A little more on Non-Places

For this week, we read “From Places to Non-Places” by Marc Auge. It was kind of long and I did not really understand what Auge was talking about when I initially read it (which was during my two hour flight delay at Logan International Airport— just a tad ironic). After our discussion on Tuesday, everything became a lot clearer.

Basically, Auge feels like there are two different types of spaces: places and non-places. Places, in the anthropological sense, are those recognized as having to do with relations, history, and identity (Auge, 77). Non-places, therefore, are everywhere else. In class, we summed up the main characteristics of non-places, which include transit, traveling, and movement, being anonymous, use of text, solitude, and absence of communication. However, all of these characteristics don’t hold for all non-places. Some of the non-places we came up with are buses, airports, hotels, malls, elevators, supermarkets, and hospitals.

Auge clearly feels that studying non-places is very important because we spend a good part of our lives in them. After our discussion, I started thinking about this more and was very intrigued. I started to think about all of the non-places I go to everyday. One “non-place” that stuck out was the elevator in McArdle Lab. I go to that building once or twice every day, and therefore ride the elevator up to and down from the eighth floor about sixteen times a week. This week, I started thinking about the whole “non-place” theory while I was in the elevator and it made me kind of nervous. I see some of the same people every day in the elevator, but I know absolutely nothing about them. Usually when I’m in the elevator, I check my phone or put my headphones in. Perhaps it is because I want to remain anonymous? Unfortunately, I’m way too shy to actually strike up a conversation with anyone in an elevator, but it definitely got me thinking.

I was bored the other night so I went on youtube, and found this very interesting short documentary on non-places. The beginning has some text in it, but it is in Spanish so I don't know what it says. Also, there is a very interesting part where a girl falls down, and it doesn't really go with the rest of the video. I thought it was pretty funny.