ABSTRACT
Abstract space is the central concept of Henri Lefebvre’s magnum opus, The Production of Space (Lefebvre 1991 [1974]).1 Subsequent appropriations of Lefebvre have tended to treat the concept as a signier denoting ‘the space produced by capitalism’ (Brenner 2004: 43). In this chapter, however, I argue that the critical value of abstract space lies less in its conceptualization of space than in its theorization of abstraction. The concept of abstract space should be understood as an attempt to grasp the ways in which the space of capital embodies, facilitates and conceals the complex intertwining of structural, symbolic and direct forms of violence that Lefebvre refers to as ‘the violence of abstraction’, and it is in this sense that the concept oers a unique contribution to our understanding of the capitalist production of space. Furthermore, the concept of abstract space can serve as a nucleus around which to orient Lefebvre’s seemingly diuse ideas on abstraction, violence, history, the state, autogestion and the politics of dierence. I develop this reading of abstract space through a critical analysis of the Plan Puebla Panama (PPP), a regional development programme for southern Mexico and Central America, which was launched in 2001 and abandoned in 2008. The formulation and implementation of the PPP is interpreted as an ‘actually-existing’ abstract space that embodies the structural, symbolic and direct forms of violence inherent to the process of abstraction.
