Mapping our place in the world

Mapping our place in the world

I have chosen this week to write my blog about space and place.  I found the lecture and tutorial to be extremely interesting.  A subject that can be explored in so many different directions.  Just defining Space and Place and understanding how the two affect each other is not a simple as a dictionary extract.  Following the tutorial, I could not help but think about how a house is just a house until you give it meaning, and then becomes a home.  This raises more questions, if a place is a space with my values and meanings, what happens when I am gone?  Does this place revert back to a space?  I assume not, as this place has other associations from human interactions.  My home is the centre of my world, it is a hub of activity, buzzing with children and containing all the things dear to me.  A specific area that has acquired a felt value and meaning (Tuan, 1977), a house that has been transformed over years into a home, a special safe place for me and my kids.

This was even more evident in the map of Townsville that our class was asked to draw during lecture (Kuttainen, 2019).  Without giving it much thought, I found I had scribbled out a mud map.  In the centre of the page was a box that contained the words ‘my home’.  Branching out from the ‘my home’ box (which was disproportionally large), were very basic roads that led to Kirwan High school, Weir primary school and the JCU campus, a network of common places I visit daily.  There was very little of anything else, other than a bridge that linked my home to the JCU.  Judging by the size of the bridge, compared to other landmarks I drew, it is obvious that the bridge was not nearly as significant or important as the other more prominent boxes I mentioned above.  Even though I was given sufficient enough time to draw more, I still found that this was the extent of my Townsville map.  

This was interesting to me, as I have grown up in Townsville, therefore, I am familiar with nearly every corner of Townsville, yet I had somehow shrunk Townsville down to the size of one suburb containing 5 boxes indicating landmarks, 1 set of arched small parallel lines representing a bridge and 5 straight lines for roads.  It was obvious to me that my home is the central theme in my map and my life. I guess in one sense it is my perspective of Townsville.  Of course, it is by no means, an accurate or true map in anyone’s eyes, except mine.  It contained only places that are of significant interest or are familiar to me.  I can guarantee no one else in the class sketched the same map as I did, even though we were all drawing a map of Townsville.

The virtual world of Facebook also gives people a space or blank canvas to work on.  A space that, with the help of photos, memories, ideas and views, transforms into a place of meaning.  In many ways Facebook reminds me of the dandies or flânerie’s of Paris in the early nineteenth century, that would parade an image to people “offering themselves up as spectacles in their own right” (Prouty, 2009).  Does this sound familiar?

Image 1. The dandies of Facebook (Funtoosh, n.d.)

Technology advancements in computers and internet networking, have allowed for this similar behaviour to be carried out at a distance from the comfort of your own home.  A practice that is common and globally accepted by all cultures of people, is merely the same behaviour of the dandies that projected am image of their privileged lifestyle regardless of the truth.  Unlike the flânerie’s of the Paris arcades that only flourished for a short period of time (Prouty, 2009), social networking is a culture born to technology and has become the new way of life.

References

Funtoosh. (n.d.). The dandies of Facebook [Image]. Retrieved from http://www.funtoosh.com/pictures/funny_picture.php?id=1215

Kuttainen, V. (2019). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives, and the making of place, lecture week 6: Space and Place. [PowerPoint file]. Retrieved from http://learn.jcu.edu.au

Place. (n.d.) In Dictionary.com dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/place?s=t

Prouty, R. (2009). A turtle on a leash. Retrieved from https://onewaystreet.typepad.com/one_way_street/2009/10/a-turtle-on-a-leash.html

Space. (n.d.) In Dictionary.com dictionary. Retrieved from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/space?s=t

Tuan, Y. (1977). Space and place: The perspective of experience. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota.