Local affairs

From Geography

The term "local affairs" is used by Ley in his thinking of humanistic geography. It is used to point out the different spatial factors that make how someone reacts on certain spaces and how he or she feels about it. Examples that are given in Cloke et al. (1991) are meaning, knowledge and language. Other examples of "Local affairs" are personal circomstances (age, sex, education, religion etc.), social position (job, income, amount of power) and the historical situation someone is in (war, economical crisis). Obviously, these factors contribute to personal experiences (Relphs' "everyday experiences") with respect to feelings about places.

"Local affairs" is a very broad concept and with the right argumentation, almost anything can be classified as such. However, without a good understanding of it, it is impossible to fully understand most aspects of humanistic geography or even the whole field.

References

• Cloke, P., Philo, Ch. and Sadler, D. (1991). Approaching Human Geography. Chapman, London.

Contributors

• Page created by TeunVanDeVen 23:21, 26 September 2012 (CEST)