Possession of a sense of place

Affinity, Diaspora, Identity, Reunification, Return (Part #5)

Tangible focus: Some may "possess" a sense of place of some kind, especially in relation to any sense of the homeland or homecountry to which they feel and cultivate a relationship. The latter senses are particularly denoted in German by the term Heimat, as being the relationship of a human being towards a certain spatial social unit -- understood as contrasting with social alienation.

Such a sense of possession may be much accentuated with respect to places of religious significance, most notably Jerusalem and other pilgrimage sites (List of religious sites).

As noted by Wikipedia, a sense of place has been defined and used in many different ways by many different people. To some, it is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some do not, while to others it is a feeling or perception held by people (not by the place itself). It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging.

Intangible focus: The above sense is distinguished by Wikipedia from the spirit of place (or soul) as being the unique, distinctive and cherished aspects of a place; often those celebrated by artists and writers, but also those cherished in folk tales, festivals and celebrations. It is thus as much in the invisible weave of culture (stories, art, memories, beliefs, histories, etc.) as the tangible physical aspects of a place (monuments, boundaries, rivers, woods, architectural style, rural crafts styles, pathways, views, and so on) or its interpersonal aspects (the presence of relatives, friends and kindred spirits, and the like). this has been recognized internationally to some degree by the Québec Declaration on the Preservation of the Spirit of Place (2008).

Places otherwise possessed: Possession in this context is complicated by the sense in which a place may be "possessed" as much by the spirit (or spirits) held to be associated with it as by any conventional sense of possessing that place -- irrespective of any legal title defining that relationship.

In classical Roman religion a genius loci was the protective spirit of a place, possibly understood as a tutelary deity. They may be recognized as Landvaettir (spirits of the land) in Norse mythology and in Germanic neopaganism. Numinous spirits of places in Asia continue to honored in city pillar shrines, outdoor spirit houses and indoor household and business shrines.

Especially through the manner in which these may be reinforced by some sense of divine mandate or manifest destiny, it is appropriate to note how these constitute secular understandings (or unconscious echoes) of places evoked in myth. Wikipedia offers a List of mythological places (Agharta, Atlantis, Avalon, Beyul, El Dorado, Ys, Hyperborea, Ile-Ife, Iram of the Pillars, Shangri-La, Thule, Utopia). These are somewhat reminiscent of the pure lands of Mahayana Buddhism, namely the celestial realm or pure abode of a Buddha or Bodhisattva.

Such subtlety may extend into more conventional understandings of Fatherland or Motherland, as the concept of the place (in cultural geography) with which an ethnic group has traditional relationship and a deep cultural association -- the country in which a particular collective identity began, especially as homeland or "home country". It is relevant to note how the sense of "homeland" has been exploited in the US through the expression Homeland Security, strangely echoing the use of Fatherland by other regimes.

Renewing a sense of place: Although the above are related, they are distinguished by Wikipedia from topophilia as being a strong sense of place, often associated with the sense of cultural identity among certain peoples and a love of certain aspects of such a place (Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: a study of environmental perception, attitudes, and values, 1990).

Of particular interest in a time of massive migration, with its controversial consequences, is the possibility that such consideration might offer new insight into the sense of place and homeland, with which people identify so deeply -- as a desirable place "to be" -- as explored by a variety of authors (Christopher Day, Spirit and Place: healing our environment, healing environment, 2002; Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: the perspective of experience, 1977; Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building, 1979; Edward S. Casey, Getting Back into Place: toward a renewed understanding of the place-world, 1991; James A. Swan, The Power of Place: sacred ground in natural and human environments, 1991).

Approaches to the experience are explored by the disciplines of psychogeography and mythogeography (Merlin Coverley, Psychogeography, 2006; Phil Smith, Mythogeography: a guide to walking sideways, 2010). With respect to the "pusuit of happiness", this fruitfully reframes the experience of being "here" in contrast with the desire to be "elsewhere".

The nostalgic yearning for such places, however understood, could be understood as taking secular form in the quest for a sustainable world (In Quest of Sustainability as Holy Grail of Global Governance, 2011). The poignancy of the relationship is enhanced by a sense of a cultural memory for a place now lost -- lost lands, lost cities, utopias -- to which some form of return may or may not be possible, as sustained by myth and legend (Bell Hooks, Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics, 1999; M. Craig Barnes, Yearning: living between how it is and how it ought to be, 1992; Irwin Kula and Linda Loewenthal, Yearnings: embracing the sacred messiness of life, 2007).

The current situation might even be imaginatively caricatured as corresponding to that depicted in the Battlestar Galactica TV series -- themed as scattered human survivors (a diaspora?) obliged to flee tyranny into outer space aboard a "ragtag, fugitive fleet, on a lonely quest -- for a shining planet known as Earth".

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Possession of a sense of place