The Long Reach of Yi-Fu Tuan’s Topophilia

Abstract

The central concept in Yi Fu Tuan’s eponymous and influential book, Topophilia, has long reaching impacts, echoing today in multiple disciplines. Topophilia—the notion that human beings have profound affective connections to the material environment (Tuan, 1974/1990)—was a novel idea when Tuan first proposed it in 1974. Tuan’s work pushed the boundaries of cultural and human geography at the time, but today we can see the absorption of the idea that humans are deeply connected to place into the foundations of theory and practice in traditional disciplines such as geography and in newer fields such as environmental education, environmental communication, and environmental psychology.