Non-place
The term non-place (French non-lieu , English non-place ) refers to a mental structure of the French anthropologist Marc Augé . Non-places are, in particular, mono-functionally used areas in urban and suburban areas such as shopping centers (shopping malls), highways, train stations and airports. The difference to the traditional, in particular anthropological, place lies in the lack of history, relation and identity, as well as in a communicative neglect.
Precursor to a theory of non-places
Even before Marc Augé, scientists were concerned with the change in urban space. The Canadian geographer Edward Relph , for example, investigated the importance of places in place and placelessness (1976), whereby he was able to determine an increasing placelessness in relation to selected urban areas:
"[The] weakening of the identity of places to the point where they not only look alike but feel alike and offer the same bland possibilities for experience" (Relph 1976, 90).
Michel Foucault pursued a different, albeit similar, concept in heterotopia . Foucault understands this to mean places for people in extreme situations ( crisis heterotopia ) such as retirement homes or hospitals. In the heterotopoi there is already a reference to the limited access that becomes evident in non-places:
"In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory, as in the case of entering a barracks or a prison, or else the individual has to submit to rites and purifications. To get in one must have a certain permission and make certain gestures. "(Foucault 1967)
The term non-place was finally coined by Michel de Certeau in his main work, Art of Action . De Certeau contrasts the statics of the place with the dynamics of the space and the non-place, which is only temporary, only temporary. "To go means to miss the place." (De Certeau 1980, 197)
Non-Lieux
In the work Non-Lieux (Non-Places), published in 1992, Augé tries to contrast the traditional place with a new, dynamic variant. The first part of the book therefore deals with the sociological perspective of the place and gives an insight into Augé's approach. The central theme in dealing with place or non-place is the reference to the anthropological place, which Augé uses to construct the model of the non-place. In the second part he describes his theory of non-places.
"Just as a place is characterized by identity, relation and history, so a space that has no identity and cannot be described as relational or historical, defines a non-place." (Augé 1994, 92)
For Augé, the non-place, in contrast to the place, represents a weakening of the functions: "The space of the non-place does not create a special identity or a special relation, but loneliness and similarity." (Augé 1994, 121)
literature
swell
- Marc Augé: Places and Non-Places. Preliminary considerations for an ethnology of loneliness . S. Fischer, Frankfurt 1994.
- Marc Augé: Non-places. Translated from the French by Michael Bischoff . With an afterword by Marc Augé to the new edition. CH Beck 2010.
- Michel de Certeau: Art of Action . Merve, Berlin 1988.
- Michel Foucault: Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias. 1968.
- Edward Relph: Place and Placelessness . Pion, London 1976.
Continuing
- Tim Cresswell: Place. A short introduction . Blackwell Publishing, Oxford 2006.
- Wolf Gaebe: Urban spaces . Eugen Ulmer (UTB 2511), Stuttgart 2004.
- Susanne Hauser, Christa Kamleithner: Aesthetics of the agglomeration . Müller + Busmann, Wuppertal 2006.
- Kevin Lynch: The image of the city . Bauverlag, Berlin 1989.
- Michael Müller , Franz Dröge: The exhibited city. About the difference between place and space . Bauverlag, Berlin 2005.
- Stephanie Weiß: Places and Non-Places. Cultural anthropological remarks on Marc Augé. (Mainz small writings on folk culture, 14). Mainz 2005.
- Michael Ziehl, Sarah Oßwald, Oliver Hasemann and Daniel Schnier: "SECONDHANDSPACES - about recycling places in urban change." Jovis Verlag, Berlin 2012.