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CONTEMPORARY CITIES: DESCRIPTIONS, ANALYSES AND PROJECTS | FINAL ESSAY

Intan Lestari | 796943

Globalisation and the Creation of Non-Places

"People are always, and never, at home"

Those are the words of anthropologist Marc Auge in his book Non-Places: An

Introduction to Supermodernity. Auge (1995) theorised how modern life and the forces

of globalisation are creating homogenised places where we spend so much of our

time. These words ring true as I was travelling back to my hometown, from Milano to

Jakarta with twelve hours of transit in Dubai. Moving from one airport, waiting in the

next one, going for the other; these airports are the spaces of circulation and

consumption. Spaces that are created by movement of people in this growing

interconnected world. As we passed these spaces across continents, logically we would

expect to face changes in the surrounding; instead we are experiencing familiarity

within such spaces. It was always the same waiting lounge, the same coffee shop, and

the same duty free shopkeeper wearing the same smile, places become tiringly similar

and somewhere in the middle we’d lose the sense of where we are.

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We travel more in recent time, adding more blurred boundary between what is local

and what is foreign. In airports, I feel a sense of disorientation, which I think comes

from knowing that there are hundreds of airports just like this one all around the

world. Then I come up with understanding that, existing in a physical place does not

mean we inhabit it in our psychological reality. There is this feeling of emptiness, of

feeling lost and out of place. Is it our inability to connect with our surroundings?

(perhaps it’s the surrounding that is not connecting with us?) Yet we can take that

same psychological mind set to another physical location and feel totally at home.

In location such as the airport, its structure does not require individuality in order to

function. Its production of repetition and regularity is the basis for its efficiency

worldwide, because it creates an order through which people's movements can be

controlled. Any intimacy I’d want to feel in this kind of space would, therefore, be

swallowed in the airport's overwhelming uniformity. This is a space that serves to

move people on their way, it does not exist of and for itself, but instead only as a

means of delivering people to their destination. The airport is a place of transition; it

does not need to hold relevance to certain narrative or culture, because no one is

coming to the airport to be at the airport. They come to the airport in order to leave,

thus according to Auge makes it become a non-place.

In a non-place, people are just a transitory users, nobody is considered locals or

tourist. Everybody is on the move and going elsewhere, there is no sense of being

here. As the airplane takes off and ourselves recede along the runway, we know that

our identity --along with the sometimes unbearable fullness of ‘belonging’—is

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temporarily suspended, to be picked up later along with our luggage and our relatives

waiting at the gate. This fleeting quality of transitory space could also be considered as

its fascinating aspect, but what if this aspect transcends beyond the airport gate?

The effect of disorientation that travel produces needs to be regained through an

experience of a real place, a destination. Understandably, most of this destination

located within or nearby a city, but with more and more places become generic, the

identity of the city as a destination might suffer, leaving it somewhat empty and

without meaning. What happens to our cities when their local identity failed in

comparison with a global identity? Would they become just a large body of transient

spaces?

Globalised Spaces

The term globalisation has been the subject of various discussions and interpretations.

As Dickens (2004) explains ‘Globalization’ has evolved into a catch all term, used by

many to bundle together all the good and bad of contemporary society. According to

Smith (2001), globalisation can be seen as a blueprint for the spread of economic

prosperity and liberal democracy across borders to the far corners of the globe, on the

other hand, it could also be seen as a determinative driving force in the world today,

destroys local communities, fosters ‘global consumerism’ through media manipulation,

and penetrates the very inner lives of ordinary people. Journalist Thomas L. Friedman

popularised the term ‘flat world’, arguing that globalised trade, outsourcing, supply-

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chaining, and political forces had permanently changed the world, for better and

worse. Whether is good or bad, globalisation is a process that always evolved which

may have impacts on cities identity and the way we perceive cities.

The idea of globalisation is principally linked to the idea of interconnectivity. When it

comes to the sense of identity, the other side of this interconnectivity is a certain

thinness. As world’s interaction increases, McGrew (2010) explains that local events

may come to have global consequences and global events can have serious local

consequences creating a growing awareness or consciousness of the world as a shared

social space. Moreover, Giddens (1991) mention that, globalization can thus be defined

as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a

way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice

versa.

These notions challenge the traditional production of place. Tuan (1977) explains that

place is space with characters. It requires specific human experience to recognize these

characters in order to give the place a value. Place is an organized world of meaning. It

is essentially a static concept. If we see the world as process, constantly changing, we

should not be able to develop any sense of place.

In relation to Auge's ideas of place, we can also understand place as historical,

relational and concerned with identity. The elements of a place exist in their own

space and so form a sense of location, a sense of the unique. The airport lacks this

uniqueness.

