Presentación. Ensayos preliminares

In  Of  Other  Spaces,  Michael  Foucault  (1986)  asserts,  “Our  epoch  is  one  in  which   space  takes  for  us  the  form  of  relations  among  sites.  In  any  case  I  believe  that  the   anxiety  of  our  era  has  to  do  fundamentally  with  space”  (p.  23).  The  questions  and   understandings  associated  with  the  concept  of  space  were  central  to  Foucault’s  thinking   on  the  present,  including  relations  of  power.  Likewise,  Foucault’s  analysis  is  echoed  in   contemporary  explorations  of  the  body,  the  local,  the  regional,  and  the  global,  and  

prominent  discussions  of  space  and  place  across  the  humanities  and  social  sciences  as  a   result  of  the  “spatial  turn”  (Edelglass,  2009  p.  1).  In  the  1970s  and  1980s,  there  was  a  re-­‐

envigoration  around  the  discourse  on  space.  Where  it  once  was  not,  space  was  now   studied  in  relation  to  power  relations  and  dynamics.  To  understand  space  meant   drawing  upon  the  perspectives  of  many  different  disciplines.  Recent  shifts  in  

epistemological  boundaries  by  which  we  understand  culture  and  history  put  space  and   place  at  the  center  of  their  analysis  (Sen  &  Silverman,  2014).  For  example,  Edward  Soja   (1996),  an  urban  planning  scholar  from  UCLA,  has  written  extensively  about  the  spatial   turn  and  post-­‐structuralism  in  geography.  In  Soja’s  (1996)  theory  of  Third  Space,  

“everything  comes  together…subjectivity  and  objectivity,  the  abstract  and  the  concrete,   the  real  and  the  imagined,  the  knowable  and  the  unimaginable,  the  repetitive  and  the   differential,  structure  and  agency,  mind  and  body,  consciousness  and  the  unconscious,   the  disciplined  and  the  trans-­‐disciplinary,  everyday  life  and  unending  history”  (p.  57).  

The  presence,  influence,  and  attention  to  space  offer  new  ways  of  looking  at  the  world.  

Learning  of  the  relationship  between  different  and  overlapping  spaces  allows  ones  own   understanding  of  spatial  awareness  and  knowing  which  spaces  you  inhabit  at  any  given   circumstance.  Such  awareness  of  multiplicity,  simultaneity,  and  spatial  dimensions   associated  with  the  characteristics  of  space  is  a  form  of  spatial  understanding.  There  is  a   multi-­‐layered  complexity  entwined  within  spatial  understandings  that  weave  together   the  local  and  unique  characteristics  of  space  along  with  its  irregularities  and  also   broader  implications.  Spaces  are  not  only  defined  by  surface  appearances  and  

materialistic  qualities,  there  are  the  formative  layers  that  build  upon  one  another  and  

eventually  tie  together  vividly,  spatial  organizations  of  human  society  including  its   movement-­‐networks-­‐nodes-­‐hierarchies-­‐surfaces  (Warf,  2008).  Thus,  an  understanding   of  place  in  conceptual  relation  to  the  notion  of  space  is  at  the  heart  of  inquiries  that   arise  from  the  spatial  turn  and  include  educational  theory  and  practice  such  as  those   found  in  place-­‐based  education.  

Space  and  place  are  two  conceptual  expressions  that  are  often  mistakenly  

interchanged.  Though  the  concepts  of  space  and  place  were  historically  understood  as   quite  distinct  and  were  used  strategically  for  specific  purposes  in  theorizing  on  

education  and  pedagogy,  post-­‐modern  critics  began  to  question  the  binary  relationship   between  space  and  place  (Tuan,  1977).  Space  is  a  structure  in  which  physical  and   intangible  processes  flow  through.  Often,  it  is  an  abstract  concept  representing  the   areas  of  engagement,  movement,  and  dialogue  in  relation  to  one  another  (Massey,   1994).  It’s  value  and  meaning,  in  relation  to  social  connections  of  being  human,  lies  in  its   ability  to  frame  the  creation  of  rich  experience.  Where  space  was  abstract,  must  place   be  physical  and  concrete?  Where  space  was  processual,  must  place  be  static  and   tangible?  Where  space  is  experiential  and  subjective,  must  place  be  objective?  

