i on thomas paine reviews: origins of crisis in ussr - Common Sense

Trial by Space: Reflections on Lefebvre Puge 25
or property of human action in general. On the contrary, it is itself the origin and source
of the rationality of action. (1991 p72) This concept of production finds its ground in the
body which Lefebvre claims has been betrayed, abandoned and denied by western
philosophy. (1991 p407, see also the work of Foucault) For Lefebvre, the body serves as
point of departure and destination and constitutes the foundation upon which the space of
particular society is built. (1991 pp194, 188) "Bodies - deployments of energy - produce
space and produce themselves, along with their motions, according to the laws of
[discrimination in] spa =....This thesis is so persuasive", declares Lefebvre, "that there
seems to be little reason for not extending its application - with all due precautions - to
social space. This would give us the concept of a specific space produced by forces (i.e.
productive forces) deployed within a (social and determined/detexmining) spatial practice."
(1991 p171) By defining spatiality as the mode of existence and ever present outcome of
productive activity, Lefebvre concludes that space is not just a relation but is "inherent to
property relationships (especially the ownership of the earth, of the land) and also closely
bound up with the forces of production (which impose a form on that earth or land)."
(1991 p85) Though a praiuct to be used, to be consumed, it is also a means of
production; networks of exchange and flows of raw materials and energy fashion space and
are determined by it." (ibid.) The implications of this interpretation of social space, is
that it cannot be treated as a thing among other things, a product among other products.
Rather, it subsumes things produced, and encompasses their interrelationships in their
coexistence and simultaneity. Furthermore, this conception of social space means that
there are an unlimited multiplicity, or uncountable set, of social spaces, generically
referred to as "social space", which "interpenetrate one another andlor superimpose
themelves upon one ~nother."(l991 p86-7)
The implications of Lefebvre's conception is that each mode of production produces and
expresses itself through its own space. However, because Lefebvre has abandoned the
Mm of Capital the relation between the "mode of production" and "its" space is never
specified. In fact Lefebvre appears to hold to a structuralist conception and therefore fears
the reductionism of the spatial to the "economic". "Each mode of production has its
space; but the characteristics of space do not amount to the general characteristics of the
mode of production; ... The reduction of the aesthetic, of the social and the mental to the
economic was a disastrous error." (1991 p382) Instead, Lefebvre attempts of develop a
method which is able to apprehend social space as such, in its genesis and its form, with
its own specific time or times (the rhythm of daily life), and its particular centres and,
what Lefebvre calls, polycentrism (apora, temple, stadium, etc.) At the basis of this
method is a recognition that social space in all epochs contains and expresses two
interrelated sets of relations, the relations of production and reproduction, which gives rise
to what Lefebvre terms their spatial practice. The advent of capitalism, however,
complicates matters. In capitalist society, social space, according to Lefebvre, contains a
"tripartite ordering" which assigns (more of less) an appropriate place to (1) biological
reproduction, (2) the reproduction of labour power, and (3) the reproduction of the social
relations of production. While inextricably bound up with one another, social space must
discriminate between the three in order to "localise" them. (1991 p32) To make matters
more complicated, social space in all epochs also expresses specific represent& of the
interaction between the social relations of production and reproduction which serve to
maintain these social relations in a state of coexistence and cohesion. These
representations are largely symbolic and, in terms of the relations of reproduction. are
divided into frontal, public, overt - and hence coded - relations on the one hand, and on the
other, covert, clandestine and repressed relations which may or may not be coded.