Place And Identity

We live in the era which is dominated by global market and international division of labor.The development of transportation and communication tools and the emergence of a new division economy make modern society more dynamic and fluid than any time.The traditional geographical boundaries are gradually fading and gradually so as to break.People are locked in the complex global link and have the powerful ability to run away from one place as well.It leads to the traditional social status and grade gradually disintegrated.People are in a free flow and experiencing the loss of internality at the same time.The ontological security has been questioned,and modern man is facing an intense anxiety and identity crisis.Sense of place is the emotional connection which is built by the interaction between people and place.Those traditional imaginations of place are filled with constancy,stability,and closure.But in the modern society,our sense of place has changed tremendously.It has an important influence on the establishment of identity.British contemporary radical geography scholar Doreen Massey responded this issue,she connected the most authoritative debate about space and time in the 1980s and the major transformation of philosophy began in the late 19th century.With the help of the whole modern analysis of the internal relationship between social politics,economy,culture,and the understanding of place in the left-wing and the radical theory,this thesis explores the relationship between place and identity construction with the key point of Doreen Massey's "global sense of place".This thesis focuses on three issues:first,the identity of place,second,personal identity which is based on the place,third,is to explore the unique position that place takes in the construction of our identity today on a larger scale.Those traditional imaginations of place are based on closure,constancy,and stability,but Doreen Massey redefine place with "the encounter of social relations",which endowed place with the characteristics of dynamic,openness and multiplicity,which makes the identity based on place tend to be polybasic.Place become the participants of identity construction.Massey's global sense of place opened a new perspective to our understanding of place and identity,but her assumption of pluralism,different and mobile space requires people to give up a feeling of safe home and hope to create a new sense of belonging in the same time,and that's a great challenge.In the face of this challenge,we are both against essential ism sense of place,but to create the space bearing significance through living practice.