Representation Of Places

Spatial and cultural analysis have recently found much common ground, focusing in particular on the nature of the city. Place/Culture/Representation brings together new and established voices involved in the reshaping of cultural geography. The authors argue that as we write our geographies we are not just representing some reality, we are creating meaning. Writing becomes as much about the author as it is about purported geographical reality. The issue becomes not scientific truth as the end but the interpretation of cultural constructions as the means. Discussing authorial power, discourses of the other, texts and textuality, landscape metaphor, the sites of power-knowledge relations and notions of community and the sense of place, the authors explore the ways in which a more fluid and sensitive geographer's art can help us make sense of ourselves and the landscapes and places we inhabit and think about.

People live in cities and experience them firsthand, while urban designers explain cities conceptually. In Representation of Places Peter Bosselmann takes on the challenging question of how designers can communicate the changes they envision in order that "the rest of us" adequately understand how those changes will affect our lives. New modes of imaging technology—from two-dimensional maps, charts, and diagrams to computer models—allow professionals to explain their designs more clearly than ever before. Although architects and planners know how to read these representations, few outside the profession can interpret them, let alone understand what it would be like to walk along the streets such representations describe. Yet decisions on what gets built are significantly influenced by these very representations. A portion of Bosselmann's book is based on innovative experiments conducted at the University of California, Berkeley's Visual Simulation Laboratory. In a section titled "The City in the Laboratory," he discusses how visual simulation was applied to projects in New York City, San Francisco, and Toronto. The concerns that Bosselmann addresses have an impact on large segments of society, and lay readers as well as professionals will find much that is useful in his timely, accessibly written book.

Religious Representation in Place brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the Humanities and Sciences to broaden the understanding of how religious symbols and spatial studies interact. The essays consider the relevance of religion in the experience of space, a fundamental dimension of culture and human life.

Thinking about space is thinking about spatial things. The table is on the carpet; hence the carpet is under the table. The vase is in the box; hence the box is not in the vase. But what does it mean for an object to be somewhere? How are objects tied to the space they occupy? In this book Roberto Casati and Achille C. Varzi address some of the fundamental issues in the philosophy of spatial representation. Their starting point is an analysis of the interplay betwen mereology (the study of part/whole relations), topology (the study of spatial continuity and comapctness) and the theory of spatial location proper. This leads to a unified framework for spatial representation understood quite broadly as a theory of the representation of spatial entities. The framework is then tested against some classical metaphysical questions such as: Are parts essential to their whole? Is spatial co-location a sufficient criterion of identity? What (if anything) distinguishes material objects from events and other spatial entities? The concluding chapters deal with applications to topics as diverse as the logical analysis of movement and the semantics of maps.

The book Challenging the Representation of Ethnically Divided Cities: Perspectives from Mostar questions the existing overrepresentation of Mostar as an ethnically ‘divided city’. While acknowledging the existence of internal borders, the chapters in this book assert that they are not solid nor fixed and, by exploring how they become material or immaterial, the book offers a deeper understanding of the city’s complex dynamics. Accordingly, the chapters in this book are attentive to how ethnic divides materialise or lose importance because of socio-political contingencies. Events, groups and spaces that promote reconciliation from the bottom-up are examined, not necessarily to assess their success and failures but rather to look at how they create networks, gain trust and form platforms that generate novel understandings of ethnic loyalties and party memberships. Further, and drawing both on the empirical data and theoretical reflections, this volume contributes to broader debates about ‘divided cities’ by suggesting the need to engage with these cities in their complexities rather than reducing them to their ethno-national divisions. The book engages with socio-political and economic complexities in order to shed light on how ethnic conflicts and resulting spatial partitioning are often just the surface of much more complex dynamics that are far less easy to disentangle and represent. The chapters in this book were originally published in Space and Polity.

Drawing the attention of tourists to different destinations around the world assists in the overall economic health of the targeted region by increasing revenue and attracting investment opportunities, as well as increasing cultural awareness of the area’s population. Strategic Branding Methodologies and Theory for Tourist Attraction investigates international perspectives and promotional strategies in the topic area of place branding. Highlighting theoretical concepts and marketing techniques being utilized in the endorsement of various destinations, regions, and cities around the world, this publication is a pivotal reference source for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, students, and professionals.

Religious Representation in Place brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars from the Humanities and Sciences to broaden the understanding of how religious symbols and spatial studies interact. The essays consider the relevance of religion in the experience of space, a fundamental dimension of culture and human life.