The\nmaking of meaning doesn\u2019t happen in a vacuum. Events happen in a specific\ncontext, in a real place and we make sense of what happens to us in that space.\nWe form a sense of place as our bodies move through different spaces (in my\nmodel for the embodied sense of meaning<\/em>,\nI call it spatiality<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\ndo we form a sense of place? Similar to the idea of spatiality, humans\u2019 sense\nof place has been driven by an interconnectedness as a result of globalisation,\nthe instantaneous availability of information through technology, receding the\nboundaries between places (and here it also refers to the sense of a virtual\nplace in a virtual world), and increased mobility, with people experiencing a\nmultiple sense of place. Sense of place is comprised by features such as the\nphysical environment, meaningfulness, rootedness, emotional attachment, place\nsatisfaction, place identity and belonging, with a crucial focus on relationships<\/em> (Eyles & Williams 2008). Sense\nof place is a tangible, sensory experience of the physical environment, or an embodied sensing of a physical place<\/em>.\nSense of place relates to the health and well-being of the bodies within that\nplace, and, I would argue, to the theological concept of human flourishing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nvariety of factors can influence this sensed relationship between bodies and\nplace like age, ethnicity, time, residential status as well as the physical\nplace itself (DeMiglio & Williams 2008). It takes time for people to\nestablish a new sense of place as a result of events such as immigration and\ndisplacement. This process can happen based on what is happening in the\npresent, while recalling the past. The geographers Kearns and Gesler write that\nsense of place is determined in the interactive relationship \u2018between daily\nexperiences of a (local) place and perceptions of one\u2019s place in the world \u2026\nand can be used to interpret a range of situated health effects that imply a\nlink between mind, body and society\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Places\nalso have multiple meanings and the possibility of multiple associations\nconnected to it based on activities, personal experience as well as social\nhistory, but these are closely attached to language practices. The use of\ndifferent languages could potentially lead to the division of an \u2018old self\u2019 and\n\u2018new self\u2019 e.g. amongst immigrants (Taylor 2010). The issue for many immigrants\nis how they could \u2018lose their foreign-ness while retaining a sense of self \u2026 an\nelastic balance between rigidity and self-effacement?\u2019 (Craith 2012). This\nissue is an interplay with the relation between place and identity, of belonging\nsomewhere, of being an outsider or insider. The quest for belonging and being\nat home is often tested when there is a threat to personal safety through\nviolence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A space\nis first of all connected to a specific, local place where belonging and attachment,\na person\u2019s sense of place heavily impacts on their well-being in a concrete and\nspecific life-world. Within theological anthropology the notion of human\nflourishing embraces well-being and expands it, where human flourishing is to\nallow yourself and other bodies, human and non-human to thrive within the\nrelationships one have to other creatures and institutions, through wise action\nand in accountability to God, in the way we live in the bodies that we have and\nthe bodies that we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The making of meaning doesn\u2019t happen in a vacuum. Events happen in a specific context, in a real place and we make sense of what happens to us in that space. We form a sense of place as our bodies move through different spaces (in my model for the embodied sense of meaning, I call …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bodystory.co.za\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}