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Marc Auge non-place in the age of ‘spaces of flow’

Nathan Eastwood
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Introduction:

This paper discusses notions of non-place and its

relationship to contemporary place. It will consider
Marc Auge’s ideas in relation to growing new forms of
modernity, such as ‘supermodernity’, its co-existence
with global capitalist modernity and its
transformation of western cultural form. It will
focus on the development of Auge’s non-place and
discuss other descriptions of forms of cultural
exchange. It will look at the changing attitudes to
place, from the ethnologist’s and anthropologist’s
conception; Auge’s ‘non-place’ and reflect on Peter
Osborne’s use of the notion in light of Castells
‘spaces of flow’. The term Non-place was invented by
French historian Michel de Ceteau.

The paper will navigate the reader through three

chapters and finish with a conclusion. 1) An
elaborate synopsis regarding ‘Anthropological’ place
and ‘Supermodernity.’ Auge’s description of three the
main accelerations which define ‘supermodernity’ and
the distinction between anthropological places, and
supermodern places. 2) A clarification and extended
synopsis on the concept of ‘non-place,’ the difference
between modernity and supermodernity, and spatial
forms of place, from de Certeau who talks about a
place becoming a space, when it’s transformed or
activated by people. These spatial meanings need to be
understood in terms of differences. In order to
comprehend what is a non-place, we must first learn
what a place is and its relationship to space. 3) An
explanation of terms such as ‘global capitalist
modernity,’ new forms of spatiality through new
concepts like ‘spaces of flow’ a term referred to by
Osborne, (a concept invented by Manual Catells) and a
reflection on Osborne’s Non-Places and the Spaces of
Art; with the ends of creating an analysis of this
model in relation to Auge’s syntax of the notion non-
place. The focus of this paper is to consider
Osborne’s ideas on Auge’s notion of non-place as a
hypothesis; and to delve into Osborne’s nuances of
‘non-place’ and ‘spaces of flow’ which together may
give description to a new possible ontological type of
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place, a hybrid regarding new forms of spatiality

(non-place and spaces of flow).

1. Anthropological Place and Supermodernity

Ague seems to describe the anthropologist and

ethnologist as working side by side, in consideration
of the ‘here and now’. He uses the word “practising”
to precede ethnologist thus emphasising this person is
active in gathering information i.e. he is in the
field observing first-hand what he hears or sees.
Anthropology he precedes with the word, ‘theoretical’.
This relates to the analytical approach the
anthropologist takes as he calls on the data gathered
by the ethnologist.

Auge clarifies the term ‘here’ in regards to a

division between and opposition of the European here
and the “formally ‘colonial’ now ‘underdeveloped’”
elsewhere. Auge uses two observations to bring
further clarity to the basis of the subject of
anthropology. The first observation is to do with
anthropological research. He states the question of
the other is the sole ‘intellectual object’.
Anthropology engages with all forms of other, exotic,
ethnic, and cultural. To use Auge’s text he stipulate
“Internal other as the reference for a system of
differences...division of sexes...defining everyone’s
situation in political, economic and family terms, so
that it is not possible to mention a position in the
system without referring to one or more others.” (1)

An ethnologist’s main objective is to set out and

decipher, by reading the way a place is organised.
Auge explains: a frontier is marked out into signs;
the cultivated and the wild nature, the permanent or
temporary in terms of cultivable land, housing
arrangement to the group’s economics, political and
religious geography.
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The other varies in different studies ranging from the

exotic (indigenous tribes) which is the far off, to
the here which is the European other (ethnic and
social concerns, etc). The second observation is
regarding the world in which it finds its objects;
‘Its’ objects’ being the things or points of focus
which it can analyze. Auge states the contemporary or
modern world has three main accelerated
transformations which are attracting anthropological
scrutiny, calling for a renewed methodical reflection.

