“The Near and the Elsewhere”: Surmodernity in the Age of Intelligent Algorithms
Introduction When Marc Augé published Non-Lieux in the early 1990s, he did more than introduce the concept of the non-place. He also articulated a methodological repositioning of anthropology itself. In the section titled “The Near and the Elsewhere,” Augé argued that anthropology must confront the contemporary world directly, abandoning the illusion that its privileged object lies exclusively in distant or disappearing societies. Three decades later, this intervention remains influential. Yet the present that anthropology now encounters is no longer the one Augé described. This article revisits “The Near and the Elsewhere” from today’s perspective, asking whether the conditions that justified Augé’s anthropology of the present have themselves undergone a transformation that calls for renewed scrutiny. Anthropology and the Question of the Present Augé’s starting point is deceptively simple: anthropology has always dealt with the present. Even when it appears oriented toward trad...