Non-Places and the Law: A Preliminary Investigation

In the context of the significant literature on Marc Augé’s concept of non-places, including its various applications in different disciplines, and also constantly growing legal geographical analyses, it is striking that, to date, there have been no more focused discussion on non-places and the law. This paper aims to begin filling this noticeable gap. It focuses on an original presentation of Augé’s concept and distinguishes three levels of non-places: their objective, material level (e.g. the buildings of non-places); the intersubjective, social level (the specific, distinctive feel of non-places, such as anonymity and detachment); and the purely individual, subjective level (the way particular people assess a specific non-place). The paper not only argues that Augé is already sensitive to the law in his original account of non-places, but also that the law – while directly irrelevant for the subjective level – is nevertheless very important for the objective and intersubjective levels of non-places, as, ultimately, it is a co-constituting factor of these aspects of the discussed type of sites.