Place from within place

Suggesting that the meaning fueling place can emerge from a host of sources, including those not directly related to the location or to the observer in that location, widens things to an extent that any sort of rational description seems implausible.

But I suspect there may be a way through, a path towards a viable consideration of place and all it encapsulates. It comes from a deeper consideration of that idea that the meaning attributed to a location is ultimately personal, even if it can also source from something externally generated.

This then raises some interesting questions.  Would these two types of meaning conjure different senses of place for the same location? And is the sense of place that results from directly personal meaning inherently more powerful?

It’s worth taking a moment firstly to acknowledge that externally generated influences can legitimately contribute to sense of place. In fact in my experience it is not uncommon. And more specifically, place-defining meaning I’ve found can arise in the absence of any personal experience with a given location. Again, this has been the case for me more than once.

I’ve seen locations depicted in the news, online, as part of a television program for instance, that distinctly conveyed a sense of that place for me, established a meaningful connection on some level, with the landscape portrayed. This despite having never been there or even knowing anything really about that location other than what the media outlet was, at that moment, offering up to me.

But it’s been just as clear to me that knowledge alone doesn’t typically generate the necessary level of meaning, of connection.  For all of the senses of place I’ve experienced via external media inputs for instance, there were many more locations I’ve seen portrayed in that manner, even when wrapped in a rich accompaniment of engaging information, that remained nothing more than, well, locations. Thanks to the media outlet I may have possessed a wealth of knowledge about that physical location, and that may have satisfied a part of my rational mind, but it did not conjure a sense of place.

So there is something triggering a sense of place for me for some externally presented landscapes, but not others. Beyond attributing that to some subconscious connection, which in fact arguably makes these senses of place internally and personally sourced rather than truly external, I’ve remained at a loss to explain them.

But it is here that I gained some insight. For in considering them more closely and honestly, I understood that these externally sourced senses of place, even if they had some sort of connection to something personally significant to me, still did not really measure up to those I experienced when present in the location itself. In other words, even the most tangible sense of place arising from an external depiction of a location could not quite equal the visceral sense of place that possessed me at times when standing within a physical landscape.

I don’t know that I’m prepared to lay it down as a requirement, as some sort of rule, but based on my experience I can’t deny that the most genuine sense of place apparently demands in situ connection to express itself fully and to its greatest potential.

Place it would seem is best sensed from within that place.

A personal example may help to illustrate this. I’ve chosen this one because it represents a particularly powerful sense of place for me, indeed one that I can still feel, thirty years and many life experiences later.

But I highlight it also because it is an example of in situ sense of place for a landscape with which I had no direct personal connection, a landscape I had never visited or seen before that day. So it certainly wasn’t any deep knowledge or memory or other purely cerebral catalyst that triggered things. Like many I had some prior knowledge of historical events relevant for this landscape, but it was simply rational understanding for me, little else.

It was in fact the being there, that more than anything prompted my strongly felt sense of place.

The landscape in question was that associated with what was then called Custer Battlefield National Monument, in southeastern Montana, in the United States. I passed through there in the crux of the summer of 1984, during a cross-country road trip.

As national monuments go, it was a fairly small and decidedly nondescript one, a diminutive speck situated amongst the endless rolling prairie and vistas of the Crow Reservation lands and in the heart of the aptly named Big Sky Country. It did have the advantage of proximity to Interstate 90, along which I was travelling west from South Dakota at the time, and I was likely drawn off that particular exit by one of those familiar brown information signs that always seemed to pique my interest when travelling in the US.

I think to properly uncover this sense of place there are some personal settings of relevance and worth noting at this point.

First, the trip that summer was in every sense a striking out on a new life for me. I was on my way to Oregon to relocate myself there and give it a go. In that sense everything on that journey was understandably more vivid, more present, for me. I was genuinely on my own, literally driving into the unknown, but because of that also possessed with a strong sense of purpose, of mission. This I knew was exactly where I was meant to be.

The drive was also designed specifically to cross the length of the northern Great Plains, and allow exploration of a region that had long represented an intriguing blank spot on my personal map. It did not disappoint. It was in fact the defining portion of that long trip across the US, affecting me in profound ways.

Lastly, though my knowledge of the events at Little Bighorn, so-called Custer’s Last Stand, was elemental, the product of history taught every school child in the US, the battle as both a decisive victory for the local tribes and the start of the demise of their cultural dominance in the region was particularly intriguing to me. Within this part of the US, moreover, evidence of native cultures and histories was much more prominent than anything I had experienced growing up on the East Coast and I was eager to absorb as much as I could. I was also at this stage of my travels fresh off a particularly meaningful visit to the Black Hills.

