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
Hi I don't know what happened but your last sentence got cut off it looks like. I like how you bring up the Homeless/Global essay. It is a strong connection because it shows the "peasants" of society and how materialism can effect them but at the lowest level as they have no choice in how they live their lives other than what the bourgeois give them.
ReplyDeleteSadie, Lefebvre's concept of "social space" is an important one and you are right that it therefore becomes limited and politicized. The Homeless Mobile is an excellent connection here: Smith's point is precisely that this project makes "visible" within space those communities that are part of the city, yet which the city attempts to keep invisible. Massey's concept of mobility is also important here: who gets to move through a space is closely linked to how it is constructed and for whom which are the kinds of questions Lefebvre's concept invites us to ask.
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