Non-Place
Definition
In Non-Places,[1] Marc Auge defined place as one concered with relation, identity and history.
According to Augé, non-spaces discourage "settling in", then non-spaces are open to the colonization of the technosocial device on every stage that has been ripped away from its social roots. Every place that has seen its citizenship fall to individual concerns is open to reconnection of the social by means of the cell phone. No one can "settle-in" on a street they do not feel at home in. Airports are non-places because one has no identity once one enters the airport. The airport is a site that is betwixt and between here and there, what Sociologist Bruno Latour would call a liminal space.
An ever-increasing proportion of our lives is spent in supermarkets, airports and hotels, on motorways or in fronts of TVs, computers and cash machines. This invasion of the world by what Marc Auge calls "non-space" results in a profound alteration of awareness: something we perceive, but only in a partial and incoherent manner.'
To get away from this space, one can use an cell phone, which provided one with relation, identity and history in the midst of a non-place.
Related Reading
References
- ↑ Auge, Marc. Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity Verso, London & New York, 1995. Trans: by John Howe. First published as Non-Lieux, Introduction k une anthroplogie de la supermodernite. 1992.
