Places, non-places, spaces

Abstract

This study aims to provide an insight into the typology of spatialization in public spaces. Non-places characterized by anonymity, and places, imbued with significance, coexist without static or fixed meanings, serving as spaces of negotiation. The study will explore their possible relations with external spaces, including crisis and deviant heterotopias, former workers' spaces as (non-)places of resistance, the evolution and adaptation of consumerist spaces, and public spaces as political arenas, where alternative spaces challenge the tendencies of globalization in an age of liberal atomism. Furthermore, the study will question the conceptualization and identity of geographical spaces such as Eastern Europe and the Balkans, examining cultural hegemony and Orientalism as imposed conceptual schemes that demand scrutiny. The representation of non-place in films and the tendency to negate place through travel will be explored, along with the consumerist logic of ephemeral shopping centers as alternative (non-)places of culture. These spaces act as sites of consumer tactics and strategies of resistance, countering the normativity of urban everyday life through micro-procedures of resistance, ultimately creating a public-political space of resistance. 8 The text is based on the essay Nemjesta (Non-Places) read on the Third Program of Croatian Radio in 2007.

Keywords

• places
• non-places
• space
• ephemerality
• heterotopias