So in terms of the results of that summer’s day, maybe these personal factors all served to set me up, as it were, to prime me for a unique experience with place.

But it unequivocally took the experience of being there, in the thick heat of summer, with the distinct smell of the land, the steady breeze constantly changing the color and textures of the grasses on the folded hills stretching out in every direction, to bring it all together. It took the fact that I had the grounds nearly to myself that afternoon and spent my time in the resulting profundity of the silence, walking the trails to the small markers where prominent native participants, Custer’s men and he himself had fallen on that day one hundred and eight years prior. My reaction I was noticing was becoming more emotional, spiritual rather than intellectual, as would normally be the case when visiting an historical site like this.

The location that day was generating a powerfully reflective and contemplative disposition and it seemed to grow stronger the longer I stayed on the site. It was only to become even more prevalent.

Some distance from the visitor information center, near a small cluster of trees, stood two large white canvas tipis. A small homage I imagined to the native participants in the battle that day, at a national monument clearly designed to highlight the stories of Custer and the men of the 7^th Cavalry Regiment.

Whilst deciding which one to look inside, or if that was even an option, a tourist couple emerged from one of the tipis, bidding goodbye to someone inside, so I decided to follow their lead. Lifting the door flap I entered the tipi and immediately noticed a welcome drop in temperature, the shape of the tipi creating a natural chimney effect on the hot air of the afternoon. The ground was covered thick with animal hides and I was immediately invited to sit and then offered from a plastic bag something in the way of a local plant trail mix by a young man seated on the ground.

I spent the better part of the next hour speaking with this man, who was Cheyenne and who confirmed he was indeed the sole source of the Native American perspective offered by the monument. We spoke about the history, the battle, from the Cheyenne and Lakota and Arapaho perspective I’m sure, but we also spoke of a lot of things I recall, letting the conversation wander where it would in the warmth and quiet of a lazy afternoon. I was affected by his natural sense of calm, especially as concerned the battle. He was gracious in the way he shared his knowledge and enthusiastically presented his people’s perspective, but noticeably absent of any sort of personal agenda. He seemed sincerely interested in telling me his story and likewise in hearing my own.

Eventually I left his company and the tipi, emerging back into the heat of the late afternoon, changed somehow, with heightened awareness at the very least. Spending a last few minutes in this landscape, looking out over the grasslands and network of twisting coulees in the late afternoon light, contemplating it all in a new way, I was overcome with what I would now describe as a sense of place.

Importantly in this instance, I was absorbing that sense directly from the sights, sounds and smells around me while empowered with the understanding and emotional sensitivity I had gained from my walk on the hillsides and my time with the young man in the tipi. It may very well have been a combination of factors that brought this sense of place upon me just then, including to some extent the state I myself contributed to that particular point along my journey west, but it was my physical presence in the landscape that made it resonate.

In that moment, standing firmly on that hillside and open fully to the experience, I was seamlessly aligned with my context.

Characterising connections

Considering this idea of properly defining place it seems to me that the very simple definition I’ve proposed, involving the joining of location with meaning, itself necessarily suggests a personalisation of landscape.

Linking the personal to natural landscapes then emerges as a potentially key concept within this broader characterisation.

But there are complications wrapped up in this idea (and with something as ethereal as sense of place I suspect there always will be). For there exist I’m certain plenty of examples of locations that resonate with rich meaning despite having no obvious or clear personal connection to the subject observer, but rather draw their significance from a host of externally situated sources.

A sense of place might arise, for example, from a purely intellectual understanding of the history associated with a location, a history that might have much more relevance to others for whom it is particularly significant.

Meaning might likewise arise from a particular condition of the natural environment, existing outside the influence of the observer. The power of winter storms on a rocky stretch of coast, or the drone of cicadas in the heat of a summer afternoon, or the just perceptible touch of a breeze in the waning light of a desert evening, might trigger sense of place. The particulars of these environmental phenomena could be considered no more than products of the perceptive capabilities of the observer.  But the point is that they source externally and as part of the inherent identity of the physical location do not require any previous linkages to the personal experience of that observer to contribute to a sense of place.

Place meaning might generate from something else altogether, something intangible, something arising from an unknown or unidentifiable source, but no less real in its contribution.

I’ve experienced this on more than one occasion, arriving at a location only to be struck by the overpowering sense of place, despite having never been there before, having no connection with the location, nor any genuine intellectual understanding of it. That sense might indeed have been triggered by the physical conditions or perhaps some unconscious understanding of the geography, or some combination of these factors, but it did not arise from anything I could directly connect to myself at that point in time.

With this in mind it seems to me that personal connection still resonates as a valid component of understanding place, but perhaps it is best considered as an in-the-moment linkage to a location, one that relies to some extent on contributed meaning while helping to spontaneously generate new meaning.