The first transformation is related to time, the

acceleration of history and multiplication of events
which are conveyed to us due to our accessibility of
information thus creating an over abundance of events.
We arrive at the term ‘Supermodern’ which is
synonymous with the overabundance of events, which
according to Auge is price we pay as we want to give
meaning not only to the past but also the present. “A
situation we could call ‘supermodern’ to express its
essential quality: excess.”(2)

Auge then refers to the “second accelerated

transformation that is specific to the contemporary
world that of the excess of space which is another
characteristic of supermodernity.” (3) The shrinking
of the planet is made possible because of technology.
The development of transportation has brought any
capital within a few hours. In our homes we can
receive images from satellites sent to us via the
aerials which can give us instant, simultaneous vision
of events happening around the world. He also
continues with the notion of excess in terms of global
transference of mixed images through news,
advertisement, and fiction; and it is here that Auge
uses the term ‘non-places’ for the first time.

The last of the three excesses (accelerated

transformations) is another defining characteristic of
supermodernity is ‘ego’. I quote ‘In Western society
at least, the individual wants to be a world in
himself; he intends to interpret the information
delivered to him by himself and for himself.’ (4) He
also refers to this figure of excess as the
‘individualisation of references’. By explaining
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these three figures of excess, Auge is almost

justifying a need for a new methodical anthropological
reflection on the contemporary or as he now uses the
phrase the supermodern.

The ethnologist deals with demarcation of space – Auge

asks could this lead to a new rousing of interest in
inhabitants regarding their own origins? Auge speaks
about illusions or fantasies held by ethnologists. He
discusses a fantasy held by the ethnologist of a
society anchored since the very old distant time and
anything outside of its perimeters is not really
understandable; and that a society so transparent to
itself is held up conceptually by the ethnologists,
and that knowledge regarding a mapping of nature which
is managed by a society continues with this fantasy
and the illusion.
Is Auge saying that an ethnologist prefers to deal
with spaces which are not necessarily completely
understood but do lend themselves to being easily
observed and categorized or mapped out? These spatial
arrangements can then be related to the identity of
the group. Auge explains: a frontier is marked out
into signs; the cultivated and the wild nature, the
permanent or temporary in terms of cultivable land,
etc, housing arrangement to the group’s economics,
political and religious geography. The notion of
anthropological place is interwoven with the
ethnologist’s conception of place and early in his
book Auge establishes what a place is in terms of an
ethnologist’s perception of place and what defines
this; these spatial arrangements can then be related
to the identity of the group. “The indigenous fantasy
is that of a closed world founded long ago...does not
have to be understood. “Everything there...is already
known: Land, forest, springs, notable features,
religious places, medicinal plants...and whose
stability is supposed to be assured, by narratives
about origins and by the ritual calendar.” (5)
This establishes the organisation of a place, in crude
terms but terms which can be used as an example for
later discourse regarding the notions of place. We
could then interpret that Auge is saying that in an
ethnologists’ opinion each group expresses its
identity through its arrangement of space, and ensures
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this language of identity retains a meaning by

defending against external and internal threats

According to Auge anthropological places have three

characteristics; they want to be and people want them
to be places of identity, relations and history. He
talks about the historical combining identity and
relations – carrying on of rituals or festivals not
directly related to the individual who currently
occupies but part of what individual takes on about
the space and continues to live in its history. Other
important factors which Auge includes regarding a
place are to do with the ‘layout’ of a house, rules of
residence, placement of altars, the design of public
spaces, and land distribution. He also says that to
“be born in a place, to be a assigned to residence,”
(6) in other words to be born into a particular
locality is where that person becomes associated with,
he aligns himself to the places characteristics of
that place, So in this sense an actual place of birth
gave the person an identity. To enforce this argument
Ague uses an analogy as an example; he states that an
African born outside of a village ends up with the
name which derives from some kind of feature of the
landscape. To reiterate ‘place of birth is
constituent of individual identity’ (7)

