Writing Place

It has become clear to me that there is an immense power in place, able to become part of our identity, which can only truly be understood on a personal level through experience. This experience begins in the physical space and grows into a system of meaning, intrinsically linked through the landscape, people, events and experience. In his work, ‘Finding the place: a migrant childhood’ (1993) Wallace Stegner confirms this idea of the potential power a place can have with his attachment to the American West landscape. Stegner’s love affair with the west was constrained to physical boundaries but as he suggests it didn’t matter exactly which town he lived in, the whole “dry country” (Stegner, 19) was a place. Stegner creates an association between this landscape and himself which, Kent Ryder in his work, ‘Mapping the invisible landscape: folklore, writing and the sense of place’ (1993), claims is where personal meaning is established (Ryder, 39). Stegner has inadvertently left his mark on the West, which I saw as a personal quest to establish meaning that becomes part of his identity.

In her work, ‘The town where time stands still’ (1999), Shirley Geon Lin Lim explores the sense of validation one gains from a place, in search of the ‘genii loci’-the spirit of a place. She suggests people must be in the physical place to experience anything valid in order to consciously leave with a sense of significant experience and thus meaning. There is a clear implication of this ‘power’ felt in the search for the genii loci which reaffirmed my belief that place can be a very powerful means for forming and understanding one’s identity.

A clear distinction must be made between space and place in order to understand precisely what forms our identities. Yi Fu Tuan in Ryder’s article claims “space has no fixed pattern of established human meaning” (Ryder, 37), it lacks the capacity to see meaning. It is more a system of analysis, and data collection in spatial terms. Ryder suggests “space contains place” (Ryder, 37) but it is in these places that it becomes clear that meaning constructed by experience is what ‘place’ has and space lacks. I found Ryder’s acknowledgement of map biographies particularly interesting as it demonstrates how space and place are bound together, how a map can be superimposed with a layer of meaning to create narrative and a physical location. Evidently map biographies illustrate how personal place memory is ingrained in your identity.

I began to think conscious and unconscious memory associations to place are formed
over a lifetime to create ones identity, not just conscious experiences that an individual has deliberately remembered. Our own unique interpretations of place form a large part of our identity. As expected, some aspects of our identity aren’t directly attributed to a place but they all occurred in a place like Rockwell Gray suggests “we must literally stand somewhere in order to be in the world at all” (Gray, 53). Hence place can also play an indirect and somewhat passive role in forming identity, presumably in a rather unconscious manner.

It is interesting to note the ways in which identity can be threatened and the impact this can have. A part of Stegner’s identity was threatened when he indirectly created an association between a sense of calm and belonging with a close proximity to an meaningful place, suggesting he was “too far from places” that reminded him of the West (Stegner, 18). Interestingly Gray claims “the heart strings need intimate anchoring in more immediate local space”, demonstrating the way people attempt to keep their place and memory close (Gray, 63). Indeed change in place can lead to a threatened identity and Gray suggests that people remember a place as unchanged to maintain stability (Gray, 60). However if one is capable of accepting change, an appreciation of personal stability can in fact be established and a development of a stronger sense of identity can form. Thus the degree an identity is threatened is dependent on how much personal emphasis is made for the physical location or the memory.

The value in art in illustrating place memory was explored in discussions this week and in reading of Kent Ryder’s work in particular, alluding to the fact that they are limited to creating a single moment but when considering this personal identity notion, such a rigid view needn’t apply simply because, for a particular person, a depiction of a singe moment may be enough to evoke the emotions, memory, experience and thus meaning it has on that individual and the impact it has for their identity. I realised here that personal perception of ones identity is incredibly dependent on how experiences are received by an individual and thus are very subjective; an outsider’s interpretation could be remarkably different. Rene Magritte’s ‘La Condition humaine’ (1993) in Simon Schema’s work, ‘Landscape and Memory’ (1995) is a very literal depiction of a place that lacks in narrative for an audience but demonstrates how a visual stimulus can be a catalyst for a personal memory of place which is stored in an individual’s memory and in turn bound with their identity.

When studying place memory in history the reader must consider what approach the historian is taking, most notably narrative creates the most personal account for shaping of identity through place memory. However Kent Ryder has demonstrated that the history of place memory can indeed be written from a more detached position, ultimately contributing to history’s quest for objectivity. No matter what methodology is adopted, place memory in history should remain subjective in content and interpretation simply because meaning of place is acquired through personal experience. Narrative forms of history have in this case promoted a less objective approach to history however I don’t believe all history can be objective as personal experience and memory of place, which may naturally be more significant to the individual, should have a position in history.