A Place in Space.

Lipovac (1997) posits visual space as “everything we can experience in daily life: sky and earth, water and land, hamlet and city, street and square, a building itself from outside and inside.” Though the familiarity of space as an experience it becomes place, (Tuan, 1977: 73), (Haynes 2105). Hence, Mareeba my birth town though its location geographically, or in space, becomes a place identified by conscious interaction and experiences of that space.

Place is a term that can have a variety of meanings in the English language, it can mean a geographical location a town or a persons’ status in society, (Hay 1998). Mareeba is my birth place the space where I grew and lived half of my life. Hay (1998) and Tuan (1977) both consider a space becomes a place when it becomes familiar to us. Although Mareeba is very familiar to me and despite assertions by (Hay, 1998 pg. 9) that a sense of ‘rootedness or attachment to the place’ will develop over time, Mareeba is no more a place in space than any other place.

Mareeba is a rural town, geographically it is located on the western side of the Lamb Range and the Eastern side of the Greater Dividing Range, to the north, of the Atherton Tablelands, and this places it in a space where conditions are one of the most reliable in the world for ballooning.

The tourist and transient experience of Mareeba would be a new experience. This newness may include visual experiences considered sublime. The local however may not view the scenery in the same way. In one aspect what is sublime for the visitor has become mundane to the local. Hay (1998 pg. 9) distinguishes the tourists experience of place a “superficial sense of place,” as opposed to the local who experience of place involves a sense ‘rootedness’.

Mareeba is the local indigenous word for meeting of the waters. The Muluridji people named this space though their experiences based on geographical features of the space. The Muluridji people also have an ancestral history associated with the place that gives a sense of ‘rootedness’.

In conclusion, the defining of a space into a place depends on the experience of the individual and/or the social networks. The tourists or transients experience is predominantly superficial as they take in the new landscapes. The local may find no appeal in the landscape but have attachment to the place though a sense of community (Hay 1998, pg. 12). For the Muluridji people the association to the place ties in with geographical location, community and an ancestral sense of place, (Hay 1998, pg. 12).

Reference List

Hayes, A. (2015) BA1002: our space: networks, narratives & making of place, week 4 notes [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-1992855-dt-content-rid-2715045_1/courses/15-BA1002-CNS-EXT_INT-SP2/BA1002%20Week%204%20Space%20and%20Place%20and%20Pecha%20Kucha%201%20Lectorial%20Revised%20for%20PDF.pdf

Hay, R. (1998). Sense of place in developmental context. Journal of environmental psychology, 18(1), 5-29.

Lipovac, N. (1997). Prostor i mjesto. Prostor: znanstveni časopis za arhitekturu i urbanizam, 5(1 (13)), 1-34.

Tuan, Y. F. (1977). Space and place: The perspective of experience. U of Minnesota Press.

http://cairnsdiscounttours.com.au/cairnsballooning/