They Have Once Before Lived

An Examination of Resonant Place

Abstract

The present essay offers a phenomenological examination of peoples’ experiences of place memory. What is it like when the memory of a place is awoken in the event of daily life? What is it about the experience of certain places that make them significant? How might the experience of strong place memory be described so that it may become better understood? What features anchor a memory of place to our experience of the present? To ask these questions requires an orientation to the lived experience of resonant place. For the purposes of this piece­­­­­­­, two themes – resonance as the realization of independence, and resonance as unsettled expectation – are described as unique structures of human experience.