User:Alessia/liminal

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Space vs Place

Each culture defines the concepts of space and place in a unique way. They take on almost fluid forms, taking the shape of the context in which they are applied like water in a container.
Space is multidimensional. It’s typically understood in terms of direction, volume, and distance, sp with a strong mathematical character, an abstract form.
Instead Place is much more relative, connected to a more personal perception and subjective experience of the world. A place holds significance, identity. Places are where people live and interact, making them rich with cultural and social meanings.
When thinking about space in a much more conceptual aspect, George Simmel is the first one popping up. Simmel worked on conceptualising space from a sociological point of view, being focused on its materiality and spatiality rather than treating it as a non material concept.
He explored how space shapes social relations and individual experiences around cities, markets, and how they function as hubs for social interactions connected to the negotiation of power between individuals.
A key point of Simmel’s theory is spatial differentiation. He argued that different social groups and individuals perceive and use space in different ways, always reflecting their own social status, cultural backgrounds, and personal identities. This differentiation can lead to spatial hierarchies and segregation.
Simmel emphasised that space is not static but constantly shaped by human activities.

Following these studies, Doreen Massey rethought the concept of space while calling attention to how spatial relations between people, cities, and actions are the main point of focus to understand power structures. She describes space as "unfixed, contested, and multiple," showing that places are dynamic, in a constant evolutionary state. Massey's perspective can be aligned with the ecological idea of the earth as a single breathing organism, which can be maybe understood as fractal in a sense, because of its interconnectedness.

Keith Basso introduces an interesting concept, interanimation, a process where people and places engage in an ecological relationship, creating a unique web of meaning. This dynamic that builds space make places seem alive even in the wildest stillness.

_ E un'immagine che descrive il processo di interanimation durante il quale il paesaggio geografico si sovrappone a quello mentale nel momento in cui un luogo viene sentito (sensed) in maniera attiva (107). "Un'oscura sete". Natura nella Milano di Milo De Angelis _

Transformation to Place, Non-places

Spaces become places when people use them and create a culture around that use, like a school or a bank. In modern societies the anthropologist Marc Augé called them "non-places", urban leftovers that sit between places. And so we all constantly transition from place to place, slipping through unseen non-places. Train stations, airports, and waiting rooms are great examples of non-places, places that are stripped of culture and interpersonal interactions.

J. Nicholas Entrikin, geographer, divides place into objective and subjective, fundamental aspects to be taken into account to understand liminality of spaces. He calls the betweenness of places the meeting point of subjective and objective space.

Henri Lefebvre, the marxist sociologist, challenged the classical binary interpretation of space, proposing the concept of "thirdspace," which connects spaces of living and spaces of leisure. To him a place is a physical and social landscape filled with meaning through everyday social practices, working across different spatial and temporal planes, it’s neither home nor workspace, nor space of sociality. That space we transit in, an hybrid, then what is the difference between a thirdspace and a non-place?

How to encounter a place, ecosystem

Massey describes places as constellations of trajectories, highlighting their porous, sponge nature. She argues against establishing severe boundaries or identities to places, as this can lead to nationalistic or attitudes. Instead, places should be seen for her as dynamic networks of events, constantly being reshaped.

To truly encounter a place, we must recognise that we are part of it. Throwntogetherness, actively participating and leaving traces that contribute to its ongoing form, narrative. Emmanuel Levinas' writings and the holistic, ecological, approach of deep ecology on humankind as an interlocking web of changing relations, offer a framework for the ethical engagement approach that some sociologists and geographers took inspiration from. This involves developing self reflection, awareness, getting almost to anthropomorphizing a place, to observing its behaviour thoughtfully, empathetically.

So, while being a complicated and unfixed set of networks, a place might also have the capacity to remember, to hold traces of past activities, in the loosest sense. While it remembers, it does not necessarily do this in a human way. The memory of place may then be thought of as fluid, transitory, and open-ended, activated only by those who pass through.