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Understanding the concept of place is fundamental to the AQA A-Level Geography Changing Places unit. Place is more than a point on a map — it encompasses the physical characteristics, human meanings, and lived experiences that make locations distinctive. This lesson explores the theoretical foundations that geographers use to analyse places, drawing on key thinkers including Agnew (1987), Tuan (1977), and Cresswell (2004).
Geographers draw a critical distinction between space and place:
| Concept | Definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Space | An abstract, geometric area without assigned human meaning — a location defined by coordinates or boundaries | A grid reference on an Ordnance Survey map |
| Place | A space that has been given meaning through human experience, attachment, and social processes | "Home," "my school," "the Lake District" |
Yi-Fu Tuan (1977) articulated this distinction in his seminal work Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Tuan argued that space becomes place when we endow it with value — when it ceases to be an abstract location and becomes somewhere we know, care about, or identify with. A bus stop, for instance, is merely a point in space until you wait there every morning and it becomes part of your daily routine, your place.
Exam Tip: When answering questions about place vs space, always provide a concrete example. The distinction is abstract, so grounding it in a real location demonstrates understanding. For instance: "The coordinates 51.5074°N, 0.1278°W define a space; 'London' defines a place — a location laden with cultural meaning, identity, and emotional significance."
Tim Cresswell (2004), in Place: A Short Introduction, argued that place is composed of three fundamental elements:
John Agnew's (1987) framework in Place and Politics remains the most widely used model for analysing place at A-Level. Agnew identified three interrelated components:
graph TD
A[Place] --> B[Location]
A --> C[Locale]
A --> D[Sense of Place]
B --> E["Where? Fixed point in space<br/>e.g. Grid reference, coordinates"]
C --> F["What? Physical setting, buildings,<br/>land use, infrastructure"]
D --> G["How does it feel? Subjective<br/>meanings, emotions, attachments"]
Location refers to the objective, fixed position of a place in space — its coordinates, its position relative to other places, and its situation within wider geographical patterns. Location can be described as:
Location matters because it influences accessibility, connectivity, and the economic functions a place can perform. Coastal locations attract tourism and port activity; locations on major transport corridors attract industry and commerce.
Locale describes the material, physical setting in which social life takes place — the buildings, streets, parks, land use patterns, and infrastructure that shape daily activity. The locale of a place is shaped by both natural and human factors.
| Aspect of Locale | Examples |
|---|---|
| Built environment | Housing styles (terraced, detached, tower blocks), commercial buildings, religious buildings |
| Land use | Residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational |
| Infrastructure | Roads, railways, broadband, utilities |
| Physical features | Rivers, hills, coastline, green spaces |
| Public spaces | Markets, squares, parks, high streets |
A-Level Analysis: The locale of a place is never neutral. The built environment reflects economic processes, planning decisions, cultural values, and power relationships. A high street dominated by chain stores (Costa, Tesco Express, Greggs) tells a different story from one with independent shops — it reflects the power of transnational corporations and the homogenising effects of globalisation.
Sense of place is the most subjective of Agnew's three components. It refers to the emotional, affective, and symbolic meanings that people attach to places — the feelings a place evokes.
Sense of place is shaped by:
Key Example: The former mining village of Grimethorpe in South Yorkshire (made famous by the 1996 film Brassed Off) illustrates how sense of place operates at multiple levels. For former miners and their families, it carries powerful associations of community solidarity, loss, and economic hardship. For outsiders, it may be associated with deprivation statistics or media stereotypes. These different perspectives create competing senses of the same place.
A crucial distinction in the study of place is between insider and outsider perspectives:
| Perspective | Definition | Characteristics |
|---|---|---|
| Insider | Someone who lives in or has deep personal experience of a place | Subjective, emotional, detailed local knowledge, may be uncritical or take features for granted |
| Outsider | Someone who observes a place from a distance, without personal attachment | More objective but potentially superficial, may rely on stereotypes or media representations |
Edward Relph (1976) explored this distinction in Place and Placelessness, arguing that the depth of a person's connection to a place exists on a spectrum from deep existential insidedness (where the place is so familiar it forms part of your identity) to existential outsidedness (where you feel alienated and detached from a place).
| Level | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Existential insidedness | The deepest level — the place is part of who you are, known without conscious thought | A farmer whose family has worked the same land for generations |
| Empathetic insidedness | A deliberate effort to understand and appreciate a place from the inside | A geographer conducting participant observation in a community |
| Behavioural insidedness | Knowing a place through regular use and functional engagement | A commuter who knows every shortcut through their local town centre |
| Vicarious outsidedness | Experiencing a place through media, art, or second-hand accounts | Watching a documentary about life in a former mining town |
| Incidental outsidedness | Passing through a place without engagement | Driving through a town on the motorway |
| Existential outsidedness | Deep alienation — feeling that a place is meaningless or hostile | A refugee arriving in an unfamiliar country |
Exam Tip: The insider/outsider distinction is central to evaluating place studies. Always consider positionality — who is describing the place, and how does their position (age, gender, ethnicity, class, length of residence) shape their perception? Two people can experience the same place in radically different ways.
The concept of lived experience draws on the philosophical tradition of phenomenology — the study of how people experience the world directly through their senses and consciousness, rather than through abstract theories or statistics.
Tuan (1977) argued that places are understood through the body — through sight, sound, smell, touch, and movement. A place is not just what it looks like on a map; it is the smell of the bakery on the high street, the sound of traffic, the feel of cobblestones underfoot.
This approach emphasises:
| Approach | Methods | Strengths | Limitations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quantitative | Census data, deprivation indices, land use maps, GIS | Objective, comparable, allows statistical analysis | Cannot capture subjective meanings or lived experience |
| Qualitative | Interviews, oral histories, photography, ethnography | Rich, detailed, captures personal meaning | Subjective, difficult to generalise, researcher bias |
Exam Tip: The AQA specification requires you to understand both quantitative and qualitative approaches to studying place. The strongest answers combine both — using census data to establish the demographic profile of a place, then using interviews or oral histories to explore how residents actually experience living there.
| Theorist | Date | Key Work | Core Idea |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yi-Fu Tuan | 1977 | Space and Place | Space becomes place through experience and attachment; place is felt through the body |
| John Agnew | 1987 | Place and Politics | Place has three components: location, locale, sense of place |
| Edward Relph | 1976 | Place and Placelessness | Spectrum from insidedness to outsidedness; placelessness as loss of authentic place identity |
| Tim Cresswell | 2004 | Place: A Short Introduction | Place as location + locale + sense of place; place is socially constructed |
| Doreen Massey | 1991 | "A Global Sense of Place" | Places are not bounded or static — they are shaped by connections to the wider world |
Understanding place matters for several reasons:
The AQA Changing Places specification is structured around three key questions:
| Question | Focus | Key Concepts |
|---|---|---|
| What is a place? | Defining and understanding the nature of place | Place vs space, Agnew's three aspects, insider/outsider, Tuan's lived experience |
| How are places shaped? | Endogenous and exogenous factors that create place character | Physical geography, land use, demographics, government policy, globalisation, migration |
| How do we understand places? | Representations, perceptions, and place studies | Quantitative and qualitative data, media, art, literature, positionality, fieldwork |
These three questions form the backbone of your revision. Every concept, case study, and theoretical framework you encounter in this course connects to one or more of them.
Exam Tip: In 20-mark essay questions, always link theoretical concepts to real-world examples. Do not just define Agnew's three aspects — apply them to a specific place you have studied, showing how location, locale, and sense of place interact to create its distinctive character.