From "sense of place" to "human-place association": A human-place relationship in the Guangzhou Tianhe Sports Center public leisure space
Received date: 2018-08-17
Request revised date: 2018-10-17
Online published: 2019-07-12
Copyright
As a key concept that describes human-place relationships, "sense of place" has long been an area of focus of international geographers. Studies on sense of place are currently either based on phenomenology and existentialism, with emphasis on describing the human experience of space and place, or on quantitative psychology and various dimensions of sense of place. With the former approach, researchers focus on the relationship between people and relatively familiar places, whereas with the latter, researchers focus on the relationship between people and unfamiliar places. Based on phenomenology, we explored sense of place in urban public leisure spaces, taking Guangzhou Tianhe Sports Center as an example. We used the concept of "place-ballet" and six features developed by David Seamon, namely, attraction, diversity, comfortableness, invitation, distinctiveness, and attachment, as key factors that generate sense of place. Research suggests that the first five features correspond to the five ways people and places interact, whereas attachment is a more emotional feeling, that is, a sense of place generated from the five types of association. We classified the human-place relationship of the above public leisure space into three categories by extent of human-place closeness: (1) "Daily association", whereby people used the sports center at relatively frequent intervals (e.g., every day or week) to engage in leisure activities, in particular physical exercise, thus forming a direct and close-use relationship with the space and facilities; (2) "Periodic association", whereby people visited the sports center for specific events (e.g., Guangzhou Evergrande football match or annual Spring Flower Market), thus forming a direct but loose-use relationship with the space and facilities; and (3) "Contextual association", whereby people had no direct-use relationship with the place but had witnessed or participated in a certain stage of the developmental history of the sports center over a sufficiently long period. Of these three human-place relationships, contextual association exceeds the explanation boundary of the "place-ballet" concept. Hence, we introduced two theoretical propositions for further exploration. The "human-place whole" and "human-place association" concepts can substitute the concept of "place whole" employed in previous human geographical research. In terms of actual research needs, the "human-place association" concept, which can direct specific observation practices and describe experiences, is more important than the "human-place whole" concept. Current mainstream research on sense of place (including place attachment) is only a partial research based on psychology. In addition, sense of place can be studied as a whole for various human-place associations, and as basic research that is close to philosophical level and fully incorporates human-place relationships by ensuring descriptive and interpretive applications. Overall, our classification and discussion of the categories of human-place relationships in special areas, such as urban public leisure spaces, include explicitly empirical observations, general facts, and unified dimensional standards. They are not only applicable for studying human-place relationship phenomena in leisure spaces but can also provide a valuable reference for studying such phenomena in other special urban spaces.
ZHANG Xiaoming , WENG Jiaming . From "sense of place" to "human-place association": A human-place relationship in the Guangzhou Tianhe Sports Center public leisure space[J]. GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH, 2019 , 38(7) : 1581 -1593 . DOI: 10.11821/dlyj020180830
Tab.1 Outlines for the semi-structural interviews表1 半结构化访谈提纲 |
| 访谈提纲 | 具体问题 |
|---|---|
| 个人信息 | 年龄、性别、居住地、家庭情况 |
| 基本到访信息 | 您是否经常来这里/频率如何/什么时候来/来做什么? 您为什么会想到来这里/是否会去其他的地方进行相同的活动/是否会在这里进行不同的 活动? 您一般是自己来还是和朋友一起来? 您大概什么时候开始来/以前来和现在来的感受有什么不一样吗/有什么让你印象很深刻 的事情吗? |
| 地方感陈述 | 能不能讲述一些曾经在这里发生的事情? 有没有试过去到一个全新的地方之后,感到不适应? |
Fig. 1 Gathering areas of leisure groups in the Tianhe Sports Center图1 天河体育中心内休闲人群聚集区域示意 |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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