Contexts of Practice - 4th March

Friday 4th March 2016                               Contexts of Practice                 Lecturer: Lucy Leake

Place/Non-Place

My Journal Article - Living the High Life.

For my Journal Article I have decided to research into the theory that Marc Augé (a French Anthropologist) believed could categorise a place from a non-place, I would like to explore whether these theories could relate to wildlife and their habitats by reviewing a range of wildlife documentaries, could an animal's presence have an impact on a certain location to transform it from a non-place into a place that they can call their own, a bit like when humans visit a location more than once. A non-place is described as somewhere, which doesn’t have necessary links to social or historical events, could be globalisation or tourist attractions, the examples given would be a motorway, hotel room, airport, or a supermarket. However, if a place is more defined as relational, historical, or concerned with identity, his theory believes that it is a place instead of a non-place. 

By the year 1995, Marc had written his own book, which was published with the title “Introduction to an Anthropology of Super modernity” which elaborated upon his beliefs of non-place whilst talking about Super-modernity as being the “opposite side of the coin” to Post-Modernity, he writes about the changes within our society which have led to the reproduction of his beliefs for non-place which have been associated with space, time and other elements of his research. 

In my opinion I think that wildlife’s presence inside a certain space, could have an impact on turning a non-place into a place. Take an empty forest, nothing lives there which means that there is nothing around to generate relationships so it becomes a non-place, but what if a family of birds were to move in, perhaps they start to mate and build nests, surely this makes the woodland a place as they have taken up residency, created their own relationship in a clearing which will more than likely lead to new life being born or could it revert back as a non-place because these birds or mammals will eventually migrate or travel to another space where they will carry on the cycle of life. This particular cycle of life can be seen in many wildlife documentaries, the series of films that I have chosen to talk about are called “Life Story”, this has been made into a six-part series of wildlife documentaries where David Attenborough outlines the development of certain species of animals but it also talks about the threats that they can encounter through their life, makes me think about super modernity, linking back to Marc’s book where he touches on the social changes in our society, I believe that the animals help one another and over time they form social family groups where they are taught to hunt by their parents i.e. they are brought out to watch the types of hunting strategies that their parents use, the young will need to master these techniques in order to ensure survival, the strategies learnt will most probably be repeated once the young have fully developed and found a partner, we get a feel for a range of wild beasts, land mammals, birds of prey, aquatic animals, we start to understand the differences between their lifestyles and how they go about their daily lives. 

David Attenborough’s narration throughout these documentaries takes us as the viewers on the greatest of all adventures – “the journey through life” I feel like the documentaries include the viewers as they use informal language to discuss life on the planet around us, like Marc’s theory of super- modernity we will witness solitude between species in the wild i.e. in the first episode Attenborough introduces the series from South Africa where he watches Meerkat pups emerging from their burrows, the majority of wildlife documentaries I have watched are detailing some of the threats faced by other animals at the beginning of their lives i.e. there were some disturbing shots of Barnacle Geese, I shortly became aware that the family were nesting high on a cliff to escape Arctic foxes, the parents temp their five Goslings to jump from the nest which has been perched off a 400 foot cliff face, the goslings survival depends on the luck, timing, weather conditions and technique of their leap of faith. I think that this series consists of the same codes and conventions too that like Life in Africa, Blue Planet, Frozen Planet, Life in Galapagos as they all tell stories about a wide variety of animals including their lifestyles, prey, preferred habitat, life expectancy and many other interesting pieces of information. 

Quote Ideas:

If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then it is a “place” – the rest would be “non-places”, such as for example highways, airports and supermarkets - Marc's book

The creators of the TV series released a hardcover format on 9th October 2014, it was written by Mike Gunton and Rupert Barrington, the UK version was published by BBC Books.

A quote I liked "The Space Doesn't Define the Use, The Behaviour Does, though this could be linked back into animals and the way that they behave between one another.

My Journal Article without References.

My Journal Article with References.

References

Images

Image of Barnacle Geese, not sure on the photographer as such: think its Kim Leblanc, (2015), 10 Lords a Leaping [ONLINE]. Available at: http://blog.healthywildlife.ca/day-10-ten-lords-a-leaping/ [Accessed 04 March 16].

Image of the Arctic Fox stealing eggs: Sergey Gorshkov, (2013), Russian Refuge [ONLINE]. Available at: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/wrangel-island/gorshkov-photography [Accessed 04 March 16].

Websites

BBC Two, BBC, BBC Earth (2015) BBC Two Life-Story , Available at:http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026vg04 (Accessed: 4th March 2016).

PDF: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jread2/Auge%20Non%20places.pdf 

Wikipedia (2016) Marc Auge, Available at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Aug%C3%A9 (Accessed: 4th March 2016).

Patrick LAVIOLETTE (2012 0r 2016) Non-Places of non-Augé, Available at:http://www.materialworldblog.com/2012/11/non-places-of-non-auge/ (Accessed: 4th March 2016).