Non-Places in Classical and Early-Medieval Mediterranean

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Places we grow up and live in are more than mere spaces where individuals, groups, and institutions function daily as active agents. In their vast range of material aspects and scales, they are much more than the “containers” and “foregrounds” of our lives. Instead, they influence our ways of thinking, feeling, imagining, and acting, that is, our capacity to give meaning to our relationship with the world. In this sense, both in material and symbolic terms, places inhabit us as much as we inhabit them.

However, Marc Augé’s 1992 book Non-Places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity (1995, for English translation) marked a turning point in the examination of the notion of place. In his book, he proposes a critical reading of specific physical places of modernity – for instance, airports, hotel rooms, and highways – that do not meet the anthropological conditions he believed necessary for them to be considered “real places”, that is loci where human life can make sense and thrive. His conceptualization of non-places invites constructive criticism and creative revision. For instance, are “non-places” not just another kind of place, rather than a counterpart or the opposite of place? Are places and non-places mutually exclusive, permanent and separate or, on the contrary, are their limits fluid so that a place can become a non-place and vice versa? 

In any case, this volume reflects on ancient perceptions of space and place. The authors consider how the concept of non-place contributes to our understanding of and research on anthropological, political, social and cultural aspects of ancient and early medieval Mediterranean from the Archaic period to the end of Late Antiquity (7th c. BCE – 7th CE), in relation to place and space. 

Photo Credit | Passing Through by ​​​​​​Lesley Oldaker (2012); 90x90 cm., oil on canvas. Private collection.  ©Lesly Oldaker. Courtesy of the artist.