Auge refers to de Certeau in regard to relational

notions, where he talks about the place containing the
order of elements which coexist and interrelate;
“place instantaneous configuration of positions;” (8)
In other words the order of elements that coexist in
the same space; these elements have inter-relations
between each other maintaining shared identities due
to occupying the same space. Auge says that an
anthropological place is first geometric and He
explains that it is mapped out into three spatial
forms – elementary forms of social space; line,
intersection of line, point of intersection. In terms
of geometric geography they correspond to us through
certain signs, routes, axes or paths which lead form
one place to another; “to crossroads and open spaces
where people pass, meet and gather, large marketplaces
which satisfy the needs of economic exchange.”(9)
Auge says that these routes, cross roads, centres are
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not necessarily independent in terms of notion and

goes on to say ‘these simple forms are not
characteristic only of great political or economic
spaces’ (10) he uses it in relationship to individuals
space of occupancy e.g. the domestic. He talks about
the temporal dimension of spaces; market place,
religious assemblies etc all occurring on certain
days. Ritual activity of a space creates in us a
condition for the memory attached to certain places.
Auge re-enforces what he said previously ‘identity’
and relations lay at the heart of all spatial
arrangements as well as history. In these spatial
arrangements monuments are erected, so that citizens
of that community may think about important subjects,
to borrow the title of Marcel Proust book,
‘Remembrance of Things Past.’ The notion ‘monument’
derives from the Latin ‘monumentum’ – from monere ‘to
remind’. “Without the monumental illusion before the
eyes of the living, history would be mere
abstraction.” (11) The monument itself may no longer
be functional and stands as a break in space
“strangely it is a set of breaks and discontinuities
in space that expresses continuity in time.” (12)

Auge continues that it has been said that the new

spatial arrangements of towns do not offer ‘places for
living;’ town planning has affected the amount of time
we spend talking to others as our paths cross. He
speaks about routes, road systems linking centres
together. Thus making reference to going out of our
town or village, more people travelling outside of
their town, ‘intensified accelerated traffic’ the
physical outcome of this being that signs are larger.
Auge sets up the notion of interaction with other
places e.g. French towns twinning with those in Europe
as something very modern almost in contrast with the
exotic where a town or village is considered within
itself as an entity – not seeing anything outside of
its own boarders.

Information boards make history of local villages etc

explicit to those who would pass them due to
reorganization of space. Auge says one will only make
the turn off into a place if what is written on the
‘business card’ appeals to our own taste or interest.
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Auge refers to ‘our towns hav(ing) been turn(ed) into

museums’ and talks about how we bypass these leading
into the discussion of these spaces i.e. non-places.

2. Marc Auge, Place and Non-place

In the starting pages of Auges chapter ‘non-place’ he

distinguishes the difference between supermodernity
and modernity by elaborating and reflecting on the
question of whether there is still some sense of the
community being organised through ritual (either
religious or historical) in modern society. If you
look at certain modern writers they still have a sense
of this, these things still organise time. But these
things may be becoming superseded by other things i.e.
these rituals are still present but are being pushed
aside and no other forms are offered within modernity
to take their place. These rituals still exist but
cannot be assigned their original function – Marcel
Proust – (10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) French
novelist, essayist and critic best known for his large
series of novels. Proust spent many holidays at a
village called ‘Illiers’ which became part of his
writings. This village and his recollections of his
uncles house located in Auteuil became the model for
his fictional town named ‘Combray’; A hybrid of
‘Illiers’ and ‘Auteuil’ that gave birth to his
fictional stage that contains important scenes in the
novels ‘In Search of Lost Time’ (English translation
was made by C. K. Scott Moncrieff titled as
‘Remembrance of Things Past’ between 1922 – 1931) that
considers the other things replacing the ritual.

Auge refers to a piece of text which describes “the

cycle of the hours around the Combray bell tower
punctuates the rhythm” (13) translating this idea that
the society’s identity is concerned with the local
church where its bells remind the citizens to attend
and maintain its traditional rituals around the
religious infrastructure. As Wikipedia explains a
ritual would be performed on specific occasions,
normally at the discretion of the communities. And
these chosen places of worship are places which have
been reserved especially. These rituals serve many
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purposes, such as, spiritual or emotional needs,

strengthening of social bonds, stating ones
affiliation or obtaining social acceptance are just a
few examples. These rituals are normally part of the
history and fabric of the community.
What are the rituals today? Football, or is this just
habitual practice? Art was ritualistic according to
Walter Benjamin. So are modern rituals practiced out
of a sense of habit or nostalgia? Auges refers to the
writer who Jean Starobinski himself in his own
discourse paper refers to James Joyce the opening
pages of Ulysses and the use of the word liturgy (in
classic Greek means ‘public work’) which means an
elaborate formal ritual practiced by certain religious
organisations. It also encompasses other associating
life events, for instance births, coming of age,
marriage and death.

