); it has a history and meaning. Place incarnates the experiences and aspirations of a people. Place is not only a fact to be explained in the broader frame of space, but it is also a reality to be clarified and understood from the perspectives of the people who have given it meaning.
Ce n’est pas la distance qui mesure l’éloignement. Le mur d’un jardin de chez nous peut enfermer plus de secrets que le mur de Chine, et l’âme d’une petite fille est mieux protégée par le silence que ne le sont, par l’épaisseur des sables, les oasis sahariennes.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Terre des hommes (1939).
First, I should thank my colleagues at the University of Minnesota for their tolerance — and even encouragement — of the humanistic approach to geography. Minnesota’s benign climate makes it possible for at least twenty flowers (the present size of our faculty) to bloom. Among geographers I owe a special debt to Hildegard Binder Johnson for her knowledge of the European literature, her sympathy (and tea!); and to my former colleague at Toronto, J. A. May, whose training in philosophy enables him to resist, rationally, the doctrine that positivistic science monopolises sense and meaning in human discourse. This particular paper has benefited from the gentle surgery of Ward J. Barrett, Anne Buttimer, J. A. May, Risa Palm, and P. W. Porter; needless to add, I alone am responsible for its remaining warts and heteronomy.
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Tuan, YF. (1979). Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective. In: Gale, S., Olsson, G. (eds) Philosophy in Geography. Theory and Decision Library, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-9394-5_19
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