Non-place and the future of place-based education

Abstract

Augé defined non-place as space lacking meaningful relations with other spaces, historical presence, or concern with identity—space divorced from anthropological place. Rather than space as historically-centered, marked and fashioned by social bonds, Augé’s non-place represents a de-centering of space, a movement away from cities, dwelling places and dwelling-in-places, and even embodied experiences, into capitalist, often technologically-mediated, spaces of “circulation, consumption, and communication.” Non-place presents fundamental and existential challenges to the field of place-based education, an educational approach dedicated to instilling place-consciousness and, correspondingly, pro-ecological attitudes and behaviors, by rooting education within the local environment. But how can education become “rooted” in place when place itself is increasingly ephemeral, non-existent, or untethered to a geolocation? This question is a defining ontological and epistemological question for place-based education in supermodernity.

KEYWORDS:

• place, place-based education, non-place, arts education