297C1

SoSe 13: Anthropology of Space and Place

Anita von Poser und Groß-Nädlitz

Comments

"To be is to be in place. [...T]here is no being without place" (Casey 1993: 14) - Everywhere in the world, 'space' bears the imprints of human sociality and thus turns into 'place'. What places in fact are differs from one cultural context to the other. Depending on who they are and where they have grown up, people may experience the same spatial surrounding quite differently. Drawing on the emerging literature on "landscape", which became especially strong in the mid 1990ies, the seminar will plead for 'space' and 'place' to be recognized as analytical categories when thinking about human-environment relations from an anthropological perspective. We will engage in cross-cultural discussions about the poetics and politics of landscape. A particular focus will be on how groups and individuals use places symbolically as well as experientially for expressing identity. We will deal with local senses of place as well as with place-making practices in global settings. To grasp 'multilocal' realities theoretically, seminar participants are required to read and present ethnographic examples of place. To empirically experience the anthropology of space and place, we may choose to move across distinct urbanscapes of Berlin. Bender, Barbara (ed.) 1993. Landscape. Politics and Perspectives. Oxford: Berg. Casey, Edward 1993. Getting Back Into Place. Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World. Indiana University Press. Cosgrove, Denis E. (1984) 1998. Social Formation and Symbolic Landscape. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. Feld, Steven and Keith H. Basso (eds.) 1997. Senses of Place. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Fox, James J. (ed.) 2006. The Poetic Power of Place. Comparative Perspectives on Austronesian Ideas of Locality. Canberra: ANU E-Press. Hirsch, Eric and Michael O'Hanlon (eds.) 1995. The Anthropology of Landscape. Perspectives on Place and Space. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Low, Setha and Denise Lawrence-Zuñiga 2003. The Anthropology of Space and Place. Locating Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. close