The Notion of Nowhere

Where, exactly, is the middle of nowhere? What is it?

“Not in or to any place; not anywhere,” if we’re to trust Google. Also: “a place that is remote, uninteresting, or nondescript.”

And that’s the key — distance from ourselves. To say somewhere is “the middle of nowhere” says nothing about its intrinsic properties — ”nowhere” doesn’t exist on maps* — but it does speak to its human properties. We dismiss a place as “nowhere” when we don’t see our values or history or influence in it.

Land isn’t “of a place” (somewhere) or “not of a place” (nowhere) — only we are.

If we understand conservation as an effort to re-value natural places, we could also understand it as a movement to erode the notion of nowhere — to include everywhere in our value systems, regardless of distance.