Nevertheless rituals are shown as being pushed to the

side by modernist writers, but they still carry on,
they are wrapped up in our language. When we say
‘Sunday is our day of rest’ one might not be religious
or deliberately making reference to Christianity ‘He
rested on the seventh day’ but the saying is built
into our language. Place is completed through the
word, each geographical place has its own language or
certain words it uses. The identity of a place is
made up by the words and language its inhabitants use.

Auge continues by referring to another writer

Starobinski, who in his work takes an extract from
Baudelaire’s poem in ‘Tableaux parisiens, “...the
workshop with its song and chatter; chimneys and great
skies making us dream of eternity. ‘Bass line.’” (14)
This expression used by Starobinski is a significant
as it evokes ancient ‘places and rhythms’; where they
co-exist together. Modernity then allows the
coexistence of two different worlds; chimneys
alongside spires; the old and new are interwoven.
Roland Barthes says there are new forms of ritual,
such as sport, media, etc. They still contain some of
the ancient thoughts, patterns and needs which we have
in our community.
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Super-modernity doesn’t have the unconscious rules,

principles, ethics, and morals that modernity has; as
within modernity there is still a ‘base line’ a
musical analogy is used to reference the underlying
rhythms which are still present in modernity. To re-
iterate Baudelarian modernity allows everything to be
combined' (the old to harmonise with new), however,
supermodernity makes the old (historical) into a
specific spectacle. Baudelarian Modernity is
contrasted with supermodernity: it is supermodernity
which creates non-places, spaces which are not
themselves anthropological places and which, unlike
Baudelairean modernity, do not integrate the earlier
places, and in Auges words, “If a place can be defined
as relational, historical, and concerned with
identity, then a space which cannot be defined as
relational or historical, or concerned with identity
will be a non-place.” (15) So Marc Auge has set up
the perimeters by identifying what the distinctions
between anthropological place and non-places are.

According to Auge non-places cannot integrate the

earlier places, listed as ‘places of memory’ empty of
any spiritual or religious feeling. Here I would like
to speculate that Peter Osborne reflects that Ague is
melancholy and nostalgic – as supermodernity produces
non-places which are devoid of anthropological meaning
and that in Auges words it has become “a world where
people are born in the clinic and die in a hospital.”
(16) Auge speaks about non-places creating this
wordless environment, supermarkets, slot machines,
credit cards etc. In contrast to Auge’s previous
statement a “place is completed through the word.”
(17)
Osborne (who will be referred to later on in this
paper) considers that the notion ‘non-place’ as put
forward by Auge is conveyed negatively – one could
agree when we observe Auge’s own words; “...born in
the clinic and die in a hospital.” (18)

Auge further explains that place and non-place act as

a crossover, there are points of connection, I quote
“place and non-place are rather like opposed
polarities: the first is never completely erased, the
second never totally completed; they are like
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palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity

and relations is ceaselessly rewritten.”(19)

So as we can ascertain from what Auge is saying he

believes a non-place cannot be grasped in terms of
identity/relation/history like anthropological place.
It would only be grasped in terms of measurements
totalling all the “air rail and motorway...mobile
cabins we call means of transport, aircraft, trains
and road vehicles...the airports and railway stations,
hotel chains” (20) and finally the complexity of
communication systems, appropriate notion which the
writer Manual Castells calls ‘spaces of flow’ which
will be discussed later in this paper.

An opposition between space and place has produced the

distinction between places and non-places. We learn
that Michel de Certeau does not oppose place and space
as place is opposed to non-place. The difference
between place and space is the presence of people.
Place is transformed into space when activated by
people (space is therefore not in opposition to place
– it is a transformation of it). Auge previously
refers to de Certeau in regard to relational notions,
where he talks about the place containing an order of
elements which coexist and interrelate; a “place
instantaneous configuration of positions.” (21)

De Certeau makes three references to define its terms.

