空间象征性意义的研究进展与启示

On the Symbolic Meanings of Space

随着西方人文地理学研究朝向新人文地理学转型,地理学者对于空间的探求逐步从对经济、社会、文化现象进行物理性的空间分析,转向对于空间自身进行深入的文化分析。空间的概念逐步被文本化,进而成为地理学学者分析的本底材料。空间被定义为社会、文化以及政治过程的反映。对于空间的分析即可以揭示出深刻的社会过程与政治、文化和社会的演变。本文通过对空间意义与象征性概念的解释,介绍空间意义与象征性,并通过对西方学者实际案例的介绍,进一步理清空间意义与象征性的研究内容以及对于国内研究的借鉴与启示作用。

The trend of cultural turn in western academia galvanized a transformation in European and American human geography,especially cultural geography,from a macroscopic view of space to a more microscopic one.According to the viewpoints in ＂new cultural geography＂,space should be textualized and thus made accessible for interpretation.Space is no longer defined merely as a material entity where social,cultural and political phenomena are located and distributed,but media through which social processes take place and exert influences.Since social processes and power relationships constantly reshape the meanings and define the constructions of spaces,the interpretations of spaces can therefore reveal those processes and transformation embedded in the meanings conveyed by particular spaces.To understand spatial symbolism requires at first the clarification of the conceptions of symbolism and its application in human geography.With elaborations by Aase,Peirce etc.,we get a basic understanding of symbolism in geography,which mainly focuses on the meanings engendered from the interactions between human behaviors and the environmental milieu.In the mean time,geographers should then focus their attention on intense social transformation and power relations,in order to reveal both cultural and spatial impacts of the above processes in society.Research cases in the western academia can be roughly divided into two main themes：（1） social transformation;（2） political and power relations between or among different social groups.In this paper,cases drawn from western literature are briefly introduced to present a collective view of mainstream research interest concerning the meanings and symbolism of space.The authors then propose that in order to keep up with the international academic trends,the topic of space symbolism is worth attention for the Chinese geography researchers.In light of the rapid social and economic social transformation in contemporary China,it is reasonable to assume that processes in Chinese society will then produce profound influences on spatiality,thus inserting meanings into spaces.