Place is one of the two or three most important ideas
in geography (Cresswell, 2004). At a common-sense
level it is at the heart of many students’ interest in
taking up geography at school or university. I have
interviewed potential students over the last ten years
or so and the most frequent answer to the question of
why they want to study geography is an interest in
places and the difference between them. Not
surprisingly, perhaps, this interest in place is not about
a deeply theorised notion of what place is as a
concept. This is what we hope for at the end of the
degree! Thinking about place at a deeper level,
however, would allow A-level students to see how a philosophy of geography already intervenes in how we
understand more surface-level geographical issues as
diverse as the contemporary British high street, the
politics of immigration and the use of new media such
as mobile phones and immersive software
environments. The purpose of this article, then, is to
encourage students and teachers to think about what
place means and how this influences our understanding
of contemporary social and cultural issues.