Explanation of the role of meaning component in the process of creating the sense of place

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Abstract

This paper has been created in order to study the role of the meaning in creating a sense of place and in order to answer the questions about that, the meaning factor in each of its types- including the meanings that are in the mind of the human beings and the meanings that are in the place- can make which levels of meaning and also it is about that, how to achieve the various levels of sense of place according to each related level of that meaning. The fact that emphasizes on the importance of this study, is about the providing a base in order to achive a perception of the meanings in the place and creation of symbolic meanings of place in the mind of human beings. Therefore, in order to study the relations that are exist between several concepts such as the levels of the place meaning, hierarchy of human beings existence in the place and the various levels of sense of place, that the theoretical framework of this article has been based upon them, the Arg street of Mashhad that is one of the main streets of the city, has been selected as the case study for desired analysis. So in order to create and develop a theoretical framework for this study, the qualitative research has been used as a method to fulfill the study and in this way the technique of a half designed interview and also the techniques of coding and hermeneutics has been used in order to interpret the data and collected information. According to the results that has been achived from the analysis of the mentioned place, it has been indicated that there are some internal relations between different levels of the place meanings, hierarchy of human beings existence in the place and the various levels of sense of place. Finally, these findings of the research and what was the results of the related analysis in this study, has been based on this fact that the perception of the meanings that exists in the place are related to the perception of the physical meanings and it is related to the complete range of outsideness but only the primary levels of insideness in the hierarchy of human beings existence in the place. This fact can mainly results in incuriosity to place or awareness of being in the place, in maximum. Also the perception of the meanings that are in the mind of human beings, are related to the perception of personal and social meanings. This fact can mainly shows that the perception of the meanings that are in the mind of human beings is including the the higher levels of existence in the place and the strong relation between human and place such as existential insideness. In this case it can include several levels of sense of place from place attachment to existence in the place and also sacrificing for the place, the levels that certainly shows the highest levels of sense of place.

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