ABSTRACT
This chapter explores why and how anthropologists might benefit from the use of conceptual systems and methods proposed by Henri Lefebvre. It examines the current state of urban anthropology to identify some of its shortcomings and the possible reasons for the noticeable absence of Lefebvre in anthropology. R. G. Fox has been quoted often in highlighting how what purports to be ‘urban anthropology’ is nothing more than anthropological research conducted in city or urban settings. The reason for Lefebvre’s popularity in urban research is itself due to a process: the process of translating his works from its original French. In their commentary S. Elden and A. D. Morton rightly warn that this ‘predominantly urban focus’ risks ‘marginalising another of Lefebvre’s interests, which is the question of the rural’. Many anthropologists work in rural communities. Based on the triad of ‘space–time–energy’ Lefebvre explains that ‘everywhere where there is interaction between a place and an expenditure of energy, there is rhythm’.