Henri  Lefebvre,  a  critic  of  the  speculations  between  geography  and  sociology,   critically  developed  such  fields  of  study  further  by,  rejecting  a  binary  relationship   between  space  and  place  to  understand  that  geographical  space,  landscape  and   property  are  cultural  and  thereby  have  a  history  of  change  (Lefebvre,  1991).  He   examined  the  “perceived  space”  of  everyday,  social  life  in  relation  to  the  “conceived   space”  theories  of  cartographers  and  urban  planners,  surmounting  that  a  person  who  is  

wholly  human  also  dwells  in  a  'lived  space'  of  the  imagination,  a  space  that  has  been   kept  alive  and  accessible  by  the  arts  and  literature.  This  “lived  space”  acts  as  a  "third"  

space  and  has  the  power  to  transcend  and  possibly  reshape  the  balance  of  perceived   space  and  conceived  space  (Lefebvre,  1991).  Lefebvre,  along  with  Soja  and  Foucault,   challenged  taken-­‐for-­‐granted  understandings  of  space  and  place  as  somehow  separate,   and  instead  focused  on  the  in-­‐betweens  of  the  two;  where  intangible  and  concrete   collide,  where  experiential  meets  materiality,  and  where  abstract,  social  constructions   come  together  with  very  real  situations.  It  is  the  readings  of  such  philosophers  that   influence  my  own  understandings  and  definitions  of  place  and  the  enactment  of  place   as  a  study  of  the  in-­‐between,  where  the  material  world  and  lived  moments  come   together  to  reveal  the  social  constructions  of  place.  

The  ways  in  which  places  are  established,  in  relation  to  our  world,  are  born  from  the   imaginings  of  spaces.  The  concept  of  space  is  fluid  and  mobile,  even  malleable.  The   concept  of  space  may  be  formulated  with  regard  to  social  relations,  structures  and   issues.  Bearing  to  mind  the  social  connections  to  space,  is  where  one  may  begin  to   understand  how  people’s  personal  frame  of  frame  may  propel  them  to  conceive  spaces   of  the  world  distinctly  from  one  another  or,  on-­‐the-­‐other-­‐hand,  together,  shared,  or  in  a   new  light.  Place  may  refer  to  a  physical  location,  but  its  existence  can  also  be  either  real   and/or  imagined  and  its  meaning  is  continually  made,  unmade,  remade  through  

reinterpretation  (Sen  &  Silverman,  2014).  Place  is  charged  with  meaning  and  refers  to   how  people  are  aware  of  or  attracted  to  a  certain  piece  of  space.  Place  can  be  “a   humanized  space”  (Tuan,  1977)  that  is  authentically,  emotionally  and  personally  

significant.  Doreen  Massey  (1994)  asserts  that  places  are  ephemeral  networks  of  social   relations,  which  have  over  time  been  constructed,  laid  down,  interacted  with  one   another,  decayed,  and  renewed.  Places  are  interconnected  with  other  places  that  are   created,  changed,  or  have  disappeared.  The  various  definitions  of  space  and  place  reveal   that  the  two  concepts  are  intricately  entangled  with  one  another.  I  began  this  chapter  of   the  research,  with  a  look  into  the  space-­‐place  relationship,  as  a  way  to  contextualize  my   understandings  of  place  as  an  achitect  and  art  educator,  but  to  also  conceptualize  the   idea  of  place  from  a  human  scale,  as  this  study  is.  In  the  following  sections,  I  focus  on   the  complex,  multiple,  conceptual  understandings  of  place.