the word place has several Meanings, which vary according to the perspective or area adopted.
Polysemous in nature, that is, with many meanings, the term has been interpreted in multiple fields of knowledge.
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One of the first definitions was made by Aristotle, in his work Physics, by designating place as the limit of the body.
A few centuries later, Descartes tried to deepen Aristotle's concept by claiming that the place could also be designated by referencing the opposition between other bodies. Furthermore, La Blache and Sauer used it in a not very detailed way and to relate the region.
Although it was used before, it was only with the Humanist Geography, after the 1970s, that the place came to be seen as a key concept.
From this perspective, as well as the other concepts, that of place had to face alterations over time, through the susceptible geographic theoretical currents.
At first, it had been used as a locational reference and, later, it came to be contextualized as an essential analysis category of the discipline.
This happened through the development of Humanist Geography studies, in which the authors holds a more detailed view of the subject's relations with the place, permeated by the experiences of the daily.
O meaning of the word place in geography may be wholly linked to its etymology.
Originating from the Latin term localis, from locus, the term means occupied space, location and position. In addition, it can represent town, locality, region and country. It can also refer to opportunity, opportunity and time.
However, the place is analyzed as the locus of the subject who builds it, constituting it by relating to the world and the social collective.
There is also care for critical geography in the incorporation of the place and the subject in the globalized world.
Edward Relph, David Lowenthal, Yi-Fu Tuan and Anne Buttimer are authors of the humanist current.
The humanist authors delineate the place, in a phenomenological attitude, as an intimate concept to the experience lived in the space, that is, it would be the result of the subjective factors of the individual experienced through a material base and the relationship with other subjects.
Space would be a more abstract concept and place would have a concrete value. Thus, the longer one lives in a place, the greater the experience and attachment. In short, experience shapes places.
Another current in geography is criticism. Among its main exponents today are the British geographers David Harvey and Doreen Massey. In Brazil, the main representative figure is the geographer Milton Santos.
Receiving influences from globalization, the analyzes permeate the relationship between the local/global.
These authors envision an alternative analysis, which verifies places like us in global social, economic and political network interactions.
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