The first reference is to Merleau Ponty who in his
seminal paper draws a distinction between
anthropological space (existential space) and
geometric space. The next reference is to the analogy
of the word when it is spoken – it is activated. And
the last is in regards to the doing as the activation
and seeing is the observation of a map. In de
Certeau’s words ‘you go in, you cross, and you turn.’
The term ‘space’ is more abstract in itself than the
term ‘place’ e.g. air space, advertising space etc;
and yet de Certeau uses place to represent the
geometric and space to represent the area activated by
humans. So when he uses this expression ‘space
narratives’ de Certeau means both the narratives that
‘traverses’ and ‘organise’ places.
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Michel de Certeau’s notion of non-place contrasts

Auges meaning and allows much more potential for
places to be transformed into non-places ‘an absence
of the place from itself, caused by the name it has
been given. “Proper names...........impose on the
place ‘an injunction coming from the other (a
history)....these names create non-places in the
places; they turn them into passages” (22) which is an
interpretation of what de Certeau is saying. It is
the naming of places along a route and creating a
passage, then traversing this route that creates (in
Michel de Certeau’s opinion) a non-place. One is not
occupying/inhabiting a place thus not activating it
into a ‘space’ but one is instead traversing/cutting
through these places/thus creating non-places.

So it is easy to understand what de Certeau describes

as a non-place; these elements such as traversing or
cutting through of places this de Certeau idea of non-
place could go on to suggest that anywhere may be
simultaneously a place and a non-place, this in turn
opens up the possibility of a struggle between de
Certeua’s conception and Auges perception wherein
there lays an inherent struggle to create place from
non-place. Auge’s non-places are “defined by words,
they offer us’ referring to signs on motorways, and
the use of cash machines In Auge’s own words when
interviewed; “(23) when you put your credit card into
a bank machine, you come in contact with an impalpable
space - non-places in contrast to anthropological
place are centre-less and have no frontiers, non-place
is borderless. It is a bi-product of an ever
expanding capitalist global modernity.

3. Peter Osborne & Non-place

Peter Osborne commences by starting with the notions

on ‘A global capitalist modernity’. Osborne narrows
it down to three key points which one will tackle with
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further detail. These key points are: 1: “we live in

an emergent global modernity; 2: ‘At the same time,
there are many modernity’s’.... and 3: ‘Global
modernity is not, fundamentally, geo-politically,
about the hegemony of the west, but about the hegemony
of capital” (24)

According to Osborne all recent art is contributing to

a capitalist spectacle – the capitalist spectacle is a
form of abstraction, in some way it is not giving us
the full or real picture. It abstracts to the extent
of fetishization of the real state of things.
According to the Osborne (Marxist) there are vast
inequalities in the world, and in global market place,
the means of production are not shared by everyone,
the monetary system itself is abstracted. Osborne
believes there is still a possibility for an old
traditional Marxist view. For modernity to exist in a
certain space that space that has to have certain
conditions for it to thrive. These conditions are
currently subject to transformation due to the
globalization of capitalism. Geo-politics is changing
as places that were once disassociated with capitalism
are now becoming engulfed by it hence the
‘globalization of capitalism’ modernity is found to
now exist within these spaces hence ’global capitalist
modernity’. Osborne refers to this modernity (linked
with globalization of capitalism) as a new historical
form of modernity itself. Osborne says ‘the
fundamental change in its special conditions alters
the distribution and dynamics of what he previously
referred to as modernity’s ‘temporal form’.
It is these transformations of modernity due to its
linkage with globalization of capitalism which are
creating new forms of spatial forms of capital which
is now the main hegemony. The previous forms’ of
modernity were under the two main geo-political
conditions of colonialism and the cold war.

