K Shel Blogs

A passing glimpse of entangled geography, perception, and power.

Walking along one of our favourite stretches of the Dorset coastal path – not any designated viewpoint or charming hamlet, just the winding track itself – we encountered another couple coming towards us. We exchanged the usual walker’s nod, and then, as the man passed, he threw in, almost over his shoulder, “Nice place”.

On the face of it there’s nothing more to it than that. Just two pairs of polite people passing. But as we walked on, I kept turning it over. Because something jarred me. The words mapped far more than just a path. There was nothing overtly offensive in what he said… but it was loaded.

Place, what place?

I mean, what is place here? We’re on a path, a line, a liminal space between, not a dot on the map. So what did he mean? The general area? The south coast? The county?

It’s not the locational semantics I’m getting hung up on, it’s the underlying assumptions being revealed – about the speaker and their view of what’s valid and what’s shared.

The phrase was delivered with an easy confidence that assumed unchallenged mutual understanding. He’s stating that his view is definitive, and shared. That I’m like him, and we have a common take on the right way of things. 

But ‘Place’ is never just place – it’s a claim. A quietly authoritative boundary being drawn, in real time, in this case by someone seeking no shared agreement on where those boundaries lie.

It’s layered, and relational. To some, it might mean a holiday view or a leisure path. For others, it’s home, or a place of livelihood, history, grief, or belonging. When someone names ‘place’ without qualification, they reveal what they see – and what they don’t. They disclose which version of the landscape they consider legitimate, and which perspectives are overlooked.

The simplicity of ‘place’ makes it easy to miss how much power sits beneath the word – the power to define, to summarise, to fix meaning in a way that’s not open to reply.

And then there’s nice…

And then there’s nice. A word so safe it slides past without resistance. But it’s also hollow – a placeholder for sentiment without investment. There’s no commitment behind nice, no intimacy, no stake. It’s a compliment from the threshold, not from within. An arm’s length pat on the head. A barely considered, low-risk, low-resolution expression that sets a deliberate distance: the observer remains separate from what they observe.

It reveals a dynamic that plays out far beyond one encounter on a walking path. The authority to name, to frame, to offer a conclusion – even a mild one – is never neutral. It reflects whose view is centred and whose is assumed. In this case, the man’s comment could be read as well-intentioned and benign – and perhaps it was meant that way – but it also carries the shadow of something else: an outsider’s assumption of the right to judge. A hint of the colonial, even if unconscious – the visitor who surveys the landscape and unilaterally pronounces its character. “Nice”.

Casting assumptions

And what of me in this exchange? Was I being cast as a local – generously told my ‘place’ was ‘nice’ – or a fellow visitor? Either way, the effect was similar: by assuming a common understanding, his comment positioned me in a story I didn’t co-author or recognise. It located me inside his boundaries, his map of meaning. There was no shared inquiry, no mutual meaning-making – just a verdict, served up, already formed.

Drawing a line

All this is the subtle machinery of relational dynamics. When we talk about ‘systems’ of things, we often focus on structures, processes, behaviours. But systems are also made – and unmade – in the moments and the lines drawn between people. In a nod, a phrase, a tone. The maps they carry in their heads, and the implied edges and exclusions.

Power doesn’t always show up with a badge and a megaphone. Sometimes it arrives quietly, wrapped in seemingly pleasant manners and unexamined assumptions.

“Nice place” – a passing comment, and a quiet reminder. That even our lightest words can stake a claim. That the maps in our minds often go unquestioned. And that belonging is shaped not only by where we stand, but by who gets a voice.