Berger and Lefebvre

 John Berger and Henri Lefebvre both talk about alienation in modernity. For Berger this alienation is most visible in the way the bourgeoisie eats and for Lefebvre societal alienation takes place in all manner of leisure activities. We are alienated from our bodies, our food, the production of our food, and its preparation through social elements such as the production of dinner as well as physical uses of space such as the use of the dining room. 

Lefebvre comments on the alienation of sexuality, sports, and other leisure activities. Though we are surrounded by images that are supposed to offer a relief from work, they lack real meaning and therefore are cheap reproductions of activities that we would normally find solace in. Sports don't mean activity for those who use sports as a means of leisure, passion isn't offered in the sexuality portrayed by models on magazines or billboards. In our efforts to escape work we have created facsimiles of activities people generally enjoy. 

I've read these articles before, but I feel like I'm reading them differently after reading "History of the World in Seven Cheap Things." I now see how leisure is commercialized and has been cheapened. I'm curious to hear what other readings people related these to. 

Production of Space

This was quite a difficult read by Henri Lefebvre this week. It took me quite a while to go through it and gain a slight grasp of what he is arguing. He creates this notion that there is a tripartite as he calls it - this interconnected triangle that brings together three different notions of "social space": Spatial Practice (the perceived space), Representations of Space (the conceived space), and Representational Space (the lived space).

All of these spaces are interconnected through different means and different aspects of individuals lives. These are also connected by different individuals in places of power, the modes of production, and the individual level. For each of these social spaces there is a lived component as well, which I appreciated because it took the dense theoretics and connected them to living aspects of our lives. This was personally one of my biggest challenges was attempting to connect each aspect of his tripartite to current day, which I hope we can discuss in class about. Through analyzing all of these different aspects, Lefebvre, atleast in my understanding, is attempting to allow us to view space as a different marker, one that is also inherently political. Neil Smith's article we read earlier in the semester was a great connector of how this production of space could be utilized to interpret different actual places.

I struggled with this reading, without a doubt, and I still do not have a solid grasp about what is going on, so I'm looking forward to our discussion where we can unpack this further and gain a better understanding.

Lefebvre, Smith, and Massey

 Sadie Inman

Oct 28th, 2020

Critical Geography

Response Paper 8

Henri Lefebvre considers the history of the idea of space, or more the lack of thought about space throughout history. It has typically been assumed as geometrical or mathematical. Lefebvre considers the social aspect of it and determines that social space is a social product. This has multiple implications including that there isn’t an infinite amount of social space.

That interested me because two articles came to mind. The first one was Neil Smith’s Homeless/Global: Scaling Places. Within this article, Smith demonstrates that the homeless population in New York City is not able to make place and is always “out of place” within the city. They have been socially exiled and with this comes a constant battle between the city and the homeless population about existence. The city makes multiple efforts to get them out of areas considered “public” and the message of the article is that the homeless population is not given the same worth as the remaining population. The art project Smith creates is a way for them to take back space. All of the space has been taken up and socially processed without any left for those without a place to live. This supports the issue of finite natural space that Lefebvre brings up. 

The Doreen Massey article, “Power-Geometry and a Progressive Sense of Space” also comes to mind because of her thought that space doesn’t only encompass the physical people and things, but also every single person that has a relationship with it. In this sense, it isn’t possible to run out of natural space, because everyone can socially produce their own social space.

Therefore exiling someone from an area is not just keeping them from the space but it prevents them from becoming a part of the social web that is a p

Berger and Lefebvre

 

Emily Gettis

GEOG390: Professor Simpson

Week 10 response

10.28.2020

Work and Leisure in Everyday Life (Lefebvre) + The Eaters and the Eaten (Berger)

            The Work and Leisure in Everyday Life chapter by Henry Lefebvre is an analysis of how society spends their day and the fragmented ways our day is broken up within a capitalistic mechanism that fuels consumerism. By bringing a kind of hyper awareness on a person’s every day—defined by work and leisure—Lefebvre takes the normal and shifts it for what it is, abnormal, fragmented, and hinged on reversal (I get the feeling Patel and Moore would have been inspired by this type of illumination). Concepts of work and leisure are so embedded in our fabric that it can be difficult to parse out the ideologies they create. Lefebvre starts by making a distinction between real and surreal in art, and how that was translated into shared realities and expectations of life. I believe Lefebvre is saying that a space was created for leisure from a desire to engage in the surreal; something outside of work. Lefebvre says that the charting of leisure and work are not that rigid, we cannot simply step into leisure activities. Because of how work identity spills into physical aspects of how we create out life and positions us on a certain social rung fragmenting work, family (obligations), culture, leisure, and so on as well as creating multi-faceted knowledge, attitude, and identity. I enjoyed and would more on the ‘reverse images’ that Lefebvre focuses on starting on page 4. I believe he is saying that, when looking for a break from the real world, consumerism has responded by presenting a kind of empty representation of what we think we desire outside of work.

            The Eaters and the Eaten essay by John Berger is a pretty unique and descriptive way of also taking something as ‘normal’ as food and showing us the knowledge meal times can both produce and is produced by. While this essay describes many hegemonic concepts about the differences between the working class and the bourgeois as described by food, I was thinking a lot about Deborah Massey’s essay Power Geometries and a Progressive Sense of Place. It may be a bit of a stretch but, for me it really hammered in the idea that even engaging in the global (in terms of food choices) is not enough when the highly stratified power geometries oppress so many in a globalized world. The experience of a progressive sense of place is in acknowledgment and responsibility of those power geometries.

A Theory of Production of Space

Eric Vilmer

10/26/20

Richard Simpson

            A Theory of Production of Space

This week's reading is the second method on a theory of production of space. Last time we went

over Marxists idea of space production. This time we go over the production of space from John Berger

and Henri Lefebvre. Henri Lefebvre writes an essay titled “Work and Leisure in Everyday Life” which

he tries to explain how our system sets up spaces in various ways which control us. “Through this

global structure we can reconstruct a historically real picture of  man and the human at a certain step in 

their development: at a certain stage of alienation and disalienation.” (Lefebvre, 40) The whole idea of

producing the space around us really is about control and bringing the system of production or

capitalism as others call it to its peak in hegemonic power. “The Eaters and the Eaten” by John Berger

discusses the distinctions between how the bourgeois eat and the peasants. “The bourgeois overeat.” 

(Berger, 372) “To the peasant, food represents work done and therefore repose.” (Berger, 372) “To the

bourgeois the drama of eating, far from being reposeful, is a stimulus.” (Berger, 372) Berger mentions 

that the peasant is more likely going to embrace a conservative mindset which was created by the 

bourgeois. Their is a lack of understanding for the peasant as their attitudes are obstructed by the system

of capital created by the bourgeois. “At least until recently, the physical reality of the peasant’s 

conservatism has hindered his understanding of the political realities of the modern world.” (Berger, 

374) One might wonder if it is possible to break the mindset of conservatism and get more people to see

 reality for what it is right now, and how we can fix the problems that have been created over 

generations. 

Glory to Labor

 

I was walking near my home when I saw this interesting mosiac propaganda. "слава труду" means "Glory to Labor" and is an old Soviet slogan. It's in a prominent area in the city, near public transportation. Is it to remind people of the honor and respect in work, encourage them to work harder, or to glorify the communist ideal of the worker who owns their labor? What does this mean to you in light of our readings?