ABSTRACT
This chapter illustrates research ideas regarding the importance for Lefebvre of research theory and practice. It describes the development of Henri Lefebvre’s understanding of theoretical and empirical research issues to his Marxism and to his wartime and post-World War Two experiences. Neoliberalism in the Global North and South tilts power away from local government, local inhabitants and small business towards big business and the state. For Lefebvre, the locus of political power was a key factor in his Marxism. The chapter demonstrates that Lefebvre provides a range of signs and clues for research theory and practice, and of paramount importance is the regressive-progressive transduction model. Transduction as research practice is difficult to execute and concrete utopias difficult to identify. Lefebvre added that transduction is a serious challenge partly because neo-capitalism veils using homogeneity and technology, ‘the utopian part of urbanist projects’. An urban society is therefore a paradoxical characteristic of neo-capitalist abstract space, inherent in its contradictions.
