Stuck Inside of Mobile

Abstract

Guided by Augé’s concept of “non-place,” we conduct a mobile ethnography of the Las Vegas Strip to evoke and critically reflect on the characteristics of such environments. Informed by our findings, we contribute to the scholarship of non-places by (1) attending to three components of such environments that are seldom mentioned together (temporal organization, soundscape, and social control) and (2) suggesting a tentative model of non-places that integrates function (entertainment, transportation, hospitality, consumption); design (signage, movement, temporal organization, and soundscape); social control system (their mechanisms, visibility, power, sanctions, types of violation); performances (the roles they prompt users to play and the interactions they direct them to perform), and subjectivities (the sort of self-experiences they induce). In the conclusions, we summarize our findings and revisit the concept of non-place.