“A Place Belongs Forever”: Telling Stories for the Personal Place Project

Abstract

Stories people tell about places reflect identities of both, and it is suggested here that any understanding of their constitutive links should begin with personal accounts. The purpose of this article is to describe a format (the Personal Place Project) within which personal place-based stories are formulated and told, to provide illustrative vignettes that address these engagements, to direct attention to themes that arise in these descriptions, and to suggest paths to larger and more complex stories. Vignettes from 10 representative stories drawn from 152 undergraduate essays are presented. It is suggested that the deeply embedded and synergistic themes of Others, power, and identity may help illuminate the nature of these paths. I conclude that my future efforts should focus on the nature of my own positionalities which would allow me new insights into reading these stories within the chosen direction of social justice.

人们讲述的关于地方的故事反映了两者的身份，这里建议，任何对它们的构成关系的理解都应该从个人账户开始. 本文的目的是描述格式(个人项目)的个人实体制定并告诉的故事,提供说明性的小品文,解决这些活动,直接关注主题出现在这些描述和建议路径更大、更复杂的故事. 从152篇本科论文中选取10个有代表性的故事作为小插曲. 这表明，他人、权力和身份的深深嵌入和协同的主题可能有助于阐明这些道路的性质. 我的结论是，我未来的努力应该集中在我自己的立场上，这将使我能够在选择的社会正义的方向上以新的视角来阅读这些故事.

Las historias que la gente cuenta acerca de lugares reflejan las identidades de los dos elementos relacionados, y aquí se sugiere que cualquier entendimiento de sus vínculos constitutivos debe empezar con relatos personales. El propósito del presente artículo es describir un formato (el Proyecto del Lugar Personal) dentro del cual las historias personales basadas en lugar se formulan y se cuentan para proveer estampas ilustrativas que aborden estos compromisos, para dirigir la atención hacia temas que surjan en estas descripciones y para sugerir trayectorias a historias más amplias y más complejas. Se presentan las estampas de 10 historias representativas sacadas de 152 ensayos universitarios de pregrado. Se sugiere que los temas profundamente incrustados y sinérgicos de los Otros, poder e identidad, pueden ayudar a iluminar la naturaleza de estas trayectorias. Concluyo que mis esfuerzos futuros deben enfocarse en la naturaleza de mis propias posicionalidades, lo cual me permitiría adoptar nuevas perspectivas para la lectura de estas historias, dentro de la dirección escogida de justicia social.

Key Words:

• identity
• place
• positionalities
• self
• storytelling

关键词:

• 的身份
• 的地方
• 关系结构
• 自我
• 讲故事

Palabras clave:

• el yo
• identidad
• lugar
• narración
• posicionalidades

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank editor Deborah Dixon, the anonymous reviewers, and Wil Gesler for their comments and patience in improving this essay.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leo Zonn

LEO ZONN is a retired Professor of Geography in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin, 305 East 23rd Street, Austin, Texas, USA. E-mail: [email protected]. A Cultural Geographer who has specialized and published in a wide range of venues on issues of representation, cinema, and popular culture, as well as in his early interests in migration and race/ethnicity, he was a Fulbright Scholar to Zagreb, Croatia, for 2010-2011 and Iași, Romania, in 2017.