Representations of Space and Place.
This week I admittedly struggled with the Buadrillard reading this week regarding reproductions. From my understanding, we take for granted the “real” and live in a world filled with reproductions. At this point we start to see the reproductions as the actual and then when they start to dissipate we feel a sense of loss because of our living in the reproduction. Is this the idea of the hyperreal? I’d just like to discuss this more in class because I feel like no matter how many times I go over this I misunderstand something.
In response to Alex’s question that he posited, “Is it possible, though, that cities themselves are spaces in which “place” becomes mutable and separation from certain spaces becomes largely marginal and even irrelevant?” I would suggest that given specific definitions of the term place, that place is never mutable. If I use the definition that I am using throughout my work, which references de Certeau’s theories of space and place, the two are so closely linked with each other that one cannot exist without the other – “space is what place becomes when the unique gathering of things, meanings, and values are sucked out…Put positively, place is space filled up by people, practices, objects, and representations. In particular, place should not be confused with the use of geographic or cartographic metaphors (boundaries, territories) that define conceptual or analytical spaces…” (Gieryn, 465). In essence, place and space are in a relationship with one another. Here, to mute one is to mute the other or, to mark irrelevant one is to mark irrelevant the other. Granted, throughout the course we have stumbled upon different definitions of space and place, I believe that this is one context where this question can be answered – given the definition that I have posed from Gieryn’s work that was inspired by de Certeau.
Gieryn, Thomas F. “A Space for Place in Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 26.1 (2000): 463-96.