It appears that Osborne does not like the term post-

modern as it implies modernism is over, Osborne
believes there is still plenty to grapple with within
modernity itself. The use of the term ‘supermodern’
by Auge is not a completely satisfactory term for
Osborne but one which is most suitable at present; as
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the concept of supermodern by definition refers to

excess; of space, time , ego, which relates to
capitalism.
Osborne takes one idea from Auge’s paper ‘non-place’;
‘space never exists in pure form’, and continues to
use this quote to undermine Auge’s ideas on non-place;
and believes that Auge’s explanation could be much
more radical as an idea rather than the version given
which according to Osborne over simplifies into a list
of non-places, (hotel chains, and motorways, etc). He
uses it to lead him to the belief that ‘all non-places
are places qua non-places;’ this comment could be
referring to the potential that a non-place has to
become a place; and place has to become a non-place
continually shifting. This possibility could align
itself with the notion of place talked about by de
Certeau who as we have learnt talks about no matter
where the traveler is located if he is in continuous
flux and not stationary then he is in a non-place
which conceptually negates Auge’s notion of what
constitutes a non-place. Osborne criticizes that Auge
did not maintain a high level of criticality and that
he only resolves this notion ‘non-place’, poetically,
and remains critically ambivalent. Utilizing
ambivalent language Auge is able to conceal his over
simplification of what Peter Osborne considers a
complex subject of non-place. He perceives that non-
place cannot be properly analyzed by the
anthropologist (“critical anthropology can never, in
principle, be critical enough,” (25) as anthropology
needs a fixed object such as traditional
anthropological subjects containing history, identity,
and relational qualities, unlike non-place which is
fluid and (as Auge states are) devoid of these.

According to Osborne non-place is not just concerned

with a physical place, but also the abstract spatial
forms, such as slot machines and credit cards, which
“communicates wordlessly, through gestures, with an
abstract, unmediated commerce.” (26) Osborne
stipulates that this new form of interdependence
exceeds an anthropological sense of place because non-
place deals with not only the physical spatiality but
also abstract spatiality – inevitably the limit for
anthropology as it only deals with identity forming
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types of meanings, “anthropology ...fails to

conceive ...the possibility of an identity-forming
generation of meaning outside the confines of
place...defined by boundaries of physical contiguity;”
(27)

This critical response to Auge’s conceptual position

is a good time to introduce the writer Manuel Castells
who Osborne refers to and his notions of ‘Spaces of
Flow’. It may be possible that Osborne is looking to
build a new model and is looking to another writer to
support him in this. As we have established non-place
conceptually deals with physical place and abstract
spatiality. According to Wikipedia spaces of flow is
a high level of abstraction regarding space, time, and
the dynamic interaction with our society in this
digital age. This notion was invented by Castells in
order to reconceptualize new forms of spatial types
under this new technological age. Apparently
according to Castells space should not be disconnected
from the abstract thing known as ‘time’. Castells
asserts that “space is a dynamic entity related to
time, and rejects the concept that it will disappear
as to create a global city. Space is defined by the
as the material organization of time-sharing social
practices that work through flows” (28)
Castells says that “the space of flow, links up
distant locales around shared functions and meanings
on the basis of electronic circuits and transportation
corridors, while isolating and subduing the logic of
experience embodied in the space of places,
(Information and network society, etc.) Castells
defines space as the physical support for the way we
live in time, this space and time is the ‘real world
time’ which is...‘spaces of places’. This appears to
be a development from the first notion of non-place
and this new term ‘space of flow’ could be better
equipped in dealing with new technological spatiality
in terms of abstraction such as communications via
networking tools like the internet, etc.
The idea of ‘spaces of flow’ is part of the whole
globalization which Osborne discussed earlier in his
paper; that this new technological form governs flows
of capital, flows of information, flows of images,
etc, are a few examples. This notion is part of the
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whole idea of ‘a global capitalist modernity’

discussed by Osborne; and that since the fall of the
iron curtain modernity has spread out across the globe
creating a global network of exchange, “the existence
of market accelerations, the circulation and exchange
of goods...” (29)

