Non-places: An Introduction to
Supermodernity
Marc Augé
Non-places
• Theory of place and identity in era of
globalization (supermodernity)
• Distinguishes between “anthropological place”
and “non-places”
• Supermodernity bypasses anthropological
place and creates non-places
Anthropological place
• Places of identity, of relations and of history
• Stable places; foster individual and group
identity
• Continuity between past and present
• Importance of tradition and ritual
Anthropological places
• Rural villages and communities
• Central meeting places, e.g. market square
• Religious rituals (e.g. procession of Corpus
Christi)
• Monuments (war memorials)
Anthropological place
• Rooted in the local
• Familiar
• Augé: these local places are becoming
hollowed out in supermodernity
Non-places
“spaces formed in relation to certain ends
(transport, transit, commerce, leisure), and the
relations that individuals have with these
spaces.” (Augé, 76)
Non-places
• Supermarkets
• Industrial zones
• Motorways
Associated words:
• Transit, interchange, passenger, destination,
housing estate
Non-places:
“where people are born in the clinic and die in
hospital, where transit points and temporary
abodes are proliferating under luxurious or
inhuman conditions […]; where a dense network
of means of transport which are also inhabited
spaces is developing; […]; a world thus
surrendered to solitary individuality, to the
fleeting, the temporary and ephemeral”. Augé,
63
Non-places
• “non-places are the real measure of our time”
(Augé, 64)
• Travel, mobility – act of passing through: the
motorway
• People in “non-places” are like “tourists”,
“visitors
Non-places
• Solitary and anonymous
• Spectators of landscape v being anchored in
the landscape
• Ghostly figures
Non-places
• “in the supermodern non-place people are
always and never at home.” Augé, 87
The motorway