Those who expect to learn something about astronauts and black holes, do not read any further. This blog is not about the universe, it is about the spaces and places of everyday life, it is about the anthropology of space and place. Not too long ago, when I presented my PhD proposal – which argues for and heavily draws on theories of space and place – to the professors of my department, I was confronted with questions like, “space… isn’t that a topic for Cultural Studies?” or “where are the people in your project?”. These questions confirmed the erroneous but unfortunately still widely celebrated assumption that space is empty and peopleless and that as such, it is not a worthy subject for anthropologists (who evidently only study people, which is yet another unfortunate assumption). While there admittedly are a variety of promising anthropological studies out there that engage with issues of space and place, overall, anthropologists have indeed preferred people and their voices over space and place with the latter often being nothing more than just the background or stage for people’s actions. Of course, anyone who has spent a little time getting familiar with the nature space and place would discard such views as old chestnut. One only has to flick through (!!!) the first couple of pages of what I have been referring to as the “spatial bible”, Henri Lefebvre’s “The Production of Space” (1991), and one will come to understand (despite the book’s extreme linguistic density) that space is a social product that only is what it is because of us human beings: it is people who produce space. However, translating this theoretical knowledge into practice is a lot more challenging than one may initially anticipate and I think that this is the primary reason for why space has not yet been granted its rightful place (I apologise for the pun) in anthropology. I myself often feel I am stretched to my limits when trying to deal with space and place from an anthropological perspective. How exactly is it that we (or perhaps as an anthropologist I should say “they”) produce space? And even more importantly, how can we study this production process?
This is enough reason for me to author this blog; it helps me to come to terms with my current attempts to study space and place anthropologically, it helps me to make sense of what I am doing (we all know that writing things down is really beneficial!). What I am providing are snippets of thoughts and reflections on what I have read, experienced or encountered while dealing with the spaces and places of everyday life. But I also view this as a platform to actively foster a further understanding and perhaps also appreciation of the necessity to study space and place in anthropology.
About me:
I am a PhD student in Anthropology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong researching the production of urban space in contemporary China. All articles and blog entries represent my personal opinions unless stated otherwise.
Copyright © 2012 – Philipp Demgenski
A Place for Space 
Hi – I’m a PhD Student from Toronto, CA, working on a comprehensive exam about place and landscape and how water has been ignored (or so I thought) in the development of these concepts. It turns out that people working on water DO employ place-theory, including Ingold’s dwelling perspective and his use of the taskscape (let’s be honest, no one else calls it the taskscape but that’s what they’re talking about with embodied knowledge and skill development as a means for “knowing” places). Anyway, I’m hoping you keep blogging because you provide a nice measure for thinking about some of these dense texts. Here’s my comp question which wove together far more philosophy, cultural geography, history than I had anticipated:
Anthropologists have thoroughly examined the relationships between landscape, place-making and identity. However, there is significantly less consideration in the literature about place and the construction of identity in relation to bodies of water. How can the multi-disciplinary literature on the waterscape contribute to new ways for anthropologists to think about people as dwelling in places that are not fixed or grounded, but are instead fluid environments? How can a consideration of waterscapes inform and expand our understanding of social-spatial organization to include bodies of water as places of identity-formation or location?
Shivs, your question sparkes my imagination and I would love to be able to read the text you wrote. I’m a artist living in Groningen, the Netherlands and all my works revolve around notions of space and place. Currently I’m developing a project that has to do with water. To stumbel upon your comment is quite the luck, now I just hope to be even more lucky to be able to reach you.
Hey there – serendipity – i’m also searching about space, place and water – i am phd student in NTU Singapore and somehow this blog seems to be the space we all have connected – fascinating how the interworks and how things happen in the digital world. i am specifically interested in the socio-cultural anthro changes about rivers and river spaces and river cities