Ecotone: Writing About Place: PlaceBloggingDescription

What exactly is a weblog of place? How does blogging about place differ from other styles or modes of blogging?

Place bloggers write, on one level, about the place where they live: its ecology, its beauty, the particular quality of nature in that place, and their relation to it. On another level, place bloggers are concerned with larger questions of ecology and land use, the future of the environment, and human beings' relation to (or alienation from) the world we inhabit and share. And on a still deeper level, many place bloggers are exploring the whole notion of "place" itself: where and what is this elusive idea of "place", in its broadest sense, and what does it mean to us as spiritual beings in perpetual search of something called "home"?

More thoughts on place [here].

CassandraPages

Fred here...

I think we need a clear understanding among ourselves about what typifies a post 'about place' so we can guide contributors to our 'portal'. I'll offer a few general topic areas, maybe we can expand on this list so that in the end, we have a thumbnail list that will let a potential reader/contributor know what this realm is about. Very off the top of my head...

Nature/natural history: can include mere observations but better, observations that promote understanding or reflect relationships with non-human species and habitats
Landscapes: descriptive/immersive narrative of the landform that surrounds you (or in your travels but more than a travelog of I went here, there, etc). Painting word pictures so those from other types of country can be vicariously in your woods, prairie, beach, mountaintop, etc)
Human-nature interaction: Tell how your activities or those of your community impact the living systems for good or ill.
Local history of place: Explore how your life is just so because of the history of where you live, the people that lived there and farmed fields, built the house, created community...
Personal space in place: Reflections of one life (yours) passing through and being changed by place (weather, seasons, birth-death, aging, personal growth). Journaling in the context of the 'where'.

Your turn. Feel free to modify my quick ideas, then add your own. Or blow this off if a waste of time. I'm doing this for me, because I am being asked 'what's it all about'. Pointing to a dozen 800-word essays may not be the best way to explain ourselves, I am thinking). Fred

An early stab at a 'banner definition' of Ecotone...

Ecotone: (noun) term from ecology. A place where landscapes meet-- like field with forest, or grassland with desert. The ecotone is an area of increased richness and diversity where the two communities comingle. Here too are creatures unique to the ecotone... the so-called 'edge effect'. Here in the online Ecotone community, we hope to create an edge effect, bringing distinct and different places and communities together to enrich our world. Enjoy your visit.

Add or subtract as you see fit, but perhaps duplicate instead of replacing this first attempt, so we can compare 'versions'.

Oh, and I can imagine all sorts of neat graphics (collage of seaside, prairie, mountaintops) to use as a background image or in some other way. Oooh! -- Fred

Alison here: how about adding "online" (in bold, above) before Ecotone community?

Fred sez: Yes, something to distinguish it from an 'intentional community' somewhere. Wish there were other words for online. Virtual, cyber, E-..., electronic-- perhaps online will be the best of the lot. Other suggestions?

Chris here...

I think, for me, what defines place blogging is that, instead of linking to other places on the net, we are linking to places period. We draw connections together between elements that we notice in the land around us. Barry Lopez describes this as "landscape," when you link together elements of a territory and give them meaning. And giving them meaning is what makes us intimate and firendly with the land.

I think there are probably lots of ways we can describe blogging place. Here are a few that come to mind:

logs of natural activity and cycles, including flora and fauna, geological and meterological notes, sometimes with description, sometimes without.
weblogs that are collections of stories of the writer's engagement with a place, including the land and culture of a place.
notes on the particular character of a place, which may be purely sociological. For instance a blog that discusses the culture of an area would be a place blog, but it's a blog about the noosphere and not the biosphere.
photoblogs that aim to capture the essence of place, like Hunkabutta and the plethora of Japan based blogs kept mostly by visiting westerners.

I think one criteria that place bloggers need to meet is an intimacy with the place they are blogging. A blog about Eritria, written by someone living in Holland might be interesting, but would probably not be a place blog, unless perhaps the person was an ex-pat...

The act of blogging place, it seems to me, is a an act of both placing one in intimate proximity with one's surroundings and placing the whole kit and kaboodle in the context of a world culture. Anyone in the world anywhere in the world can theoretically read [Bowen Island Journal]. Edward Hall or Marshall McLuhan? might argue that this means that Bowen Island (at least as I see it) is extended to the world. It encompasses the world.

Lisa here -- I feel a strong inclination to leave our definition as loose, as inclusive, as possible. I'd prefer to draw a context rather than a conclusion. I just began to blog in August last year, but really only in earnest this year. Much of the writing I've done there hasn't fit my original idea of what I'd be doing, and I'm still finding my way. I plan to keep following the threads that pull me: those that follow long-standing interests, new loves and discoveries, and those danglers I just can't ignore.

Not everything I write about will be/is about place, or about "Inverness". But what holds it all together, perhaps, is that it is all informed by place, by my connection to place, my embodiment in place, and as Chris so beautifully put it, in "placing the whole kit and kaboodle in the context of a world culture".