Making sense of place through multiple memory systems¹

Abstract

The first part of the paper develops the argument that geographers should learn to decompose human memory into its constituent parts because then and then alone will we become attuned to the full range of ways in which we incorporate places into our beings. The second part of the paper articulates Stephen Hill's comments on episodic memory with my recent work on wisdom.

Revisiting positionality and the thesis of situated knowledge

“…The current understanding of processes of memory, forgetting, and remembering in human geography owes a great deal to the flourishing of psychoanalytic socio-spatial theory (Blum and Secor, 2011; Bondi, 2014; Callard, 2003; Healy, 2010; Kingsbury and Pile, 2016; Proudfoot, 2015) and the attendant revival of attention paid to processes of (conscious) suppression and (unconscious) repression of unwanted memory. Pathologies of memory that range from being unable to forget (post-traumatic stress disorder and intrusive memories) to being unable to remember (various forms of amnesia) generate their own peculiar geographies and distinct modes of spatial cognition (Blum and Secor, 2011; Eichenbaum, 2017; Simandan, 2011c).…”

“…a learning process whereby recurrent exposure to a stimulus leads to gradually amplified responses to it). In the rejoinder to Hill, Simandan (2011c) brings attention to a sixth implicit memory system: immunological memory (our immune system’s ability to store information about prior exposure to various pathogens, in order to mount a more efficient subsequent response in the case of reinfection).…”