Cresswell- The Genealogy of Place - part II

The phenomenological geographer Seamon believed in the idea of place related to human mobility. The habitual movements we makes as individuals and the mobility of groups that give place a feeling. "A 'place-ballet' is an evocative metaphor for our experience of place. It suggests that places are performed on a daily basis through people living their everyday life." Moving along with idea of place performance Pred sees place as something always changing and progressing. "Place is what takes place ceaselessly, what contributes to history in a specific context through the creation and utilization of a physical setting" Examples are given that aid the idea of place relying on the action of agents performing repetitively in space. Discussed next was Soja's notion of the 'trialectics of spatiality'. Place divided into a group of three. " Firstspace is the term he uses to describe empirically measurable and mappable phenomena... Secondspace is conceived space - space which is subjective and imagined... Thirdspace is lived space and it interrupts a distinction between perceived space and spatial practices." In the second section, Place Openness and Change, the concept of connected place is touched upon. Cronen tells a narrative of a small Alaskan town, Kennecott and the ideas of connected place were analyzed. Connection between spaces that effects their growth as a place and the connections between the layers of history in a place. In the third section Cresswell looked at the erosion of place. Relph was concerned about the loss of the feeling of places due to modern communication and the ideas of tourism and easy mobility. "Relph connects various forms of increased mobility to what he calls 'mass culture' and mass values which again dilute authentic relations to place." Auge was then introduced with the idea of non-place "sites marked by their transience - the preponderance of mobility". The second half of this chapter ended with a summary concluding that place can be seen at (at least) three levels, a descriptive approach to place, a social constructionist approach to place, and a phenomenological approach to place.