| Chapter 2: | Composing a Place |
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might also attempt to convince others that this place should be protected from all, perhaps, for all. In both cases, collective and individual interpretations are brought to bear. Certainly, one's notion of a beautiful glen is informed by cultural values. In addition, the specifics of particular actions are not devoid of cultural and social context. Moreover, individual and collective actions (or purposeful inactions) literally and figuratively shape the land, thereby generating iterative relations between place and emergent senses of place. Senses of place are the products of memorable experiences (Cosgrove, 1994). They are personalized responses to landscapes that articulate a place as personally and, perhaps, collectively meaningful.
The landscapes we attend to most purposefully are much more than unstable abstractions awaiting random or singular interpretation; they are landscapes that belong to us, and us to them, both individually and collectively. Landscapes become known to us as our neighborhoods, towns, historic monuments, or favorite fishing holes. In other words, they become specific places. Casey (1993) explained that in order to dwell, one must be in place. Similarly, one cannot dwell without a place to be. That is, we must identify or construct a place in order to recognize ourselves. Trudeau (2006) posited that an individual begins with a “macro” lens that captures the visual cues of a landscape as a coherent picture and then moves toward articulation of that picture through a discourse that defines the particular features of, and responses to, a certain place.
Trudeau's attention to discourse is important. In general, discourse is an umbrella term that refers to any of the variety of ways that meanings are communicated. Discursive practices encompass both oral and nonverbal communicative practices as well as manipulations of built environments that produce texts of meaning. For instance, an eight-inch decorative border is often quite enough to function as a “fence” that discourages people from treading on a lawn. Trudeau, then, alerted us to the discursive packages that define particular places. Unlike landscapes, which are interpreted as widely understood abstractions such as “a farmstead” or “an opportunity for wealth,” places remain local and infinitely complex. The broad contours of explanation suggested by political,