Jackie Roving’s Reviews > Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity > Status Update

"Louis Marin, for his part, borrows Furetière’s Aristotelian definition of place (‘Primary and immobile surface of a body which surrounds another body or, to speak more clearly, the space in which a body is placed’) and quotes his example: ‘Every body occupies its place.’ "

The ability to define a space boundaries, especially in relation to other bodies of spaces, is diffcult owing to the fact that different spaces can exist inside or overlap with each other.

An anthropological space is a concrete and symbolic space that "could not itself allow for the vicissitudes and contradictions of social life, but serves as a reference for all those assigned to a postion, however humble or modest."

What does it mean to have a space in a social sense?

To have an existence or identity that is discernable for other things in the world.

Anthropologists and locals alike grapple with this tension—the temptation to see a people and their land as a complete, unchanging whole. But history’s flux—migration, shifting borders, erased landmarks—proves this “totality” fragile. Modern pressures, from bulldozers to urbanization, don’t just reshape land; they erase identity itself. The myth endures, but the world keeps moving.

A founded place is part myth, part reality. It *works*—land is cultivated, generations endure, and threats are resisted. Yet it’s also a fragile illusion: a myth inscribed on the soil, always adjusting to change. The image of a closed, self-sufficient world is a necessary story, one that frames the latest migration as the "first foundation."

One concept that the ethnologist and anthropologist study among many things is social spaces. Social spaces dictate a whole range of things whether it be our identities, our origins and the conditions which shape us. Every society is forced to give meaning to these, and this becomes the garden of thought for the anthropologist.

The question of the anthropologist of the 21st century is "What sort of analysis and framework can take into account the new imperatives of today (i.e., renewed focus on individuality, overabundance of spatiality and overabundance of meaning)?"

Augé argues that framework of supermodernity he introduces is capable of meeting this task, especially as am alternative to the framework of postmodernity.

Augé’s third aspect of supermodernity is the focus on the individual. As collective identities (class, religion, nation) destabilize in the late 20th to early 21st century, ethnographers—especially in the West—shift toward studying individual culture and meaning production. This reflects broader societal changes where personal narratives and self-identity take precedence over traditional collective frameworks.