As I’m exploring this idea of a sense of place and how to develop a sense of place the opposite comes into the research as well. When we think about globalization and how it fosters this idea of placelessness I wonder about how we can really combat this idea.
Society tells us to rely on this idea of individualism, that we are important that our needs should come first. When we are abroad we see the same stores, we can buy the same food almost everywhere, it seems like everything we want is everywhere we want it. I wonder if this takes us away from the idea of the importance of place. Because everything is interchangeable places might lose their value.
We need to take time in a place, we need to build a relationship with the things in that place (human and more than human). By building these relationships we can start to combat this individualism and globalisation. We need to take time in a place, we need to slow down and we need to pay attention to place.
Joe Teft 