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Nowadays, in an era Auge (1995) recognised as supermodernity, technology

accelerated the process of human experience, by making remote distances accessible

to us by travel or by electronic media. Supermodernity compresses space, changing the

scale of things, which the world can fit into one's vacation or living room. Super

modern space no longer carries traces of earlier forms of human habitation. Places are

historically stable and made up out of social interactions between people. Within them

memory accumulates to form historical meaning and is represented in symbolic

meaning. But Augé observes a world increasingly dominated by non-places, spaces

that are not themselves anthropological places.

The identity of a city no longer comes exclusively from within, but can come from

thousands of kilometres away; from a boardroom of a multinational company to

migrating flows of people. It is a two-way street process, top-down and bottom-up; a

process that put each city in a networked map of the world, legitimising its value. Thus

it is in the city hand to balance the portrayal of this global-local nexus, in order to

retain its self-identity and not dissolved into a non-place.

On his book Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (1974) illustrate very well the rather

uniformity condition the world has come into. In the part titled continuous cities he

writes,

If on arriving at Trude I had not read the city’s name written in big

letters, I would have thought I was landing at the same airport from

which I had taken off.

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The suburbs they drove me through were no different from the other,

with the same little garnish and yellowish houses. Following the same

signs we swung around the same flower beds in the same squares.

The downtown streets displayed goods, packages, signs that had no

changed at all.

This was the first time I had come to Trude, but I already know the

hotel where I happened to be lodged; I had already heard and spoken

my dialogues with the buyers and seller of hardware; I had ended the

days identically, looking through the same goblets at the same

swaying navels.

Why come to Trude? I asked myself. And I already wanted to leave.

“You can resume your flight whenever you like,“ they said to me, “but

you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail.

The world is covered by the sole Trude, which does not begin, nor end.

Only the name of the airport changes”.

Travel which causing and caused by globalisation is another defining factor in the way

we recognises cities. Some even mention that the initial cause of globalisation goes

way back since the age of ‘voyage to the new world’. This fictional story about the

conversation between the explorer Marco Polo and the Emperor Kubilai Khan depicts

the disillusionment of travel, leading to a very bleak view of the world we inhabit.

Calvino suggesting, that the easy capacity of movement makes for a neglect of identity

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within the grounding of a single, once individual place. The current nature of travelling

internationally resulting in the common cliché ‘the world is getting smaller’ conveys an

increasing sense of limbo in the defining notions of ‘place’. It is an observation on how

contemporary lifestyle characterised by continuous speed and movement, so much so

that cities are turning into one single entity.. only the name of the airport change.

Creation of Non-places

If place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a

space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity

will be a non-place. A non-place is not a negative place, but rather an opposite in terms

of function and existence. A non-place has no history, as it does not require any; it

operates in the service of the present. A non-place does not care for us and we do not

care for it. We do not require the non-place for its personal histories, only its function.

For Augé, these non-spaces seem to signal the end of borders, of locality, and of the

old sense of identity rooted in place and time.

As Paul Theroux wrote in the New York Times a few years ago, the contraction of space

on a shrinking planet suggests a time, not far off, when there will be no remoteness:

nowhere to become lost, nothing to be discovered, no escape, no palpable concept of

distance, no peculiarity of dress—frightening thoughts for a traveller.

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As I reach my destination, my hometown Jakarta; I never realise how much it has been

affected by the so called globalisation until recent experience. I never lived in any

other city than Jakarta, so I find it a surprise when I moved to Milano, how the city was

less internationalised as in my hometown. The skyline is less dominated by towering

glass building, no familiar logo of Starbucks in the street corner, and even much less

people converse in English.

The difference is also significant in the way the locals act when they meet foreigner. In

my hometown, the majority of people immediately switch to English upon meeting a

foreigner. In Milano people wouldn’t bother to do so. I think for them it is the

foreigner who has to switch to their language. This difference makes me reflect upon

the mentality of the society, as I witness for the developing city, they see that it is their

duty to adapt in order to be acknowledged internationally, whereas it is not like that

for the already developed city. I have my bit of ‘lost in translation’ when I first came, at

the same time I randomly imagine how easy it is for foreigner to move to my city, as

they can find almost everything translated to English.

As my whole nation look up towards its capital city as a benchmark for development,

Jakarta search for its inspiration elsewhere. The city takes any major city in the world

associated with economic development, financial markets and international business

as a role model. Its new campaign includes a tagline such as ‘The Global Service City’.

While it work its way to become an international hub, more and more residents were

driven away from the city. There is a big shift in land-use policy. More integrated

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business centre areas were built and large office buildings replaced residential units,

resulting in high price for home. As a result, most of the middle class of the city

relocate to nearby adjacent area, creating one of the biggest urban agglomerations in

the world known as the metropolitan area of Jakarta with more than twenty millions of

populations. They go to work in the city and then live in the suburbs. This back and

forth pattern of movement create a massive traffic jam every day that leaves people

stuck in their vehicles for hours. Almost everyone no longer stay in the city, they come

only to leave again. I might argue this is sort of a beginning of a non-place.

