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Tuanian Geography

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Place, Space and Hermeneutics

Part of the book series: Contributions to Hermeneutics ((CONT HERMEN,volume 5))

Abstract

Yi-Fu Tuan is skeptical of methods, including those of hermeneutics, but his approach closely parallels the prescriptions of several hermeneutic philosophers. He seeks to empathize with all kinds of human experience by reading across various works from literature and the arts, as well as history, biography, social science, philosophy and theology. In Tuanian hermeneutic circles, geographically contingent understandings of the world propel people between a pole of experience characterized by rootedness, security and certainty, and an opposing pole characterized by outreach, expansiveness and imagination. One pole signifies stasis, the other, transformation, but elements of each pole infiltrate and animate the other. These Tuanian contrasts reveal many ways of being-in-the-world and how they mix and blend in ways that are always subtle and full of nuance. For example there is always a certain distance in what is nearby and a kind of nearness in what is far away. Tuan thereby provides a lens on the ambiguities and ambivalences that attend the human experience of dwelling in the world.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Paul C. Adams

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  1. Paul C. Adams
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Correspondence to Paul C. Adams .

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA

    Bruce B. Janz

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Adams, P.C. (2017). Tuanian Geography. In: Janz, B. (eds) Place, Space and Hermeneutics. Contributions to Hermeneutics, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52214-2_20

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