Het fenomeen van de geografische ervaring. Een fenomenologisch onderzoek naar opvattingen van filosofen en geografen over het ervaren van plaats en ruimte

PhD ceremony: Mr. J.A. Koppen, 14.30 uur, Academiegebouw, Broerstraat 5, Groningen

Dissertation: Het fenomeen van de geografische ervaring. Een fenomenologisch onderzoek naar opvattingen van filosofen en geografen over het ervaren van plaats en ruimte

Promotor(s): prof. P.P.P. Huigen, prof. R.W. Boomkens

Faculty: Spatial Sciences

Places we consciously perceive, let us rarely indifferent. We have an opinion about them, certainly if a place excites us emotions. This thesis by Hans Koppen is about the phenomenon of the geographical experience, with a particular focus on the special variant of this experience. A special geographical experience is the direct, personal and penetrating experience of a place.

The term ‘geographical experience’ is little used in geography. A possible reason for this is that experience has a somewhat doubtful status within academia, due to the subjective connotations that pervade this term. This thesis presents, studies and considers the phenomenon of the special geographical experience. The aim is to provide a justifiable approach to the way people experience their environment and assign meaning to it. Characteristic of this study is that, alongside geographical and philosophical research into the phenomena of place and space, much attention is paid to the personal and processual elements of the experience process, as well as to the value-oriented and meaning-giving aspects of such experience processes. Physical and inherited elements that also play a part in the experience of place and space will also be covered, and one of the resulting propositions is that people have an essentially spatial nature.