Osborne states that Auges paper critically oscillates

between ‘a backward-looking romanticisation of the
anthropological conception of place and a forward
looking positive ethnology of solitude’; an example of
this backward looking romanticisation which Osborne
believes Auge has can be found in a selected text by
Ian Buchanan in which he talks about how home grown
produce which we provision our self’s with has been
superseded by imported continental commodities; all of
this is now taken for granted due to recent process of
expanding globalization. And although in most
societies we embrace all the possibilities that
globalization offers us, we nonetheless still have
nostalgia for the past, and (“we continue to sense a
longing for a past none of us has actually known...)”
(30)
This feeling of nostalgia can be sensed with Auge, he
wants to attain this anthropology but can’t help but
to look at the future and acknowledge that this may
not include the traditions of anthropological model.
“Auge woke up an anthropologist, only to find that his
anthropological way of thinking about the world has
led him to the conclusion that anthropology no longer
exists....it’s a discipline bereft of a proper
object.”(31)

So Osborne is talking about a new form of spatiality

which is a new ‘ontological type of place’ which could
become another part to a whole, ‘non-place’. It has
been established that there are two forms of place put
forward for discussion that of an historical
established form conceptually acknowledged as
‘anthropological place,’ and the new form, supermodern
non-place which is promoted by Auge. And now could
there be a third idea on place, not a new term but a
development of non-place? Non-place according to
Osborne is intrinsically a special type of place; not
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separate entities (place & non-place) but the two

making up a whole.

It would appear that Peter Osborne is setting up a new

polemic discourse within his paper by placing the new
term by Castells, ‘space of flows’ in opposition to
Auges ‘non-place’ or it’s possible that Osborne
perceives, that this ‘spaces of flow’ is just a
conceptual development from ‘non-place’ that is better
suited in explaining our new forms of spatiality
(abstracted space). Is this then our new and
appropriate term ‘spaces of flow’, for
contextualising/describing ‘new ontological types of
places? If we analyse Osborne’s comment, “Auge’s
‘non-places’, it would seem, are more properly
conceived as the product of the dialectic of the space
of places and the space of flows”(32) This comment
could be understood as saying that both ideas are
inter-related and that both Auges ‘non-place’ and
Castells ‘spaces of flow’ need this dialectic between
the two forms of conceptual meaning; and in this
sense, that it is, critically reconceived as a
potential form which critiques our new forms of
spatiality (combining physical non-places, such as,
motor ways, air-ports, with ‘flows of capital, flows
of information, flows of images, etc) which it has
been argued before cannot be achieved by anthropology.
Via new technological abstract communication systems
this idea of ‘flows’ is made possible and due to
modernity has spread out across the globe; modernity
is everywhere, new modernity which came about after
the cold war means modernity has become spatially one,
borderless. So the notion held by the ethnologist
regarding the here and elsewhere (the rest of the
world) has changed although according to Auge there is
still a “centre of the world” (33) but it has
downsized and deterritorialized. This growing
deterritorialisation allows for the freedom of
exchange and is made possible by new technologies
which make the notion ‘spaces of flow’ possible, like
banking, the internet, etc.

4. Summary
 18

To sum up I will endeavour to reiterate key points

within this paper and to draw on some conclusions
which may still be argued as speculative. Marc Auge’s
book is written in the style that it would retain some
academic credential, although this might be the
intention Peter Osborne has argued its failure as a
book to establish the concept ‘non-place.’ Auge
systematically writes that the anthropologist needed
to establish a new series of objects to focus on as
the study of the ‘elsewhere’ became out dated, not
because in the words of Auge the anthropologist became
‘bored’ with foreign fields’ but due to the
contemporary or modern world with its three
transformations having something new to deal with – it
is calling for scrutiny. The anthropologist is notion
of place is interwoven with the ethnologist’s
conception of place which Auge has listed as,
‘Land...and medicinal plants. (34)
Auge created a distinction between his concept of
‘non-place’ and Michel de Certeau perspective on the
subject. Thus Auge’s ‘non-place’ by definition was
summed up as being the opposite to his explanation of
anthropological place, and is different to de
Certeau’s as it is not just about being in constant
flux but remaining outside of the confines of
anthropological place.

