Before I attended Danny Denton’s talk on “Being Present: how ideas of physical space, place & non-place were used to build the worlds of The Earlie King… and All Along The Echo“, I had never heard of the term non-place. I had never stopped to wonder, either. Like, what is it? Not a place, as the affix ‘non’ already suggests. But then what?
The term was coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé, and it refers to “places such as bus depots, train stations, and airports which, however elaborate and grandiose, do not confer a feeling of place” (Oxford Reference). The essence of these places is that they are transitionary. There is no permanence in there. They are places, but not places, if you know what I mean.
Even though an airport was pretty much a house for Tom Hanks’ character in The Terminal, the 2004 drama directed by Steven Spielberg, you cannot make a home of spaces like those.
Now, it was extremely interesting to hear Denton talk about he built his novels around such concepts and settings, but my brain could not help but wonder and, of course, think about completely different things to apply this “non-place” phenomenon.
What if Ireland is my non-place?
As someone from another country currently living in the Emerald Island, and as someone who does not want to leave, I live in constant fear that this place is going to be transitionary for me. That I will not be able to make it my home. Once my studies are done, am I supposed to go back? How am I going to be able to leave everyone I have built a relationship with? Is making connections even worth it, when I know this is not where I am supposed to end up?
I guess these fears are not unfounded, even if they do seem that way. What with the housing crisis being as catastrophic as it is, and considering I still do not have any type of accommodation for next year, I cannot help myself.
I am a hundred percent sure Danny Denton was not expecting to send me into a spiral when he gave that talk, but spiral I did.
Non-places are, in a sense, pit-stops until you reach your actual destination. You are not supposed to stay in them, even if there is some sense of comfort in them sometimes (I love airports, in all fairness). So, does that apply to countries you used to live? Does that apply to countries you are living in that you could leave? Is a non-place just every place we abandon just to go somewhere else?
Anyway.
I don’t think I like non-places as a whole.
I did like Danny Denton’s seminar, though, so there’s that.
“non-place.” Oxford Reference. . . Date of access 9 Apr. 2023, <https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100237780>