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...