06th Sep2012

Weekly Post: Lefebvre

by felixburgos

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…]

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