In this paper, I study some aspects of urban environment using the concept of non-place intro- duced by Marc Augé in 1995. I first define the concepts of space, place and non-place. I then explain why nomadism plays an important role in the way that we appropriate urban space. I discuss the role of narrative architects and how they intervene in the politics of space. And I conclude by questioning the supposedly superiority of places over non-places

Bruchansky, Christophe

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The Appropriation of SpaceChristophe BruchanskyPlural think tank, May 2010In this paper, I study some aspects of urban environment using the concept of non-place intro-duced by Marc Augé in 1995. I first define the concepts of space, place and non-place. I thenexplain why nomadism plays an important role in the way that we appropriate urban space. Idiscuss the role of narrative architects and how they intervene in the politics of space. And Iconclude by questioning the supposedly superiority of places over non-places.Spaces, places and non-placesA place is a meaningful location. According to John Ag-new, it has a location (e.g. longitude and latitude), a locale(the material setting for social relations - e.g. walls, ground)and a ’sense of place’ (Cresswell, 2004). By sense of place,he means that the place is a space invested with meaning. In aslightly different formulation, Robert D. Sack defines a placeas a “phenomenon that brings social and spatial together andin part produces them” (Cresswell, 2004).The sense of place is an elusive notion. We canhowever roughly describe it using the three following at-tributes (Wark, 2007):• The place’s identity, e.g. possibility to name the place.• The social practices taking place, e.g. praying in atemple, selling in a market, eating in a restaurant.• Traces of memory, e.g. literature, pictures about theplace.Marc Augé describes a non-place as a space that cannotbe defined as relational, historical or concerned with iden-tity (Augé, 1995). Highways and airports are examples ofnon-places. He goes further and describes how the sense ofplace is simulated in historic towns, making places and non-places distinct and opposite.As Marc Augé puts it: “Our towns have been turning intomuseums (e.g. restored, exposed and floodlit monuments,listed areas, pedestrian precincts) while at the same time by-passes, motorways, high-speed trains and one-way systemshave made it unnecessary for us to linger in them”.My argument is that non-places are much more frequentand rooted in human nature than Marc Augé suggests. Thishas direct consequences on how space is negotiated on a dayto day basis. Transmission of identity, history and socialpractices is fragile. A sense of place relies either on a groupof people assuring its continuity or on authoritative power.Places between sedentism and nomadismHumans are incredibly adaptive and can accommodatevery well either sedentism or nomadism. These two lifestylesare profoundly in us and even though we mostly have asedentary life, our approach to space remains in many as-pects nomadic.Renting a home is a semi-nomadic configuration, eitherby choice or for pecuniary reasons. The rent is often con-cluded without any knowledge of the history and identity ofthe home. The sense of place is rarely transmitted from thelandlord to the tenant, assuming the landlord has any sense ofplace for his property. Blocks of Victorian houses in Londonfor instance have surely a history, but unheard of by most ofits inhabitants. They are furthermore easy to commoditisebecause of their similar configuration. Only their physicalstructure influences the social practices of their inhabitants.One might argue that this physical structure is informed byBritish tradition and in that sense transmits a persistent senseof place; because it forces inhabitants to manage their spacein a certain way. I would however not give a disproportion-ate importance to this transmission and consider that thesehouses are mostly non-places, as functional and anonymousas an airport. In many cases, houses are not bequeathed any-more from one generation to the other, and its sense of placeis lost.A difference between these places and non-places thoughis that inhabitants need to make them their home, and rapidlyreinvent a brand new sense of place. The need to feel athome is described at length by Gaston Bachelard. As hepoints out, this feeling could be reduced to the image of thehermit’s hut, the simplest expression of what being at homemeans (Bachelard, 1957). We are all nomads. We all havethis image of the hut in our imagination. We can make nearlyevery place our home, and move the next day. The sense ofspace is disposable. It is not an anomaly of modernity, but inhuman nature.For a nomad to appropriate a space, it might be faster todeal with a non-place in the first place. It avoids any com-plicated negotiations with a pre-existing identity. It is not2 CHRISTOPHE BRUCHANSKYalways the best option and I’m not advocating systematicalanonymity. Dealing with a place and its pre-existing identitycan also be helpful to invent or reinforce a narrative that theinhabitant can use to give meaning to his or her own life. Aplace is often the symbol of some support, such as the housefrom the parents, or the car from the company.I talked so far about houses, but the same process is ob-servable in many other types of places: working places,places of celebrations, entire neighbourhoods. DoreenMassey says that “each place is the focus of a distinct mix-ture of wider and more local social relations, an understand-ing that its character can only be constructed by linking thatplace to places beyond” (Cresswell, 2004).A sense of place can be created nearly from scratch by theoccupiers, who prefer to treat the space as a non-place. Thatsense of place might be ephemeral or persistent depending onthe intentions of the occupiers; it is their freedom to choosebetween nomadism and sedentism.It remains that the overall and much contested trend is to-wards nomadism. It can be attributed to ‘time-space com-pression’, “a term used to describe processes that seem toaccelerate the experience of time and reduce the significanceof distance” (Harvey, 1989). It is the direct consequence oftrains, cars, airlines, television, and the Internet. Informationis instantaneous; the world is reduced to an in-flight map.Commuting is the norm and anyone who wants to ‘succeed’in life has to move constantly.Narrative architectsPeople need non-places that are easy to appropriate. Theyneed them because they might change of