With such dynamic populations, it brings large numbers of people into closer and more

frequent contact than any other place in the country. This direct, face-to-face contact

is critical for facilitating the exchange of culture, knowledge and ideas. It becomes a

large sponge, absorbing different narrative and history. At first, we might think with

such rich exchange process, it is quite hard for a city to become a non-place. But what I

was experiencing in my hometown is quite the opposite.

As more foreign culture gets imported, it brings about increasing homogeneity at odds

with sustaining local variety, traditions and culture. Globalisation's contribution to the

alienation of individuals from their traditions may be modest compared to the impact

of modernity itself, as alleged by existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert

Camus. Globalisation has expanded recreational opportunities by spreading pop

culture, particularly through Internet and satellite television.

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There is also an increasing competition between newly adopted culture and the

existing one. Ten years ago walking in any random street in Jakarta, one would find a

street vendor selling local food, these days major franchiser own the city’s food

industry. There is less market for this traditional food, because everyone wants to eat

in a fast-food restaurant. It gets to the point where it is hard to find such traditional

food anymore, and the only place you can find it is inside five-star hotel, all staged and

polished for tourist purposes who wants ‘authentic’ experience.

As Sassen (1991) explains, the globalised network economy concentrates control and

wealth in a handful of interconnected financial centres at the expense of others. Thus,

the nature of the network ensures that the urban renaissance of the global city takes

place at the cost of other cities. Moreover, Sassen points out, this inequality is

replicated on a local scale even within the global city: sectors supported by

international finance and associated enterprises such as high-end hotels and

restaurants eliminate other, less profitable or less glamorous activities.

Major corporations played more important part influencing the policy taken by city

stakeholders. While democratic-styled governments are being installed around the

world in the name of freedom, the essential structure of democracy itself is being

undermined by globalisation. Many fundamental areas of society that were

traditionally administered by democratically elected governments are now becoming

administered by unelected and unapproachable multinational boards. Where

governments were open to public scrutiny, corporations operate in secrecy within

their boardrooms in faraway countries. Where governments could be voted out if

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society disapproved, corporations are not subject to elections. Where governments

made decisions in the interest of the nation, corporations now make decisions in the

interest of profits. Thus create sentiment among the citizen that the city is going out of

their hand.

If the citizens no longer care about their city, sooner or later it will turn into an

automated environment driven by corporates needs, an actual non-place. Here we see

how non-place is not just produced in airport lounges, it is also found in everyday

environments such as highways, shopping malls, gas stations, spaces in front of

automated teller machines and 24-hours restaurant. Instead of symbolic meaning that

emerges historically, non-place is filled with anonymous instructions: the disembodied

voices of announcements and directions on electronic signs.

That being said, it is true that a larger global audience means bigger chance for the

attempt of any cultural preservation. Recently the Jakarta city government starting to

realise that in order to compete with the big player they need to add incentive to local

initiatives to guarantee their competitiveness. They also started to build subsidised

properties to attract people to move back to the city, and actually stay there. The

revised structural plan of the city includes a designated protected area for indigenous

community and more strict regulation for heritage buildings. Local cultural festivals

were held regularly and governor’s awards were given to talented entrepreneur. This

all was an attempt to restore the city’s weakening identity.

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On a higher notes, some regards non-places as a place where we free to be who we

wanted, free to do what we wanted and free to go where we wanted, regardless of

where we lived, or who we were, or where we came from; the pinnacle of ‘modern

man’ which is less bounded by constraint.

Conclusion

We might inevitably shift from one place to another place, through a non-place in our

daily life. Cities may intertwine and linked in so many ways, but it is not without ability

to maintain its own identity. It is not designed to be only passed through or consumed

rather than appropriated. Positively a city is not its airport, but it is up to its citizen and

authority to keep it that way.

Place and non-place are rather like opposed polarities: the first is

never completely erased, the second never totally completed; they are

like palimpsests on which the scrambled game of identity and

relations is ceaselessly rewritten. (Auge: 1995)

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References

Auge, M. 1995. Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity.

London: Verso.

de Botton, A. 2002. The Art of Travel. London: Penguin Books.

Calvino, I. 1974. Invisible Cities. London: Vintage.

Giddens, Anthony. (1991). The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Lefebvre, H. 1974. The Production of Space. Malden: Blackwell.

Norberg-Schulz, C. 1976. The Phenomenon of Place. In: Larice, M and MacDonald, E.

ed. 2013. The Urban Design Design Reader: Second Edition. Oxford: Routledge.

Robertson, R. and White, K. E. 2008. What is Globalization?. In: Ritzer, G. ed. 2008. The

Blackwell Companion to Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Sassen, S. 1991. The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. New Jersey: Princeton

University Press.

Smith, M. P. 2001. Transnational Urbanism: Locating Globalization. Oxford: Blackwell

Publishing.

Theroux, P. 2006. America the Overfull. In: The New York Times. Published: 31

December 2006

Tuan, Y. F. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis:

University of Minnesota Press.