Meanings of Place

From organisational cosmologies to organisational location and navigation, 'place' matters to ecological organisations.

An introduction to vegetable physiology by Green, J. Reynolds (Joseph Reynolds), 1848-1914

In the English language and culture, as I know it, place holds many different meanings.

The first place that first comes to mind is the place that’s locating us in space, time, and meaning. This place is full of tender memories and relational deepenings, the place of: ‘I’ll meet you at that riverside cafe on the quay where we met last time’; of gentle, everyday relational irritations, such as the muttered: ‘Why did he leave the keys there again?; and the shared evocations that seemingly simple descriptions can ignite, where a few words like: ‘I currently live in Exeter, on the edge of the Jurassic Coast and Dartmoor’ offers tales of deep time and geographic and ecological wonders, as well as stories of a life.

Then there’s the second place, that of social location. This is the place of ancestral lines, what nationality we’re born into, who and where our family is, where ‘home’ lies; and all the questions and emotions and yearnings that questions of social location hold. This is the place of feeling ancestrally or nationally displaced or rooted; of family of origin or family of choice or no family at all; of places that we know and that knows us, being at home as an always-explorer, or walking ourselves into a new place.

The third place is that of social navigation. This is how we ‘know our place’ within family and community, institutions and organisations. In organisations, this can look like knowing if it’s our place to make a decision, give voice to a concern or idea, or be in leadership or stewardship. In families, this can look like understanding how we act and love as a family member. In the UK, this can look like the awful ‘knowing our place’ depending on which social class we’re born into, affecting what level of education we might receive, what jobs and careers we might aim for, and who’s advocating for us and what response we receive when we advocate for ourselves.

If we’re fortunate, all of the above combine into a knowing of where and how we each fit into communities, families, place, ecosystems, social systems, and on this Earth. A ‘knowing our place’ that shows us that we are irreplaceable and necessary to the complex web of relationships we’re daily weaving and weaved into. A ‘knowing our place’ that’s of being an ecological creature in a multispecies world. A ‘knowing our place’ that guides us into how best to hone and share our gifts, capacities, and interests, while trusting that our needs will be taken care of.

What I discover when I look to ecological organisations is that here, too, there are different meanings of place; and I find relationship between meanings of place in relation to humans and meanings of place in relation to organisations.

Place as organisational cosmologies or worldviews

The first of these meanings for organisations is place as organisational cosmologies or worldviews. This place is not only the cosmologies or worldviews that originate organisational purpose and design, but also holds the importance of placing cosmologies and worldviews within the ancient human need to create and share stories of what this world is and how to be in it.