Osborne criticizes that Auge did not maintain a high

level of criticality and that he only resolves the
notion of ‘non-place’, poetically, remaining
critically ambivalent. The idea of non-place
according to Osborne is complex and he re-creates a
setting in his paper where he puts non-place as a
conceptual form back into a dialectical position
through considering Auge’s ideas in relation to Manual
Castells concept of ‘spaces of flow’. Osborne does
not hold on to the anthropological methodology and he
states, non-place cannot be properly analyzed by the
anthropologist; “critical anthropology can never... be
critical enough,” (35) Taking this in to
consideration, it marks the death of the
anthropological study of place and the genesis of
Post-anthropological study of ‘non-place’ and Castells
‘spaces of flow’.
 19

What is interesting is that Osborne criticises Auge

for making a simple list which denotes what a non-
place encompasses and states that this conceptually
weakens his hypothesis; and as Peter Osborne
stipulates in his paper that by reducing the concept
of non-place to a list of signifiers kills the
criticalities of the form which could analyse these
new forms of places. But Peter Osborne refers to
Castells who too has listed a series of examples
regarding what constitutes ‘spaces of flow’ i.e.
“flows of capital...flows of images.” (36) This
highlights a possible area of contradiction in his
paper, or perhaps Osborne may need some clarification
to this section of the paper.

Its plausible that Osborne’s objective is to establish

a hybrid between the two concepts ‘non-place’ and
‘spaces of flow’ that will form this new radical
system of analysis which could return to the true
ideas of non-place in terms of criticality, and re-
shape Auges notions (in Osborne’s opinion). Is
Osborne believing that this hybrid of spatial forms is
the new ontological type of place, or to use Osborne’s
comments “the idea of non-place may be developed into
a genuinely ‘post-anthropological’ conception of
place,” (37) So the rethinking of Auge’s ideas and the
possibility of a hybrid regarding new forms of
spatiality (non-place and spaces of flow) has pre-
occupied Osborne’s paper. And in the words of Osborne
“...rethinking of Auge in relation to Castells raises
the possibility of giving analytical substance to what
Hardt and Negri have recently called ‘a new place in
the non-place’ or better ‘a new place of the non-
place,” (38) which could be an interesting new
ontological site for analysis and Osborne puts forward
a hypothesis that our current form of global non-place
could be replaced by the non-place of the currently
emerging power they call ‘empire’.
 20

Bibliography
 21

1. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction

to anthropology of supermodernity, published
by Verso, 1995, p. 18/19.
2. Ibid. p. 29.
3. Ibid. p. 31.
4. Ibid. p. 37.
5. Ibid. p. 44.
6. Ibid. p. 53.
7. Ibid. p. 53.
8. Ibid. p. 54.
9. Ibid. p. 57.
10. Ibid. p. 58.
11. Ibid. p. 60.
12. Ibid. p. 60.
13. Ibid. p. 76.
14. Ibid. p. 77/78.
15. Ibid. p. 77/78.
16. Ibid. p. 78.
17. Ibid. p. 77.
18. Ibid. p. 78.
19. Ibid. p. 79.
20. Ibid. p. 79.
21. Ibid. p. 54.
22. Ibid. p. 85.
23. Jean-Pierre Criqui talks with Marc
Auge, Homemade strange - interview with
ethnologist Marc Auge, Artforum, summer,
1994.
 22

24. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the

Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture,
Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.188
25. Ibid. p. 189
26. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction
to anthropology of supermodernity, published
by Verso, 1995, p. 78.
27. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the
Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture,
Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
28. ManualCastells,Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Castells
29. Marc Auge, non-places –
introduction to anthropology of
supermodernity, 2nd edition published by
Verso, 2008, p. XVIII.

30. Ian Buchanan, Deleuze and Space,

published by Edinburgh university press,
2005, p. 17.
31. Ibid. p. 27.
32. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the
Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture,
Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
33. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction
to anthropology of supermodernity, 2nd
edition published by Verso, 2008, p. XX.
34. Marc Auge, non-places – introduction
to anthropology of supermodernity, published
by Verso, 1995, p. 33.
 23

35. Peter Osborne, Non-Places and the

Spaces of Art, The Journal of Architecture,
Volume 2, Summer 2001, p.189
36. Ibid. p. 189.
37. Ibid. p. 189.
38. Ibid. p. 189.