'No man’s land' explores the concept of trenches as a non-place set between two parallel territories where no one has an identity of their own or a reason for existing in that particular area.

 

The concept of non-place was first introduced by Marc Augé (1992) in his book 'Non‑Lieux: Introduction à une Anthropologie de la Surmodernité', in part based on Michel Certeau’s distinctions established in 'L'invention du Quotidien' between place and space—a place being 'the order (of whatever kind) in accord with which elements are distributed in relationships of coexistence', while a space would be determined solely by the existence of time, direction and velocity (1980, p. 117).

 

To this idea, Augé adds that 'the term space is more abstract', and that 'if a place can be defined as rational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as rational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place [comparable to Certeau’s notion of space]' (1992, p.82; 1992, pp. 77-78).