How Does Space Have Meaning?

Abstract

This paper uses a geocritical approach (developing Bertrand Westphal’s work) to interpretatively realize the narrative and social production of the Korean jimjilbang (찜질방 bathhouse). The multifocality of this approach represents a methodologically new step in a field of studies which has been determined by author- and genre-centred approaches to space, and understands place as space continuously made meaningful (Cresswell 2004). The paper scrutinizes global and local conceptualizations of space, where narrative and visual representations are analysed to display how meaning is produced. By attempting to sensitize how cultural meanings come into being and how particular narratives and performances are inherent in the creation of spatial experience, it also makes evident that any approach to space needs to be trans-disciplinary.