The Salience of Place
More-than-human voices
in the geographies of
humans with Tourette syndrome
Diana Beljaars, Cardiff University
Jon Anderson, Cardiff University
Spaces of Attunement 31/03/2015
Where we are influences who we are, and what we
understand of the world
Edward Said (1993:7): “Just as none of us is outside
or beyond geography, none of us is completely free
from the struggle over geography”
People with Tourette syndrome as
hypersensitive/hyperattuned
Humans with amplified sensations in relation to place
Individuals who can demonstrate the influence that
place can have on human behaviour/ experience/
wellbeing
Place Salience
Place salience might be understood as the way in
which a change of environment (or a geographical
location itself) demands something of a person
residing in it, thereby going beyond its mere
meaning, and extending into the realms of the
sensual and emotional experience of a place.
Assemblages
Assemblages can be thought of as wholes whose
properties emerge from the interactions between the
parts
Connections are forged between certain aspects of
places and certain aspects of people that only
become active in one particular person-place
assemblage.
Assemblage brings out a set of capacities in both
person and place; a set that is inherently open to
change over time
Attentiveness (Seamon, 1976)
Attunements to the environment can be located on
an ‘awareness continuum’
From ‘person-place mergence’ to ‘person-place
separateness’
Tourette’s as a person-place assemblage of
attentiveness
behaviours are the consequences of bodily
discomfort induced by extraordinary processes
of perception that result in heightened sensitivity
to place
requires time and effort to render person-place
assemblages as ‘just right’.
In Tourette syndrome
When the place appearance shows discrepancies with the
imagined place logic…
…and the number of compulsive behaviours that have to be
performed increases…
…and the senses are pressured…
…and the place therefore requires more attention…
… and the person-place assemblage is a disruptive one and
does not sustain the person thriving…
...then the place becomes more salient.
The Brenda Story (1)
The Brenda Story (2)
Hyperattentiveness as indication of emerging social,
cultural, material, non-human and embodied
aspects of place with the changing place
appearance
Conclusions
Attunement to Place Salience:
• How aspects of both people and place
emerge in the fluid process of placemaking that supports or disrupts life to
various extents.
• Understanding aspects of a person in
laboratory conditions (e.g. for TS) only
says something about that particular
assemblage
• Place salience helps us understand how
people and place connect and how
aspects of one reflects and brings out
aspects in the other.
Thank you
BeljaarsDN@Cardiff.ac.uk
AndersonJ@Cardiff.ac.uk