Within the modern Western lifestyle increasing conflict is becoming apparent between that patchwork of isolated points such as the home or the office, which are linked by a mechanical system of transportation and communication devices, and a growing sense of homelessness and isolation. This work, first published in 1979, adopts a phenomenological perspective illustrating that this malaise may have partial roots in the deepening rupture between people and place. Whereas the problems of terrestrial space may have been overcome technologically and economically, it has been less successful regarding people. Experience indicates that people become bound to locality, and the quality of their life is thus reduced if these bonds are disrupted or broken in any way. The relationship between community and place is investigated, as is the opportunity for improving the environment, both from a human and an ecological perspective. This book will be of interest to students of human geography.

Within the modern Western lifestyle increasing conflict is becoming apparent between that patchwork of isolated points such as the home or the office, which are linked by a mechanical system of transportation and communication devices, and a growing sense of homelessness and isolation. This work, first published in 1979, adopts a phenomenological perspective illustrating that this malaise may have partial roots in the deepening rupture between people and place. Whereas the problems of terrestrial space may have been overcome technologically and economically, it has been less successful regarding people. Experience indicates that people become bound to locality, and the quality of their life is thus reduced if these bonds are disrupted or broken in any way. The relationship between community and place is investigated, as is the opportunity for improving the environment, both from a human and an ecological perspective. This book will be of interest to students of human geography.

Exploring Social Geography, first published in 1984, offers a challenging yet comprehensive introduction to the wealth of empirical research and theoretical debate that has developed in response to the advent of a social approach to the subject. The argument emphasises the essentially spatial structure of social interaction, and includes a succinct discussion of geographical research on segregation and interaction, which has combined numerical analyses and qualitative ethnographic field research. A distinctive view of social geography is adopted, inspired by the Chicago school of North American pragmatism, but also incorporating the formal sociological theories of Simmel and Weber. Exploring Social Geography will be of value to students of urban geography in particular. However, it will also indicate a wide-ranging and distinctive perspective for all students of the social sciences with a special interest in debates concerning urban, ethnic, racial, anthropological and theoretical issues.

Themes in Geographic Thought, first published in 1981, explores in breadth and depth the interrelationships among the history of Geography, geographic thought, and methodology, specifically focusing on the interactions between geographical research and various contemporary philosophical schools: positivism, pragmatism, functionalism, phenomenology, existentialism, idealism, realism and Marxism. An attempt is made to synthesise Geography’s historically rich tradition with the current diversity in approaches to the discipline, based on the belief that ‘geographic thought’, at any point in time, is a manifestation of the mutual influence between the prevailing philosophical viewpoints and the major methodological approaches in vogue. Each chapter presents an overview of the concrete ideas of a particular school of philosophy and stresses its relevance and impact on various aspects of Geography.

Phenomenological Perspectives on Place, Lifeworlds and Lived Emplacement is a compilation of seventeen previously published articles and chapters by David Seamon, one of the foremost researchers in environmental, architectural, and place phenomenology. These entries discuss such topics as body-subject, the lived body, place ballets, environmental serendipity, homeworlds, and the pedagogy of place and placemaking. The volume's chapters are broken into three parts. Part I includes four entries that consider what phenomenology offers studies of place and placemaking. These chapters illustrate the theoretical and practical value of phenomenological concepts like lifeworld, natural attitude, and bodily actions in place. Part II incorporates five chapters that aim to understand place and lived emplacement phenomenologically. Topics covered include environmental situatedness, architectural phenomenology, environmental serendipity, and the value of phenomenology for a pedagogy of place and placemaking. Part III presents a number of explications of real-world places and place experience, drawing on examples from photography (André Kertész’s Meudon), television (Alan Ball’s Six Feet Under), film (John Sayles’ Limbo and Sunshine State), and imaginative literature (Doris Lessing’s The Four-Gated City and Louis Bromfield’s The World We Live in). Seamon is a major figure in environment-behavior research, particularly as that work has applied value for design professionals. This volume will be of interest to geographers, environmental psychologists, architects, planners, policymakers, and other researchers and practitioners concerned with place, place experience, place meaning, and place making.

Anxious Geographies offers a unique perspective on social anxiety, framing it as both a social and spatial phenomenon. Through a meticulous exploration using online questionnaires and interviews, the book provides a crucial examination of the intricacies of anxious lives. This book presents a critical intervention in the experience of mental health in 21st-century society and provides a compelling geographical account of the underpinnings of the anxious experience. The book pivots on the in-depth perspectives of people with social anxiety, diagnosed or “sub-clinical”, but with an academic commentary that relates their experience to the medicalisation of a disrupted relational life, offering lessons for all of us in modern societies. Each chapter considers a unique aspect of social anxiety accounting for the social, spatial, temporal, relational and embodied dynamics, a geographical approach that enriches our understanding of the contexts and conditions that exacerbate and sustain anxious distress. The phenomenological descriptions herein, capture how social anxiety can profoundly alter a person’s coherent, habitual and embodied sense of being in and navigating through their social and spatial worlds. Through the experiential accounts of anxious distress and by considering the social contexts in which they emerge, this book provides readers with crucial insights into the hidden lives of those living with social anxiety. This book will be of appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of human geography and across the social sciences and humanities. It will also provide useful insights for academics and health professionals in social psychiatry, social psychology, counselling studies and therapeutic practice.

As an evolving and contested field, urban design has been made, unmade, and remade at the intersections of multiple disciplines and professions. It is now a decisive moment for urban design to reflect on its rigour and relevance. This handbook is an attempt to seize this moment for urban design to further develop its theoretical and methodological knowledge base and engage with the question of "what urban design can be" with a primary focus on its research. This handbook includes contributions from both established and emerging scholars across the global North and global South to provide a more field-specific entry point by introducing a range of topics and lines of inquiry and discussing how they can be explored with a focus on the related research designs and methods. The specific aim, scope, and structure of this handbook are appealing to a range of audiences interested and/or involved in shaping places and public spaces. What makes this book quite distinctive from conventional handbooks on research methods is the way it has been structured in relation to some key research topics and questions in the field of urban design regarding the issues of agency, affordance, place, informality, and performance. In addition to the introduction chapter, this handbook includes 80 contributors and 52 chapters organised into five parts. The commissioned chapters showcase a wide range of topics, research designs, and methods with references to relevant scholarly works on the related topics and methods.