TRIPLE PLACES: RETHINKING PLACE AND PLACELESSNESS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY

Zi-chuan GUO, Xu HUANG

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2026

PDF(51997 KB)
PDF(51997 KB)
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY ›› 2026

TRIPLE PLACES: RETHINKING PLACE AND PLACELESSNESS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY

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Abstract

Based on the perspective of humanistic geography, the paper constructs a research framework of Triple Places (Spiritual Places, Other Places, and Self Places), and takes the Heming Teahouse, located in the People's Park of Chengdu, as a case study to discuss the derived meanings and the movement of places and placelessness, as well as the relationship between them nowadays. The paper obtains the following conclusions: In the Spiritual Place, the paper divides the process of the Heming into four stages, the Pre-place Paving Stage, the Strong Place Developing Stage, the Strong Placelessness Shrinking Stage, and the Place Revival Stage. The institutional transformation of the political economy on the macro-scale prompted the transformation of the Heming on the micro-scale and gave it unique significance of the times. In the Other Place, the pull and push between place and placelessness in the Heming Teahouse is not only manifested on the material level, but more on the influence of non-material elements. The influence of placelessness has two sides. When facing the crisis of the deconstruction of the meaning of the place, the place has its own resilience, i.e., the cultural genes carried by the people and objects rooted in the place. In the Self Place, the pattern of the individual's encounter with place is random and unexpected, and as the self walks, time continues to weave in and out of place. Subsequently, through the construction and abstraction of the triple place map, the paper proposes an axis of place movement to highlight the special temporality and movement of place, arguing that the perception of place that comes from the collective sedimentation in history will be gradually superimposed with the inheritance of generations, and will become the collective archetype of the emotion of the place. In one's non-linear perception of time, place becomes a carrier of memory, and the past, present and future coexist in place. Finally, this paper analyses the contradiction between place and placelessness from the perspectives of site and individual, and discusses the triple derivative meanings of place and placelessness from the levels of significance, phenomenon, and attitude, arguing that the antagonism between place and placelessness is weakened due to the more relaxed historical process nowadays, and that the two are both opposing and can be transformed into each other. A specific place (site) will be disturbed by the phenomenon of placelessness in the course of time, and people's excavation of placeness and the inheritance of the local cultural genes determine the resilience of the place.

Key words

place / placelessness / humanistic geography / Heming Teahouse

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Zi-chuan GUO , Xu HUANG. TRIPLE PLACES: RETHINKING PLACE AND PLACELESSNESS IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY[J]. HUMAN GEOGRAPHY. 2026

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