Topophilia and Place Experience

Academic spaces of Regional Dynamics and Semiotics and Aesthetic Thought, developed under the program of Bachelor in Elementary Education with Emphasis on Social Sciences of Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas and the Research Geopaideia Group, interested in providing valuable elements in the discussion around current forms as geographical space is revealed and taught in our societies and educational contexts, especially in a teacher training program, it makes a bid to create a space for dialogue, taking advantage of recent digital media and communication, with experts in concepts and diverse epistemologies about geographic space and its significance in the world of life: it is how it is possible to consolidate an encounter with the teacher - Yi Fu Tuan. This meeting was primarily a time to explore emotional responses and for personal, academic and research enrichment full of opportunities for talking to and from the knowledge of Professor Tuan, about space issues.

The work of Professor Tuan, widely known to geographers, geography teachers and those interested in related issues has provided in recent decades valuable items for the understanding, study, research and experience of space from other possibilities in which the subject is a main character.

The Group Geopaideia aims to provide references for reflection in order to transform the traditional conception of geography in school that locates it only as a science for the enumeration and description of the biophysical phenomena on Earth’s surface, being the geography neglected and marginalized as a task of just mechanical memorization of dates and locations forgetting its core of study which is the geographical and socio-cultural dimension.