Dear Professor Seamon,
Many thanks for your reply. I would be very interested to read your entry on
existential geography (probably what is generally called as 'humanist
geography'?).
Yours,
Didem.
Quoting David Seamon <[log in to unmask]>:
> Didem,
>
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>
> I believe deeply that every human being searches for and desires a sense =
> of
> at-homeness, place, and existential insideness. Clearly, these =
> experiences
> will be manifested differently, depending on one's gender, sexuality,
> ethnicity, culture, and so forth. But understand that there can be a
> phenomenology of differences and particular individual, social, and =
> cultural
> worlds--for example, Kay Toombs' phenomenology of illness and less
> ablenedness or Miriam Hill & Chris Allen's phenomenology of blind =
> peoples'
> environmental experiences or Louise Million's work on Albertan ranchers'
> loss of their ranch properties due to dam construction.
>
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>
> The fascinating design and policy question for me is how district and
> neighborhood design, especially the deformed grid, might be used to =
> bring
> people of difference together environmentally and spatially through =
> place
> attachment. Again, I mention in this regard the important work of =
> political
> thinker (and legislator and mayor) Daniel Kemmis. I also recommend Doug
> Rae's CITY, which is a lucid demonstration of how cultural and ethic
> differences were able to be together in a typical 19th-century American =
> city
> of emigrants.
>
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>
> It is a misreading of phenomenological work (as one finds, for example, =
> in
> the critiques of Doreen Massey and Gillian Rose) to claim that the focus =
> is
> on static, exclusionary, bounded place. No, a central phenomenological =
> tenet
> is the lived-dialiectical nature of human experience, which recognizes =
> that
> the vitality of place is the way it might draw into meaningful =
> relationship
> insiders and outsiders, tradition and change, commonality and =
> difference,
> boundedness and connectedness.
>
> =20
>
> If you're interested, I just completed an encyclopedia entry on =
> "existential
> geography" in which I try to clarify these points in greater detail,
> including a response to social-constructivist and poststructuralist
> criticisms. I can email it to you if you wish. Let me know.
>
> =20
>
> DS
>
> =20
>
> =20
>
> =20
>
> Dr. David Seamon
>
> Architecture Department, Kansas State University
>
> 211 Seaton Hall
>
> Manhattan, KS 66506-2901
>
> 785-532-1121
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> =20
>
> =20
>
> =20
>
> Dr. David Seamon
>
> Architecture Department, Kansas State University
>
> 211 Seaton Hall
>
> Manhattan, KS 66506-2901
>
> 785-532-1121
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> =20
>
>
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