Emotional geography

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Emotional geography is a subtopic within human geography, more specifically cultural geography, which applies psychological theories of emotion. It is an interdisciplinary field relating emotions, geographic places and their contextual environments. These subjective feelings can be applied to individual and social contexts. Emotional geography specifically focuses on how human emotions relate to, or affect, the environment around them.[1][2][3][4]

Firstly, there is a difference between emotional and affectual geography and they have their respective geographical sub-fields. The former refers to theories of expressed feelings and the social constructs of expressed feelings which can be generalisable and understood globally. The latter refers to theories underlying inexpressible feelings that are independent, embodied, and hard to understand.[5]

Emotional geography approaches geographical concepts and research from an expressed and generalisable perspective. Historically, emotions have an ultimate adaptive significance by accentuating a non-verbal form of communication that is universal.[6] This dates back to Darwin's theory of emotion, which explains the evolutionary development of expressed emotion. This aids individual and societal relationships as there is the presence of emotional communication. For example, when studying social phenomena, individuals' emotions can connect and create a social emotion which can define the event happening.[7]

So, emotional geography applies emotional theory to places, emphasising the individual and social presence of it.

  1. ^ Derek Gregory; Ron Johnston; Geraldine Pratt; Michael Watts; Sarah Whatmore (2011). The Dictionary of Human Geography (5., Auflage ed.). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-1-4443-5995-4. OCLC 897578256.
  2. ^ Kearney, Amanda (2009-03-01). "Homeland Emotion: An Emotional Geography of Heritage and Homeland". International Journal of Heritage Studies. 15 (2–3): 209–222. doi:10.1080/13527250902890746. ISSN 1352-7258. S2CID 143790559.
  3. ^ Britta Timm Knudsen; Anne Marit Waade (2010). Re-investing authenticity : tourism, place and emotions. Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications. ISBN 978-1-84541-128-2. OCLC 433549644.
  4. ^ L. A. Hercus; Harold Koch (2009). Aboriginal placenames: naming and re-naming the Australian landscape. Canberra: ANU E Press. ISBN 978-1-921666-09-4. OCLC 436100287.
  5. ^ Horton, John; Kraftl, Peter (2013-10-08). Cultural Geographies (0 ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315797489. ISBN 978-1-317-75368-1.
  6. ^ Gray, Peter; Bjorklund, David F. (2018). Psychology (Eighth ed.). New York, NY: Macmillan Education. ISBN 978-1-319-15051-8. OCLC 1007923744.
  7. ^ Everts, Jonathan; Wagner, Lauren (2012). "Guest Editorial: Practising emotions". Emotion, Space and Society. 5 (3): 174–176. doi:10.1016/j.emospa.2012.02.004.