The People, Place and Space Reader

Editor(s):
Jen Jack Gieseking
William Mangold
with Cindi Katz, Setha Low and Susan Saegert
Book summary:

The People, Place, and Space Reader brings together the writings of scholars, designers, and activists from a variety of fields to make sense of the makings and meanings of the world we inhabit. They help us to understand the relationships between people and the environment at all scales, and to consider the active roles individuals, groups, and social structures play in creating the environments in which people live, work, and play. These readings highlight the ways in which space and place are produced through large- and small-scale social, political, and economic practices, and offer new ways to think about how people engage the environment in multiple and diverse ways.

Providing an essential resource for students of urban studies, geography, sociology and many other areas, this book brings together important but, till now, widely dispersed writings across many inter-related disciplines. Introductions from the editors precede each section; introducing the texts, demonstrating their significance, and outlining the key issues surrounding the topic. A companion website, PeoplePlaceSpace.org, extends the work even further by providing an on-going series of additional reading lists that cover issues ranging from food security to foreclosure, psychiatric spaces to the environments of predator animals.

Publication year:
2014
Publisher:
Routledge
Bio:
Photo:
Short bio:
I was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. I discovered geography in my undergrad cartographic studies at Mount Holyoke College--one of the last geography programs in a liberal arts college--but was unsure how to pursue my desires to conduct research and write about lesbian and queer spaces. After a stint as a management consultant for corporate entertainment and telecomm corporations and then serving as poetry editor for a small, radical press, I attended seminary. My studies there introduced me to psychoanalysis and critical social psychology, which I was keen to connect to geography though the study of environmental psychology, or how people relate to and produce a sense of space and place, and how space and place relate to and define us. I conducted a postdoc in Digital and Computational Studies at Bowdoin College and was then Assistant Professor of Public Humanities at Trinity College in Hartford. I identify as a woman and use he/him/his pronouns.
A&S department affiliation: