Reaction Paper 1

 Madison Blackburn

Geography 101

January 20, 2021

I really enjoyed the reading of “Defining Place” by Tim Cresswell. I thought that both of the readings for today were good ones, I just felt that the “Defining Place” one had more details and definitely kept my interest longer. This reading showed a lot of different perspectives on different geological themes. It mainly talked about the definition of place, and how people use it differently. 

One of the biggest takeaways that I got from this reading was that place isn’t just a way to name a location of somewhere, but every place has a different value and understanding. This made me think of all the different “places” people go in an average day and how they are so different. I never use to think much of the difference in daily visits of locations, but after reading this I realized how people act, the setting, the comfortableness, and so many other factors vary in every place you go. 

Understanding various places is something that will contain a lot of details, and everyone’s understanding of a place will be unique. The way people understand and interpret various places will often depend on their knowledge of the place and their experiences. Sometimes our friends and peers have different opinions and comfort levels in certain settings than we do. 

For example, I love living in Alaska. Alaska is a beautiful place, more isolated, and adventurous to me. Other people from different states can’t even imagine how I live here. They don’t like how it is isolated and that you can’t always get things as easily as you can somewhere else. This is just one general big place that many people have different opinions on.