location in a coupleof years, because they are already too busy managing theiridentity on the web, or get a sense of authorship on theircareer. Places imposing a strong narrative are for most ofus more appropriate for travels or visits. We are the productof globalization and the free market; legacy is a constraint,tradition is a reduction of choice.However, non-places are not as blank as they look. Archi-tects, urbanists, politicians, health and safety agencies, cul-tural institutions, all participate in the design of urban non-places. They are narrative architects, a term borrowed fromHenry Jenkins (Nitsche, 2008)."Childhood is fun and colourful"; "It is nice to go to workevery day by bicycle"; "Streets are not to sleep in"; "I live ina place full of history". These statements portray an idylliclife. They form together a narrative of the ideal urban life.Narrative architects design elements in non-places that willevoke these stories. Inhabitants will use these elements toreconstitute and internalize them. The evocative elementsare even expected a-priori in an all inclusive package of themodern city lifestyle. Non-places that include these elementstend to sell better.Let me start with the example of the playground, designersof a playground don’t write any story for the children. Butthey know that the concrete objects they design for the play-ground will be associated with tales of mountains, castlesand exotic adventures. They provide evocative elements thatchildren will use to appropriate a non-place, and transform itinto a heterotopia (Foucault, 1967). The concrete objects alsoprovide a substitute for an unfenced environment perceivedas not appropriate for children, or requiring an unreasonableamount of surveillance.Using the same logic, one juts need to put lines on a con-crete ground to associate this space with soccer, and sig-nificantly alter its use. These evocative elements producegeneric senses of place that are quick to internalize and con-venient to use.American kitchens, British bathrooms, Western orJapanese-style living rooms are evocative elements that ar-chitect narrators uses to sequence the everyday life of theiroccupiers. Of course, anyone could imagine a house wherethey would take their shower in your living room, but mostpeople prefer to stick with scripted homes.With these evocative elements in place, it is harder to di-vert from prescribed customer scenarios (to use a marketingterm from mass production). But it is possible and peoplefind unusual ways to appropriate their space. “People areable to resist the construction of expectations about practicethrough place by using places and their established meaningsin subversive ways” (Nitsche, 2008).Politics of spaceA sense of place is constantly negotiated and contestedwithin a group. In their willingness to pacify public space,local authorities tend to take its control, and by doing so toerase the need for any dialogue, which prevents any contes-tation and negotiation of the public space, and de-facto itsappropriation.The best way to put in evidence the relation betweenplaces, values and power is to imagine the destruction of aplace, or its disappearance from the map. This imaginarythreat will allow any observer to name the groups or peoplewho would protest, and the people who would agree with thedestruction.Places are signs of power. Good examples are oldchurches, once higher than anything else. They now competenot only with cultural centers, town halls and offices, but alsowith people’s digital lives. Spaces do not only compete be-tween one another to grab our attention. They now competewith mobility itself.“Place is a form of fixed capital which exists in ten-sion with other forms of capital. Political struggle overplace often provide opportunities for resistance to themobile forces at the origin of the time-space compres-sion” (Cresswell, 2004). Green movements such as Tran-THE APPROPRIATION OF SPACE 3sition Towns (Transition Towns, 2006) want to valorise thelocal for its more sustainable qualities. Local communi-ties want to preserve their neighbourhood and way of liv-ing. Slow food restaurants want to fight against fast-foodchains. They are all part of a ‘militant particularism’ move-ment (Williams, n.d.) that fights a time-space compressionoften associated with capitalism.However, militant particularism could also be seen as a re-actionary strategy to exclude outsiders. “Sentimentalized re-covering of sanitized heritage sites” can marginalize peoplewho are not part of that heritage. It can justify segregationby the “construction of a unproblematic identity” (DoreenMassey). This is what we can witness in gentrification andduring projects that intend to ‘restore’ old districts, houses,‘historic’ canals and churches. They ‘rehabilitate’ a neigh-bourhood and its identity that former, poorer inhabitants sup-posedly didn’t appreciate enough. “Accompanying this pro-duction of sense of history and authenticity is a process ofexclusion based on the identification of a threatening otherbeyond the walls of the town” (Cresswell, 2004).ConclusionI have shown how much non-places are useful for the no-mads we all are and how easily we can create a disposablesense of place. Non-places are not totally blank however,they feature evocative elements designed by narrative archi-tects. These evocative elements mediate our appropriation ofspace. Whether or not places are more desirable than non-places is a question of values between nomadism and seden-tism. The supposedly superiority of places over non-placesis advocated for opposite reasons in progressive and reac-tionary rhetoric. What is certain however is the increasinglyambivalence of places in a globalized and digitalised world.ReferencesAugé, M. (1995). Non-places – an introduction to supermodernity.Verso.Bachelard, G. (1957). La poétique de l’espace. Presses universi-taires de France.Cresswell, T. (2004). Place, a short introduction. Wiley-Blackwell.Foucault, M. (1967). Of other spaces:Utopias and heterotopias. Retrieved fromhttp://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdfHarvey, D. (1989). Time-space compression. Retrieved fromhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timespace_compressionNitsche, M. (2008). Video game spaces. The MIT Press.Transition towns. (2006). Retrieved fromhttp://transitionnetwork.org/Wark, M. (2007). Gamer theory. Harvard University Press.Williams, R. (n.d.). militant particularism. Retrieved fromhttp://www.columbia.edu/l˜np3/mydocs/indian/Harvey_Indian.htm

The Appropriation of Space

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