Going to make this place my “home”

This recent article that involves the content of what a space is and what a space possesses as well as the implications of that space on a political setting was very interesting.  This article opens basically telling us that space as a definition is often misunderstood or in several cases as the article points out, often forgotten entirely.  As the article goes on the author describes what a place is in five different ways. The first is space as a physical location, the second is space as a cultural location, the third is space that is described as a context, the fourth is place as being created over time, and the last one is space as a process.  All of these definitions are true, and that is the hard part about describing what a space really is.  From reading about all of them the one that I found to be the most accurate was that space is best described as a cultural or social setting.  When I moved to Indiana at the age of seven, it was never about Indiana, it was about when we went home to Wisconsin.  Wisconsin has always held a special place in my heart and in truth it was my first home and will probably always be my home at heart.  In Indiana I never felt like i “belonged” simply because all of the social connections that were the most important to me still resided in Wisconsin.  This idea of space as a “place of belonging” or “home” to me is what makes a space.  As the article describes further is that spaces can change over time and as a human I have witnessed a change in all of my spaces, but the one space that will always be the same to me is Wisconsin.

The second chunk of the article cuts into space as it pertains to political geography.  The first paragraph that describes the concept of not in my backyard to me paints the best picture of how space can impact politics.  My grandparents are as conservative as conservative gets, so the idea of placing a factory farm anywhere to them really never seemed like a big deal, until they wanted to put one five miles away from their house.  Then and only then was it a problem.  I find it interesting that the article points out that politics about place is “about maintaining the illusion of control”.  People want to be in control and if their is no sort of control, then things like violence can occur.  When you look as voting, it comes down to a few in my opinion big issues.  Jobs, money, and education drive elections and it is interesting to see the relationship between socioeconomic conditions and voting patterns.  These two things deal with control.  We as people have very little control, so we do our best to control the space that we do have, making it our own and trying our best to keep drastic change from occurring.  This article does its best to define space, but space cannot be defined.  Space is what you make of it and what s most important to you, thus every definition of space will never be the same as another individuals.