Space, Place, and Identity in the Digital Age

Questions week 2: Lefevbre, Tuan, Simonsen

1) To say that I felt a certain sense of (possibly unintentional) ableism running through the work is an understatement as Tuan is very focused on physical space. Tuan notes that, “an infant is unfree, and so are prisoners and the bedridden. They cannot, or have lost the ability to, move freely; they live in constricted spaces” (52). While I understand this article did not take up digital space, there was a certain generalization that physical space=freedom=satisfaction. I wonder, how do the issues with space (not enough, crowding, etc) in the digital environment, more specifically digital communities occur?

Weekly Post: Lefebvre

1) As I read, I wonder how Lefebvre’s analysis of social and spatial space would change in the context of the digital era. Let’s think, for example, of the current social networks and websites (blogs, twitter(?), personal web pages) that occupy a different sense of space and social relations. Perhaps, and following Lefebvre’s triad (p. 39), such websites are representational spaces. However, could not these be representations of space at the same time? In other words, and I really hope to think more about this as the readings and the debates in class develop, is not the virtual a new conception of space where social interaction occurs without occupying a “real” space? or should we consider it only as abstract space? (p. 49)

2) More than a question, this is just a connection with other readings I’ve done in the past. In the last sections of the first chapter (pgs. 48 – 57), Lefebvre presents an analysis of the interaction between the representation of space and representational spaces under the lenses of social relations and ideological constructs. Such analysis makes me think of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of field of production. By making connections, I can just think that Bourdieu sees social relations and social struggles at the level of Lefebvre’s abstract space.  It seems to me that this abstract space is nothing else but a form of doxa since it “depends on consensus more than any space before it” (Lefebvre, p. 57). Perhaps, from a very pessimistic view, social space cannot be modified since it reproduces with the changes of time. (Should we look, then, at the ‘differential space’ as an option to stop the effect of the abstract one?)

3) On page 86, Lefebvre mentions the (quasi)arbitrary quality of maps. It makes me think about the race maps we checked last class. Indeed, those maps show us a specific “reality” and social relations at a given space. But, as one of our classmates pointed out, those maps do not show other types of “location” or places that would show us other types of “realities” in action. What I am trying to say is that those locations cannot be considered static, and social mapping (or social cartography, if I may) should account for those non-static connections with space. If such type of “active” mapping doesn’t exist, how would it change current methodologies in social science? would it better describe such social relations (and struggles)?

Glossary (attempt # 1):

Space:

• Looked in isolation, space is nothing else but an empty abstraction. In order to understand what space is, we need to look at its inherent connection with time.
• Space is abstract, concrete, instrumental, and dialectical.
• It is constituted by a triad of elements: spatial practice, representations of space, and representational space
• “contains things yet is not itself a thing or material ‘object’ (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 82)
• It is a set of relations between things (objects and products) (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 83)
• ??????

Digital Space: [Work in progress…]

Lefebvre, Simonsen, Tuan: Questions/Connections

1.)    While I found the excerpts from Tuan’s Space and Place helpful in beginning to craft a language with which to discuss space and place (I hope my 101 students appreciate it), I wanted to take this opportunity to push against his assertions about space, mobility, and the experience or feeling of freedom. Tuan writes “An infant is unfree, and so are prisoners, and the bedridden. They cannot, or have lost their ability to, move freely” (52). In keeping with the theme of the body and embodiment, I question this assertion. Does, for example, being bedridden (or, perhaps a different term should be used here, one without the connotation of being “stuck” or “trapped”) really prevent one from accessing space? Can space be accessed remotely? Does space necessitate a mobile body, or are there other ways in which space may be conceptualized that do not require this physical requirement?

2.)    Not to harp on Tuan here, but I’m going try to make a potentially awkward connection between Tuan’s discussion of crowding and Lefebvre’s discussion of things and commodities. We might get back around to space and place. In “Spaciousness and Crowding,” Tuan explains that things have the ability to produce feelings of crowdedness, but only when “people endow them with animate or human characteristics” (59). Lefebvre argues that “[t]hings lie, and when, having become commodities, they lie in order to conceal their origin, namely social labour, they tend to set themselves up as absolutes” (81). Perhaps a holdover from a different class, I’m interested here in the how and what of things’ concealment and deception that produces this affective expansion into space. That is, what are the mechanisms by which things’ hidden attributes take up space? Are they solely affective (the dead parent’s recipe book) or are they also part of the process of production and the “circuits they establish (in space)” (Lefebvre 81)?

