ABSTRACT
One of the most insightful accounts concerned with the fact that the construction of society is inextricably linked to the production of space can be found in the writings of the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, notably in his infl uential study The Production of Space (1991 [1974]; see also Lefebvre 1974, 1996, 2000, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c). Lefebvre’s theory of space has been thoroughly discussed in the literature (see, for example: Brenner 2000: 367-76; Butler 2012; Elden 2004; Goonewardena et al. 2008; Hess 1988; Keith and Pile 1993a: 24-6, 30, 36; Martins 1982; Merrifi eld 2006; Shields 1999, 2004: 211-12; Soja 1989; Stanek 2011; Urry 1995; Zieleniec 2007: 60-97), but no attempt has been undertaken to propose a Lefebvrian outline of a general theory of social space, that is, a conceptual framework capable of capturing the transcendental conditions underlying the spatial structuration of any society, regardless of its historical specifi city. To be sure, such a framework is not meant to suggest that the construction of space can be understood independently of its social conditions of production; rather, it is aimed at shedding light on the fundamental properties that all social spaces share, irrespective of their context-specifi c idiosyncrasies. In this chapter, no attempt shall be made to do justice to the wide-ranging scope of Lefebvre’s oeuvre; instead, the following analysis focuses on key insights gleaned from his acclaimed book The Production of Space . These insights, as shall be demonstrated in subsequent sections, permit us to develop a tentative outline of a general theory of social space.
