Place and the Geographical Imagination

The study of place is being revived in geographical teaching and research. This reflects a wider recognition of the power of place in the constitution and description of society. Place is central to conservationist and consumerist ideologies, in their emphasis on local and global thought and action. Advertising, literature and the visual art s offer scope for geographers to analyse senses of place and the power relations they imply. Current analytical methods include iconography, thick descript ion and narration. The physiographic character of place needs to be re-affirmed to emphasise the ecological relation of land and life as well as its imaginative dimension. A sense of place should be implicated in the very process of geographical education, in topic-based teaching, in field work and in the presentation of knowledge.