From the Constitution to the Meaning of Place: A Philosophical Inquiry Based on Maurice Merleau-Ponty

AbstractThe notion of place occupies a central position in humanistic geography and is oftenunderstood as a center of meaning, belonging, and identity in human experience (TUAN, 1977;RELPH, 1976; BUTTIMER, 1976). Although these interpretations helped shift the analysis ofspatiality toward lived experience, the question of the more originary conditions that make thevery constitution of place possible remains open. This article offers a philosophical interrogationof that question on the basis of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s ontological reflections (1964). Ratherthan understanding place merely as space invested with meaning by human experience, the studyexamines how place emerges within the reversible intertwining between body and world described by the author as chiasm. From this perspective, place is neither reducible to a geometricform nor to a symbolic construction superimposed upon space; instead, it can be understood as athickening of embodied experience manifested within the sensible field of experience. Theanalysis discusses different ways in which this thickening may appear in spatial experience,exploring relational configurations of place and their variations within lived life. By bringing thediscussion of place back to the more originary plane of the intertwining between body and world,the article seeks to contribute to the deepening of phenomenological approaches in geography.Keywords: place; phenomenology; Merleau-Ponty; experience; humanistic geography.