From Non-Places to Non-Places of Communication: Marc Augé and the Digital Irruption

Identity and Human Rights, Marc Augé. AI image

Introduction

When Marc Augé published Non-Places in 1995, he offered one of the most influential accounts of what he termed supermodernity. Airports, highways, and shopping malls embodied an experience of the world shaped by transit, anonymity, and contractual logic. More than two decades later, in 2016, Augé delivered the keynote lecture Identity and Human Rights at the ENAH. The temporal gap is far from insignificant: by then, the world was already deeply permeated by the internet. Yet the digital does not occupy the center of his exposition. Instead, it appears—significantly—in the questions raised by the audience. This displacement is not incidental. In that final exchange, the concept of the non-place is pushed onto new terrain: that of contemporary communication. There, under the pressure of the present, thought is compelled to reformulate itself.

The Non-Place in 1995: Space and Circulation

In Non-Places, Augé defines these spaces as environments that produce neither identity, nor relationship, nor shared memory. They are sites of passage, governed by signs, instructions, and implicit contracts. The traveler is recognized as a user, a customer, or a passenger, rather than as a member of a community. The experience that unfolds within them is functional, repeatable, and interchangeable.

It is important to emphasize that this diagnosis does not adopt a moralizing tone. Augé does not denounce these spaces; he describes them as a historical form of world organization. The non-place is not an “evil,” but a symptom. Nevertheless, the technological horizon of 1995 is limited. The internet does not form part of the analysis. Supermodernity still appears tied to physical infrastructures and bodily movement.

2016: The Pressure of the Present

The 2016 lecture is structured around identity, dignity, and human rights. Internet does not figure in its main development. However, when the audience questions Augé about digital devices, the conceptual framework tightens. The questions introduce a reality that can no longer be ignored.

This moment is revealing. What we witness is not the exposition of a finished theory, but a response that emerges through dialogue. What irrupts had not been anticipated, yet demands attention. The concept of the non-place is thus challenged by practices that are not strictly spatial, even though they decisively organize everyday experience.

Non-Places of Communication

In his response, Augé suggests that the internet and its associated devices can be understood as non-places of communication. This formulation is far from accidental. It is not a matter of adding one more example to an existing list, but of displacing the concept toward a different regime.

According to Augé, these environments generate a specific relation to time and space. Digital experience produces an impression of permanent ubiquity. Distance dissolves; the distinction between here and there loses density. At the same time, temporality accelerates. Duration gives way to constant updating.

Within this context, relationships with others are redefined. Access, use, and evaluation take precedence. Interaction becomes essentially functional. As Augé himself emphasizes, this is not a moral condemnation, but an anthropological description consistent with the logic of contemporary consumer society.

This idea can be condensed into a clarifying formula: time is compressed, space is neutralized, and the relationship becomes essentially functional. With it, Augé extends the 1995 diagnosis beyond architecture, into the very core of communication.

Reassessing Non-Places Today

This extension proves especially fruitful for the present moment. Thinking of the internet as a non-place of communication allows Non-Places to be reread without turning it into a dated text. The concept does not exhaust itself; it transforms.

Moreover, this perspective opens the door to further questions. In an environment where technical mediation intensifies, relationships are no longer merely functional, but often delegated. Automated systems generate texts, images, and responses. Without developing this issue in detail here, it is clear that the logic described by Augé finds new and increasingly radical forms of expression.

Conclusion

That reflection on the internet emerges in the questions rather than in the body of the lecture is no minor detail. Where the discourse seemed complete, the present breaks in and forces a conceptual expansion. This scene confirms the vitality of Augé’s thought: his concepts do not shield themselves from the world; they expose themselves to it. Reading Non-Places today in light of these later interventions does not mean correcting it, but extending it. Far from having lost its relevance, the non-place remains a critical tool for thinking about how we inhabit—and communicate within—contemporary life.

Bibliography

• Augé, Marc. Los no-lugares. Espacios del anonimato. Barcelona: Gedisa, 1995.
• Augé, Marc. La identidad y los derechos humanos. Conferencia magistral, ENAH, 20 de septiembre de 2016 (registro audiovisual).
• Marc Augé: La identidad y los derechos humanos- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMViI-CEIw0&t=42s