It's maybe a generalisation, but it's not an abusive one: "Si un lieu peut
se définir comme identitaire, relationnel et historique, un espace qui ne
peut se définir ni comme identitaire, ni comme relationnel, ni comme
historique définira un non-lieu" (Augé, 1992: 100) which could be translated
roughly by: "If a place can be defined as identificationary (?), relational
(?) and historical, a space who is not identifationary, relational,
historical, defines as non-place".
I find problematic the definition of place with focus on the point that
people need to identify while/after they practice it: it's not adequate in a
world where mobility plays an important role: "fortunately", we mustn't
identify with all the places we practice. That is, we learned to cope with a
great number of places.
This is not to say that it does't raise problems of "habitability" (Certeau)
of places.
But, I wouldn't term them "non-places" just because they don't fit in my
model of a place as a village.
mathis
le 15/08/02 20:31, Peter Merriman à [log in to unmask] a écrit :
> ' "Non-place" is the invention of a French Anthropologist, Marc Augé, who
> couldn't understand that places can change. From his ethnographic point of
> view, all places that are not defined in the frame of a tribal society are
> "non-places" '.
>
> While a broad range of criticisms can and have been made of Augé's work, the
> above judgement by Mathis Stock is somewhat of a generalisation. As Augé
> puts it: non-place 'never exists in pure form':
>
>
> ..places reconstitute themselves in it; relations are restored and resumed in
> it; . Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is
> never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are like
> palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and relations is
> ceaselessly rewritten. (Augé, 1995: 78-79).
>
>
>
> I would also suggest that Non-place (or non-lieu) cannot really be construed
> to be the 'invention' of Augé. He developed his stance on 'non-lieux' from,
> and contrasted it with, De Certeau's writings on non-lieu in "L'Invention du
> Quotidien" - although this was translated in "The practice of everyday life"
> as 'nowhere'.
>
> Pete Merriman
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. Peter Merriman
> Department of Geography
> The University of Reading
> Whiteknights
> Reading
> RG6 6AB
> United Kingdom
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Telephone (Direct): +44 (0)118 9318739
> Telephone (Secretary): +44 (0)118 9318733
> Fax: +44 (0)118 9755865
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mathis Stock" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 6:27 PM
> Subject: Re: Final CFP - Knowledge in Place: AAG 2003
>
>
> Yes, David, you are absolutely right.
>
> "Non-place" is the invention of a French Anthropologist, Marc Augé, who
> couldn't understand that places can change. From his ethnographic point of
> view, all places that are not defined in the frame of a tribal society are
> "non-places".
>
> A more adequate reference would have been Edward Relph's "Place and
> placelessness", written some 25 years ago (see the appreciation in PIHG,
> 2000, n°4).
>
> But does that mean that the way of studying places and of conceiving the
> place concept haven't evolved since then?
>
> In my point of view, yes, despite of the efforts of Entrikin's "Betweenness
> of place" and the locality debate in the 1990's.
>
> The reason lies, among others, in the gap between subjectivist approaches
> and objectivist approaches, which results in the gap between place and
> space. But there is no conceptional reason for it. It lies also in the quite
> unserious conception of so-called "post-modern geography" which is critique
> only within the discipline, but is not capable to appreciate adequately such
> "new" places as Center Parcs, tourist places, shopping malls, quickly called
> post-modern places or non-places in order not to treat them as they
> "deserve": symetrically to the "habitual" places geographers deal with.
>
> In French geography, the anglo-american "place" would be termed
> "territoire". So we've got the "place" concept left to fill it with other
> definitions, for example that of a special type of space in which the
> distance doesn't play any role, whereas the area would be a space where
> distance plays a role for human interaction. That's the conception of
> Jacques Lévy in his L'espace légitime (1994) or his Le tournant géographique
> (1999), two important books for an analyis of the spatial dimension of
> society.
>
> Good luck in New Orleans, 2003: a new place/space distinction will maybe
> emerge.
>
> mathis
>
>
> le 14/08/02 17:51, David Wood à [log in to unmask] a écrit :
>
>>> Place can be configured not simply as physical place (as landscape,
>> built environment, street), but also as cyberspace (virtual realities,
>> chat rooms and multi-user spaces), and in a postmodern sense as
>> non-place (service stations, shopping malls and air terminals).
>>
>> Non-place? Why not post-place, since it's post-modern. It's about as
>> meaningless. These are not non-places. They are most certainly firmly
>> located and have identity (surely the first criteria for 'place'): it is
>> just that the identity derives from generic cultural forms and
> expectations,
>> and the specific location relates to economic and historically-contingent
>> reasons. Surely it is our job to define what phenomena consist of, what
> are
>> their qualities and connections, not just what they are not (especially if
>> this is not even true in common sense).
>>
>> I suppose the question then is: what is a 'place'?... since I have so
>> arrogantly assumed that I know what one is!
>>
>> David.
>>
>> PS:The tendency towards negative definition is going a bit far - I
> recently
>> saw an (entirely serious) reference to 'post-post-modern' in another Call
>> for Papers.
>>
>> PPS: I would love to go and argue my case in New Orleans - unfortunately I
>> can't afford to go to New Orleans, and can't justify it environmentally
>> either.
>>
>>
>> Dr David Wood
>> Global Urban Research Unit (GURU)
>> School of Architecture Planning and Landscape
>> University of Newcastle upon Tyne
>> NE1 7RU
>> UK
>>
>> tel: +44 (0)191 222 7801
>> fax: +44 (0)191 222 8811
>>
>> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>> website: www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/d.f.j.wood/
>>
>
> --
>
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