This idea of connections between the individual experiencing place and location is clearly multi-faceted.  There is surely the bringing together on some level of cultural and natural.  And the results can be either persistent, or fleeting and transitory.

Involving as they do a certain amount of investment, to nurture self-awareness for instance, these connections suggest that a certain level of ownership, or perhaps stewardship, is associated with place.   But it is not a custodial role in the traditional sense. In this case the responsibility exists within, on an intensely personal level, such that one is open to the experience of place.

Whether internally or externally generated, the connections serve to undermine the alien-ness of a location, particularly that associated with locations newly experienced.  They bring together in a meaningful way that which is imposed upon us (and which can therefore be considered interpretation) and that which is personally and simply felt.

The myriad of connections wrapped up in place create a highly complex and subtle network of interactions with a location – powerful and obvious, yet often difficult to capture or characterise to any sort of satisfying degree.

A personal example, along with some associated imagery, might help unwrap this a bit. About two years ago I took a week’s holiday with my daughters to Kaikoura, on the east coast of the South Island here in New Zealand.

One day was devoted to exploring the Kaikoura Peninsula, which was completely new to all of us at the time. I had heard tell about its natural beauty but in New Zealand that’s like claiming the ocean is wet, so that knowledge in itself did not generate any significant meaning on a personal level. And while I did conduct my obligatory map research as a good geographer is wont to do, I set out with nothing really in the way of preconceived notions.

What resulted and what persists to this day is a particularly strong sense of place. I can’t ascribe that to any one factor or condition, but suspect it resulted from an intricate interlacing of several influences which reinforced the subsequent establishment of personal connection.

The initial trigger, as it often is for me, was indeed the natural aesthetic of that landscape. I suspect there are few places in the world like that peninsula, encapsulating the vistas out to sea, the intricate rocks and turquoise blue waters of the shoreline, the variety of unique native vegetation, the abundance of native wildlife from sea birds to fur seals and the striking proximity of massive snow covered peaks as backdrop. The response was unsurprisingly emotional, visceral.

Admittedly the physical geographer in me surfaced before too long, thinking about the landscape, why it looked the way it did, how it came to be.

Superimposed on all of this was an interesting multi-layering of culture, spanning time and nudging at my intellectual self:

• Representing the current was an obvious focus on tourism, expressed as coastal access roads, parking areas, interpretive and instructional signage, maintained walkways and other structures, all specifically designed to support the visitor. Though all represented components of the present-day cultural landscape, the purpose of this infrastructure was primarily a promotion and celebration of the natural, especially the foreshore environment and local marine life. And it was effective, allowing close and to my experience unprecedented access to the peninsula’s iconic wildlife.
• The near past was reflected in the collections of historic structures sprinkled along the coast on the northern edge of the peninsula, remnants of early pākehā settlers. Some lay in disrepair or as little more than indicative fragments being slowly consumed by the sea, while others were carefully resorted and served as museums or functioning establishments.
• And then there were the signs of the deeper past, more subtle and requiring a keen eye. The most evident were the grass-covered terraces of several Māori pa sites, winding about the close hills in concentric rings.

All of these influences arose from the location itself and, other than stimulating within me a consideration of the physical and cultural geography, had in and of themselves no direct connection to anything of personal meaning.

Yet that day remains clear to me even now, principally because of the strong sense of place I experienced and carried with me. The ambient conditions surely had their role to play, but it was more the resultant connection I felt in that moment that resulted in a powerful awareness of place.

And woven into all that sourced from the location itself was a deeply held appreciation of the precious time with my daughters.  Drawing no doubt from their own youthful sense of that place, their unbridled joy rather than any conscious awareness of the local culture, history, or the telling nuances of the physical geography, my own experience was re-shaped and gifted with additional layers of meaning. In their presence I always engage places in new ways and this day was no exception.

I drew from the experience of my two children but ultimately filtered everything associated with that location on that day through my own perceptions, to generate personal meaning. Always conscious of how fleeting are such times with the girls in their youth, days spent together like that one on the Kaikoura Peninsula are often a mix of delight and melancholy. In this case that mingling of emotions fuelled my awareness, created a genuine connection for me and shaped the sense of place that was to persist.

A particular photograph, taken in the moment on that day, sums it up for me.

This is my sense of that place.

Definitions

There is a need to formally start this commentary somewhere and it seems appropriate to begin with definitions.  How then to define place?

It’s no easy task I’ve found, but one can certainly start with the tried and true. Dictionary definitions.

Here are a few, randomly collected online:

• “a particular position, point, or area in space; a location”
• “a portion of space designated or available for or being used by someone”
• “a specific area or region of the world: a particular city, country, etc.”

