"I love PLACENESS, PLACE, PLACELESSNESS | A website by Edward (Ted) Relph exploring the concept of place, sense of place, spirit of place, placemaking, placelessness and non-place, and almost everything to do with place and places"

2022-05-12 22:42:12

PLACENESS, PLACE, PLACELESSNESSA website by Edward (Ted) Relph exploring the concept of place, sense of place, spirit of place, placemaking, placelessness and non-place, and almost everything to do with place and placesMenuSkip to contentPlaceness and Place: A Brief Introduction to the WebsiteTABLE OF CONTENTS (Updated May 2022)A Place-Related AutobiographyMy Publications about PlacePlace on Google: Results of a Search October 2015Placeness and Place: A Brief Introduction to the WebsiteAn artist’s house in Ellensburg, WashingtonI understand placeness to mean everything that has to do with places and the concept of place. Various online sources define it as “the quality of being a place” and I have seen it used to mean something like “the quality of coming from a place.” The 1989 Oxford English Dictionary claims that “placeness” is rare, and defines it briefly as the quality of having or occupying a place. My view is that the suffix ‘ness’ means ‘a state or condition,’ so for me placeness is a conveniently broad term that allows me to consider everything to do with the diverse qualities, interpretations, uses and experiences of place, from place cells in the hippocampus to a global sense of place.This website is meant to be a sort of mini-encyclopedia about place as a concept that relates to being somewhere, to here, there, elsewhere, home, roots and rootlessness, disembedding, placemaking, placelessness, branding, and dwelling. I am not interested in place as the word is used for place values in mathematics, nor the idea of someone’s place in the social order, nor in placing bets.Navigation around PlacenessThe menu at the right of the page lists my most recent posts. The menu at the top of the page shows the fixed and mostly unchanging items. It is mostly background except for the Table of Contents that I update as I add posts. This also has a list of topics I intend to cover. If something isn’t in the list of recent posts check the Table of Contents or the search window.The Numerous and Difficult to Arrange Meanings of PlaceThe 1989 Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary prefaces the entry for place with a comment that its “…senses are very numerous and difficult to arrange,” and then provides 69 entries arranged in 29 categories. These 69 entries fail to capture almost all of the ideas involved in the discussions about place that have occurred since the 1970s in, to my certain knowledge, the following academic disciplines: • geography • anthropology • sociology • architecture • landscape architecture • urban design • ecology • neuroscience • planning • business • marketing • English literature • nursing • history • psychiatry • political science • art and art criticism • archaeology • media studies • feminist studies • GIS • cultural theory • theology • psychology • and philosophy.In 1976, when few discussions about place had been published,  I wrote in Place and Placelessness (p.141) that: “Our relationships with places are as necessary, varied, and sometimes perhaps just as unpleasant as our relationships with other people.” In this website I want to summarize what has since been written and established about these relationships. I will aim for breadth rather than depth, and I hope to expand on those 69 entries in the OED by paying attention to discussions about place in as many disciplines as I can. I will try to keep most of the entries brief, a thousand words or so plus a few pictures, not least because I expect there could be a hundred or more of them. I’ll try to add one every couple of weeks or so until I run out of steam.I’ve seen versions of this in various places. This one was in a bakery years ago in Victoria BC. I liked the calligraphy.I have developed a habit of taking photographs or screen captures whenever I come upon a sign, headline, logo, or advertisement where the word place is used (like the one above of a house in Ellensburg, and the poster which was in a bakery in British Columbia about 1980 on the left). I will use these images wherever I think they are appropriate and because website without images can be tedious. I identify the source if the image is not mine.I describe my qualifications for writing about placeness and place, including the places where I have lived, in the entry A Place-Related Autobiography and My Publications.If you have suggestions or comments you can contact me at [email protected] PostsPlace, Landscape and Geographicality in Eric Dardel’s L’Homme et la Terre.Place in War and Peace and Climate ChangeWhat will happen to economic growth as populations decline, and costs of climate change rise?Changing Senses of Place – Navigating Global ChallengesPlace in Literature: InterpretationsShared Socioeconomic Pathways from the IPCC Sixth Assessment and their Implications for the Future of PlacesGlobal Trends 2040 and Implications for the Future of PlacesIdentity of and with PlaceFurther Comments and Sources on the Future of Places 3: Climate Change and World ViewsFurther Comments and Sources on the Future of Places 2: UrbanizationFurther Comments and Sources for the Future of Places 1: Legacy and PopulationThe Future of Places in the 21st Century: An Overview (Revised Late August 2020)Place Trends 1990-2020: Placemaking, Electronic Media, Climate ChangePlace Trends 1970-1990: Heritage, Globalization, PostmodernityLong-term Trends currently Affecting PlacesOn Continuity and Change in PlacesA History of Places Part Two: 1000 to the presentA History of Places Part One: From 10,000 BCE to 1000 CEThe History and Future of Places: An IntroductionPlace and LocalismArchivesMay 2022(1)February 2022(1)November 2021(2)October 2021(1)September 2021(1)August 2021(1)January 2021(1)July 2020(3)June 2020(1)April 2020(1)March 2020(2)February 2020(3)January 2020(1)January 2019(1)September 2018(3)February 2018(1)September 2017(1)August 2017(2)April 2017(1)March 2017(2)January 2017(2)September 2016(1)June 2016(1)January 2016(2)December 2015(1)November 2015(2)October 2015(2)April 2015(1)March 2015(3)January 2015(1)Proudly powered by WordPress