Interpretation

From Geography

Every observation is not entirely objective. This is because all those observations are derrived from things that happened in the past. In short: an interpretation is a personal judgement about the meaning of a given situation, a text, a place and so on. According to Hall (1997) Meaning and representation seem to belong to the interpretative side of the human and cultural sciences. Interpretations never produce a final moment or absolute truth. Instead, interpretations are always followed by other interpretations, in an endless chain, which creates a 'circle of meaning' (Hall, 1997: 42). Jacques Derrida compared interpretation with writing: writing always leads to more writing. Differences, he argued, can never be wholly captured within any binary system (Derrida in Hall, 1997:42).

The interpretation of a thing or a place is, as said, culturally depended. Words are not just symbols standing in for objects in the world. The world is recontextualized with an infinity of contextualization that provides multiple and contradictory readings(Gibson-Graham, 2000, p.97). The creation of meaning must be seen as an unfinished process where different meanings and interpretations are created and only temporarily fixed. Words are signs, constituted by a relation between two parts, the signifier and the signified(Gibson-Graham, 2000, p.96). The interpretation or the meaning of a thing/ place depends on one’s own complex social and intellectual structure.

--Example-- The interpretation of a place depends, as said, on the situation and on the person whos interpretion it is. For example, when you are looking at a school, there can be a lot of different interpretations. First, this place can be seen as a place to get information. This is probably the interpretation of the students of the school, but they could also see the place as a location to make or meet friends. For a teacher this place is something different. Their interpretation could be that the school is a place for them to earn money, but also to meet with colleges, whom have been becoming friends.

References

Hall, S. (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. The Open University, Walton Hall.

Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2000) Poststructuralist interventions. In, E. Sheppard & T. Barnes (eds.) A Companion to Economic Geography. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 95-110.

Published by Pauline van Heugten

Contributed by Fabian Busch and Luc Bouman

Edited by Malou van Woerkum, 17-10-2012