All of these seem to have a common theme – that of particularity, defining a physical area, conjuring specificity. They appear to contain space within a particular boundary so that it can be thought of, and properly described, as a place.

Uniqueness in location is certainly a component of place, but it’s not sufficient in itself. I’m after an understanding of the idea and experience of something as place more generally, not necessarily what makes a place.

Wikipedia digs a little deeper in describing geographic place in particular as: “an area with definite or indefinite boundaries or a portion of space which has a name in an area.” The use now of indefinite as a descriptor for place boundaries is intriguing and following the associated link, one is directed to a new page no longer on place, but on location.

While place and location are used interchangeably in geography (are they?), location is more certain, it is explained, as place “…often indicates an entity with an ambiguous boundary, relying more on human/social attributes of place identity and sense of place than on geometry.”

Not sure I subscribe wholeheartedly to that particular distinction of location and place, but it does seem that now we’re getting somewhere with the introduction of the terms place identity and sense of place. It’s in such ideas I think where there is more meaningful content to be harvested.

These terms link to additional posts that go into some detail about what sense of place might mean, particularly from the perspective of those studying such things: geographers, urban planners, landscape architects, ecological sociologists (wasn’t even aware there was such a field of study) and the like. I’m happy to see specific mention of Yi-Fu Tuan, my go-to geographer in the literature when researching my Master’s thesis those many years ago.

As promising as these definitions might be, my sense is they will never quite hit the mark precisely for me personally. Place is a powerfully personal phenomenon, so it makes sense to me that relevant definitions, if they can be properly articulated at all, are likewise going to be highly individualised.

When I have ventured into that territory in the past, I preferred to keep it simple (and draw I’m guessing from a background in mathematical logic):

place = location + meaning

Surely an oversimplification of a highly complex concept. But my experience has taught me that complex ideas are typically, in the end, best characterised by the simplest of expressions.

It was certainly the case here. After considering the idea of place for such a long time, reading much that has been written about it, listening to many who have discussed it, the most palatable definition always came back to those two components.

Location and meaning.

Location, a physical space of some kind. And meaning, an element, highly personalised, that imbued the location with something more, something significant, something that stimulated reaction, emotion, comfort, familiarity, awe…something.

That’s it really. I never saw much value in taking it further than that. There was never much return on such an investment. I was never convinced that attempts at adding more complexity to that definition amounted to anything beyond academic exercises, or even worse, creating words just because more words seemed more correct.

Place to me is inherently simple. Maybe because it is built into us at a foundational level.

I’m certainly no expert in the field, but it seems to me an awareness of place is perhaps the very first sense we develop. At birth, particularly as highly visual creatures, we immediately start to develop some sort of comprehension, in whatever way we as newborn infants do such things, of our very new surroundings. But more than that, we consider what they mean to us, why they are significant to us. It’s likely this is on a very elemental level, having to do with binary states of comfort or discomfort, but nonetheless it is a rudimentary sense of place.

And it is something that stays with us, growing more nuanced as we age and gain more knowledge and experience. It is hard-wired so to speak and whether we realise it or not, something that will influence us in profound ways throughout our lives.

This is why I am motivated to consider it, to try to understand it, if not fully, better at least.

That linkage to visual inputs is critically important I believe to place and our awareness of it. It is a starting point maybe, a trigger perhaps, a door into the realms of deeper meaning, but it is no less vital in that catalytic role.

This is one of the reasons I’ve been intrigued by the connections between photography and place. Or better, why, though never pursuing it as a profession, I’ve always been drawn to photography on a very powerful level. Few things can move me in the way some photographs can, and if I’m being truthful it is often the successful presentation of place that is the culprit.

While photographs of physical landscapes are the obvious examples, interestingly I’ve found there is no true limitation in subject matter. I enjoy the portrayal of patterns for instance, and a photograph of a pattern, natural or otherwise, where the source elements of that pattern are either unidentifiable or so generic as to be commonly located anywhere, can still summon place for me. For though I may not be able to precisely identify or situate it, I intrinsically understand that pattern existed at a particular location at a particular time. Or it might in fact generate a connection to a similar pattern I experienced at a wholly different time and location.

In either case the photograph is encapsulating meaning for me that has linkages to specific locations. And it achieves this by either uncovering a held sense of place or creating a new one.

And that begins to highlight the complexity of attempts to define place. For not only can it concern itself with what is right in front of you, but it can in fact weave itself into your memory and consciousness and convey meaning and conjure reaction from a distinctly different set of circumstances.

In the end it is the experience of it that matters.  And there’s nothing much to gain in trying to formally define that.