3.)    This might tie in too closely with my first question, but is there any way we can not “presuppos[e] the use of the body” in “social/spatial practice” (Simonsen 7)? Or, alternately, what “body” is presupposed here?

Definitions

Body: The corporeal aspect of the Self; cannot be separated from other “parts” of the Self, but rather functions as the physical means of interaction and experience with the world (Oh wow, this is messy)

Place: A space, which is imbued with “identity,” “aura,” and that can be named as itself via the invocation of some aspect of its identity (ex. “The place where we met,” “the place where the trees don’t grow”)

Weekly Posts: Alex Carson

1: On page 16, Lefebvre postulates on whether language precedes or succeeds the appropriation of social space. Lefebvre notes the possibility of language itself as a space by which spaces can be logically interpreted, but in studies of prehuman hominids and other social animals such as bonobos and other primates we have been able to note the appropriation of spaces for activity. While Lefebvre does not explicitly rule out the notion of social space preceding language, I wonder what the implications of such a procession – with social spaces emerging before spoken language – are for the study of space and place. If language could have led to space, could space have been conducive to the physical and mental traits that make speech and language possible?

2: On pages 23 and 24 Lefebvre discusses the impact of the consolidation of space by the state from a Hegelian, Neitzsche-ian, and (after a fashion) Marxist point of view. Again, while Lefebvre does not explicitly denounce it, I wonder what role struggles outside of the Western notion of class struggle play in conflict in a world dominated by the concept of the state. As described by Mikhail Bakhtin and interpreted through Lefebvre, language is one space where conflict between peoples can happen. Is linguistic conflict part of the greater conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat? Or does it have a difference character, and thus does it occupy different spaces, that merit further investigation and elaboration?

3: This may be me making too much of one statement, but on page 27 Lefebvre asks how social space as a social product is “concealed” as part of a broader capitalist system. Perhaps it is a consequence of the times we live in, but in my experience social space is fairly openly commoditized and turned into a product. Websites like Facebook have not only commoditized this space, but have turned the information exchanged through this space into a product for the acquisition of capital in and of itself. In a Marxist discourse, does this signify the full legitimization of a capitalist system? Or does it potentially have some other meaning?

Definitions:

Cartesian: The term Cartesian refers to the philosophical beliefs of Rene Descartes, who believed that the mind was separate from the body and held that there was such a thing as “inherent” knowledge (I think, therefore I am).

Semiology: The study of the functions of signs and symbols, as originally pioneered and organized by Saussure.

The Creation of Space

In the beginning of chapter 1 and continuing throughout (and emphasized in Simonson), Lefebvre refuses to acknowledge mental space as real or not as legitimate. Is mental space not real? Although he is concerned more with physical spaces (although space is not always/necessarily tangible) and acknowledgeable spaces that can be occupied by more than one person. Is this what constitutes space – multiplicity of occupation? Although there is acknowledgment of this mental space — I would have liked to have seen this idea pushed further, especially when our relationship to space is in part defined by the way we perform. Are our actions not based primarily in this occupied mental space. Maybe I’m looking to much into this, but this is a part of contention that I have with Lefebvre.

Lefebvre takes most of his inspiration from his origin in Marxist theory, which translates directly into his work on the body and space. Lefebvre is fetishizing the body and space as if to say that the two cannot exist without each other. In this instance I think it would be fair to say that Lefebvre is a space fetishist in the sense that he is giving meaning and a value (not monetary) to space through the body and the work that it produces (energy -> space -> time).

As I read through Simonson I start to wonder what a combination of Erving Goffman’s ideas of the performance of the everyday self would act in relationship with the creation of space. I ask this in relation to what Simonson says on page 7 of her article “…Lefebvre stresses how social/spatial practice, which is performed at the level of the perceived, presupposes the use of the body – of the hands, members and sen sory organs, performing gestures of work or of activity unrelated to work.”

Definition(s):

Space: an intangible ‘thing’ that invokes feelings (spiritual, positive, negative, or otherwise) rather than physicality. It would seem to express an expansion through prosthesis. It is an area of performance for the individual, group, or community. Space is subjective.