On Wednesday 14 February 2024 I virtually visited Keele University to present a paper on place-based knowledge from the perspective of literary and cultural studies.

The paper draws in part developed in The Narrative Turn in Urban Planning, in particular the section on narrative mapping and PPGIS, and Narrative in Urban Planning (with Jens Gurr and Martin Buchenau), in particular the section on polyphony.

Thanks for everyone at Keele for the lively discussion! Special thanks to Ceri Morgan, who has done brilliant work on (among other things) Montreal in literature, for inviting me!

Abstract below

Place-based Knowledge: Perspectives from Literary and Cultural Studies

Place-based information is of crucial importance for policymaking, urban planning, and regional management. With the increase of digitalized practices and geographic information systems, place-based information tends to be increasingly stored as quantitative data points on a digitized map. But how to move from place-based information to meaningful place-based knowledge? Knowledge that is qualitative rather than quantitative, relational and dynamic rather than individuated or static in meaning? In this paper, I argue that such a shift can be accommodated with the help of approaches from literary and cultural studies. Key concepts in this respect are metaphor, plot, and the idea of interrelational space. Central for a qualitative and humanities-informed approach to place-based knowledge is a view in which personal and communal experiences take shape not as easily quantifiable data points, but rather within a storified interaction of personal and communal trajectories, recognizable plotlines, and relationships between different locations (including imaginary, past or future locations).