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Marc Augé (; 2 September 1935 – 24 July 2023) was a French
anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
. In an essay and book of the same title, ''Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity'' (1995), Augé coined the phrase " non-place" to refer to spaces where concerns of relations, history, and identity are erased. Examples of a non-place would be a
motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...
, a
hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...
room, an
airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...
or a
supermarket A supermarket is a self-service Retail#Types of outlets, shop offering a wide variety of food, Drink, beverages and Household goods, household products, organized into sections. Strictly speaking, a supermarket is larger and has a wider selecti ...
.


Career

Marc Augé’s career can be divided into three stages, reflecting shifts in both his geographical focus and theoretical development: early (African), middle (European), and late (Global). These successive stages do not involve a broadening of interest or focus as such, but rather the development of a theoretical apparatus able to meet the demands of the growing conviction that the local can no longer be understood except as a part of the complicated global whole.


First stage

Augé’s career began with a series of extended field trips to
West Africa West Africa, also known as Western Africa, is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations geoscheme for Africa#Western Africa, United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Gha ...
, where he researched the Alladian peoples situated on the edge of a large lagoon, west of
Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N'ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the largest city and the former capital of Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of the overall population ...
on the
Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...
. The culmination of this endeavour is the masterly ''Le Rivage alladian: Organisation et évolution des villages alladian'' (1969) he Alladian Riparian Peoples: Organisation and Evolution of Alladian Villages The sequel, ''Théorie des pouvoirs et Idéologie: Études de cas en Côte d’Ivoire'' (1975) heory of Powers and Ideology: Case Study of the Ivory Coast followed a series of three further field excursions to the Ivory Coast between 1968 and 1971. Augé coined the term ideo-logic to describe his research object, which he defined as the inner logic of the representations a society makes of itself to itself. A third and final instalment in this series of studies of the Alladian peoples was added in 1977, ''Pouvoirs de vie, Pouvoirs de mort'' owers of Life, Powers of Death


Second stage

The second or European stage, consists of a sequence of three interrelated books: L''a Traversée du Luxembourg'' (1985) raversing Luxembourg Gardens ''Un ethnologue dans le métro'' (1986); trs. as ''In the Metro'' (2002); and ''Domaines et Châteaux'' (1989) omes and Palaces In this period of his career, Augé took the novel approach of applying methods developed in the course of fieldwork in Africa to his local Parisian context. Augé focused on four key aspects of contemporary Parisian society: (i) the paradoxical increase in the intensity of solitude brought about by the expansion of communications technologies; (ii) the strange recognition that the other is also an ‘I’; (iii) the non-place, the ambivalent space that has none of the familiar attributes of place - for instance, it incites no sense of belonging; (iv) the oblivion and aberration of memory. The work in this period emphasises the anthropologist’s own experience in a way that neither the earlier nor later work does. Augé did this by comparing his own impressions of these places with those produced by some of French literature’s greatest writers. What this comparison illustrates is the apparent insuperability of the gap between language and experience. Yet it is that very gap, he argued, that his anthropology must be able to close if it is to be of continuing relevance in contemporary society.


Third stage

The third or global stage yielded four books: ''Non-Lieux, Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité'' (1992); trs. as ''Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity'' (1995); ''Le Sens des autres: Actualité de l'anthropologie'' (1994); trs. as ''A Sense for the Other: The Timeliness and Relevance of Anthropology'' (1998); ''Pour une anthropologie des mondes contemporains'' (1994); trs. as ''An Anthropology for Contemporaneous Worlds'' (1998); and ''La Guerre des rêves: exercises d'ethno-fiction'' (1997); trs. as ''The War of Dreams: Exercises in Ethno-Fiction'' (1999). Taken together these works comprise an extended meditation on the disparity between observations made in the course of anthropological fieldwork in the first and the second stages of his career. It is at least partially the result of Augé's travels—for instance, his concept of the non-place refers to those spaces one typically encounters when travelling such as airports, bus terminals, hotels and so on, which one often only remembers in very generic terms. Ultimately, his aim is to theorise globalisation as it is lived in properly global terms; it is also an attempt to reinvigorate the discipline of anthropology as a whole. To that end he deploys a number of novel writing techniques, describing the synthetic results as "ethno-novels".


Reception

Much of Augé's writing considers
globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...
, and his work on global modernism has contributed to investigations of the concept of mobility. He explored the philosophical potential of an anthropology of "non-places" like
airports An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface such ...
and motorways that are characterized by constant transition and temporality. Both Peter Merriman and
Bruno Latour Bruno Latour (; ; 22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.Wheeler, Will. ''Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations'' Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Librari ...
criticized Augé's book ''Un Ethnologue dans le Métro'' for failing to examine the hidden complexities of the
Paris métro The Paris Métro (, , or , ), short for Métropolitain (), is a rapid transit system serving the Paris metropolitan area in France. A symbol of the city, it is known for its density within the capital's territorial limits, uniform architectur ...
, such as its drivers and engineers, the role of the State, and management of passenger movements and transactions. Latour said Augé had "limited himself to studying the most superficial aspects of the métro". Regarding globalization and its influence on art, as critics and art theorists have pointed out, Augé's thought is frequently cited in essays, articles, and books in this century, whose authors allude to the concept of non-places as a vivid and evident influence on the work of contemporary visual artists.


Personal life and death

Marc Augé was born in
Poitiers Poitiers is a city on the river Clain in west-central France. It is a commune in France, commune, the capital of the Vienne (department), Vienne department and the historical center of Poitou, Poitou Province. In 2021, it had a population of 9 ...
on 2 September 1935. He died on 24 July 2023, at the age of 87.


Selected works

*''Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity'', 1995. *''In the Metro''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002. *''Oblivion''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. *''The Future''. London and New York: Verso, 2015. *''Everyone Dies Young: Time Without Age''. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.


See also

* Supermodernity


Notes


External links


Interview with Marc Auge
in '' Barcelona Metropolis Magazine'', Autumn, 2009. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Auge, Marc 1935 births 2023 deaths Lycée Montaigne (Paris) alumni Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni École Normale Supérieure alumni Academic staff of the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences Officers of the Legion of Honour People from Poitiers 20th-century French anthropologists 20th-century French geographers 21st-century French anthropologists 21st-century geologists