Argumenty przeciwko antropologii nie-miejsc Marca Augégo

Arguments against Marc Augé's anthropology of non-places In a hyper-modern, globally expanded reality, can we still speak of place as any basis for meaning? Are there spaces today that are so empty, anonymous and disconnected from their historical basis that they do not allow solitary individuals to have any identification with them?When examining the category of place in contemporary reality, it is difficult not to come across the popular position in the anthropology of space, „Non-place” (French: Non-lieux) byFrench anthropologist and ethnologist Marc Augé. And the proposed category of non-places seems, at first glance, extremely attractive, curiously describing non-human spaces with which, we intuitively feel, it is impossible to identify. Augé defines them as the inverse of anthropological places, i.e., areas that we can identify as rational, historical structures that allow individuals living within their boundaries, as well as entire ethnic groups, to constitute their identities by belonging to a place. Non-places, conversely, as being devoid of the above characteristics, produce an unstable, non-communal and non-historical world, which Augé calls a world of solitary individuality, temporality and path. But what happens if we consistently reduce Marc Augé’s considerations to the things themselves and try to apply the proposed categories to the analysis of real existing places and buildings of contemporary architecture?In my text I intend to prove that the category of non-place is not defensible in an encounter with reality. After briefly characterizing what anthropological places and their antithesis are, I will criticize this division by referring to selected examples from contemporary architecture, specifically to areas identified by anthropologist as typical non-places, that is, places of commerce, places of the road and travel destinations. The chapter aims to criticize the above concepts, and in the process encourage critical reflection on sources in academic work.