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. Therefore history should be seen as an interpretation of the social life and practice of that time: not only now is the world one of interpretations, but is always has been and always will be.
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.
A more geographically oriented example can be found in the case of conflicting visions, opposite interpretations, on a certain piece of space. This could be a nation or a neighbourhood and everything between them. After World War II, for example, the Sovjet Union saw herself as the liberator of Eastern Europe. They drove out the Nazis and stayed in countries as Poland and Estonia to "keep it safe". The inhabitants of that countries, however, feeled that the one occupying force was traded in for another one and that they were still occupied. This conflicting vision was the cause of a lot of tensions between the Russians and the civilians of the "liberated" countries.
References
Gibson-Graham, J.K. (2000) Poststructuralist interventions. In, E. Sheppard & T. Barnes (eds.) A Companion to Economic Geography. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 95-110.
Hall, S. (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. The Open University, Walton Hall.
Soja, E.W. (1989). "Postmodern Geographies". Biddles, Great Britain.
Published by Pauline van Heugten
Contributed by Fabian Busch and Luc Bouman
Edited by Malou van Woerkum, 17-10-2012
Edited by IrisVanDiest --IrisVanDiest 16:10, 21 October 2012 (CEST)
Edited by TeunVanDeVen 14:02, 25 October 2012 (CEST)
