Place and space are often used interchangeably in everyday language, but in human geography, these terms mean different things.
Without doing a deep dive into the academic literature around place versus space (something that I have been doing as part of my PhD), here’s my simple explanation.
A “place” is a physical location that has meaning to people who use that space. The meaning could be positive, negative or neutral, but what’s important is that the place has some sort of identity, often relating to culture, memory and values, and people both shape and are shaped by places.
If a place has meaning attached to it, “space” is more about the physical locations or areas that we pass through or observe, and define in terms of their physical characteristics: shape, size, colour, but without attaching any special meaning to it.
An example of place might be the playground where you spent summers playing, meeting friends, eating ice cream, having your first kiss, weeping after you failed an exam.
An example of space might be a town that you visit briefly to change trains: you notice the architecture, sights, sounds, smells, and may even think, “Lovely place,” but it soon passes from memory because it holds no special meaning for you.
The words we use, and our intent when facilitating futures, can make the difference between a group or an individual feeling motivated to probe, reflect, and act because they feel close to the place, or to treat the futures work as an intellectual activity that doesn’t demand engagement because the psychological distance is too great.