The Price of Placelessness
This is an excerpt from Anna Morgan’s essay, The Price of Placelessness. You can read the full post on her website.
In preparation for the release of a new ebook, The Nature of Place: Personal Narratives in Landscape Photography, that I have co-authored with Circle of Light, I have been contemplating again about the relevance of place in our modern, global world and the price that we pay, both individually and societally, when we lose our connection to place.
The individual and collective effects of displacement on a person or community are wide-ranging and well documented. Whether displacement results from war, colonisation, climate change, development projects, family breakdown or the loss of work, it disrupts place, identity, safety, and belonging - the consequences of which continue to ripple outwards and are inherited by future generations. Although news headlines are often dominated by stories of displacement, less attention is afforded to the concept of placelessness for which the outcomes can be just as far-reaching. It is likely that most of you reading this essay will have experienced placelessness to a degree.
Placelessness is a socio-spatial condition characterised by the erosion, homogenisation, or absence of meaningful attachment between individuals or communities, and specific geographic locations. It encompasses both the experiential loss of rootedness or existential belonging, and the material production of standardised, interchangeable landscapes that lack distinctive cultural, historical, or relational identity. Spaces that could be anywhere such as airports, offices, chain stores or anonymous suburbs are considered placeless environments. These places essentially contain interchangeable, faceless buildings or spaces that strip the environment of their distinctiveness to the point that they are no longer unique. This uniformity has arisen over time as a result of globalisation, commodification and technocratic planning designed primarily for efficiency and profit.
