Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre
Henri Lefebvre (/ləˈfɛvrə/; French: [ləfɛvʁ]; 16 June 1901 – 29 June 1991) was a
Henri Lefebvre
French Marxist philosopher and sociologist, best known for pioneering the critique
of everyday life, for introducing the concepts of the right to the city and the
production of social space, and for his work on dialectics, alienation, and criticism of
Stalinism, existentialism, and structuralism. In his prolific career, Lefebvre wrote
more than sixty books and three hundred articles.[4]
Lefebvre's book The Production of Space is the most requested book from the
British Library's collection.[5]
Contents
Biography
The critique of everyday life
The social production of space Born 16 June 1901
Criticism and response
Hagetmau, France
Bibliography
Died 29 June 1991
References (aged 90)
Sources Navarrenx, France
Further reading
Alma mater University of Paris
External links (MA, 1920;[1] DrE,
1954)[2]
Lefebvre died in 1991. In his obituary, Radical Philosophy magazine honored his long and complex career and influence:
"the most prolific of French Marxist intellectuals, died during the night of 28–29 June 1991,
less than a fortnight after his ninetieth birthday. During his long career, his work has gone in
and out of fashion several times, and has influenced the development not only of philosophy
but also of sociology, geography, political science and literary criticism."[17]
Lefebvre argued that everyday life was an underdeveloped sector compared to technology and production, and moreover that in the
mid 20th century, capitalism changed such that everyday life was to be colonized—turned into a zone of sheer consumption. In this
zone of everydayness (boredom) shared by everyone in society regardless of class or specialty, autocritique of everyday realities of
boredom vs. societal promises of free time and leisure, could lead to people understanding and then revolutionizing their everyday
lives. This was essential to Lefebvre because everyday life was where he saw capitalism surviving and reproducing itself. Without
revolutionizing everyday life, capitalism would continue to diminish the quality of everyday life, and inhibit real self-expression. The
critique of everyday life was crucial because it was for him only through the development of the conditions of human life—rather
[21]
than abstract control of productive forces—that humans could reach a concrete utopian existence.
Lefebvre's work on everyday life was heavily influential in French theory, particularly for the Situationists, as well as in politics (e.g.
for the May 1968 student revolts).[22] The third volume has also recently influenced scholars writing about digital technology and
information in the present day[23] , since it has a section dealing with this topic at length, including analysis of the Nora-Minc Report
(fr) (1977); key aspects of information theory; and other general discussion of the 'colonisation' of everyday life through information
communication technologies as 'devices' or 'services'.
Lefebvre contends that there are different modes of production of space (i.e. spatialization) from natural space ('absolute space') to
more complex spaces and flows whose meaning is produced in a social way (i.e. social space).[24] Lefebvre analyses each historical
mode as a three-part dialectic between everyday practices and perceptions (le perçu), representations or theories of space (le conçu)
and the spatial imaginary of the time (le vécu).[25]
Lefebvre's argument in The Production of Space is that space is a social product, or a complex social construction (based on values,
and the social production of meanings) which affects spatial practices and perceptions. This argument implies the shift of the research
perspective from space to processes of its production; the embrace of the multiplicity of spaces that are socially produced and made
productive in social practices; and the focus on the contradictory, conflictual, and, ultimately, political character of the processes of
production of space.[26] As a Marxist theorist (but highly critical of the economic structuralism that dominated the academic
discourse in his period), Lefebvre argues that this social production of urban space is fundamental to the reproduction of society,
hence of capitalism itself. The social production of space is commanded by a hegemonic class as a tool to reproduce its dominance
(see Antonio Gramsci).
(Social) space is a (social) product [...] the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action [...] in
.[27]
addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power
Lefebvre argued that every society—and, therefore, every mode of production—produces a certain space, its own space. The city of
the ancient world cannot be understood as a simple agglomeration of people and things in space—it had its own spatial practice,
making its own space (which was suitable for itself—Lefebvre argues that the intellectual climate of the city in the ancient world was
very much related to the social production of its spatiality). Then if every society produces its own space, any "social existence"
aspiring to be or declaring itself to be real, but not producing its own space, would be a strange entity, a very peculiar abstraction
incapable of escaping the ideological or even cultural spheres. Based on this argument, Lefebvre criticized Soviet urban planners on
the basis that they failed to produce a socialist space, having just reproduced the modernist model of urban design (interventions on
physical space, which were insufficient to grasp social space) and applied it onto that context:
Change life! Change Society! These ideas lose completely their meaning without producing an appropriate space. A
lesson to be learned from soviet constructivists from the 1920s and 30s, and of their failure, is that new social
relations demand a new space, and vice-versa.[28]
References
1. Schrift (2006), p. 152.
2. Schrift (2006), p. 153.
3. Ian H. Birchall, Sartre against Stalinism, Berghahn Books, 2004, p. 176: "Sartre praised highly [Lefebvre's] work on
sociological methodology, saying of it: 'It remains regrettable that Lefebvre has not found imitators among other
Marxist intellectuals'."
4. Shields, Rob (1999). Lefebvre Love and Struggle. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-09370-5.
5. https://twitter.com/britishlibrary/status/984356115382226944
6. Michel Trebitsch: Introduction to Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 1 (http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/Trebitsch/pref_lefebvre1_M
T.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20160608040420/http://www .ihtp.cnrs.fr/Trebitsch/pref_lefebvre1_MT.h
tml) 8 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine.
7. Mark Poster, 1975, Existential Marxism in Postwar France: From Sartre to Althusser, Princeton University Press
8. "Lefebvre on the Situationists: AnInterview"(http://www.notbored.org/lefebvre-interview.html). Retrieved 17 May
2016.
9. Radical Philosophy obituary, Spring 1992 (http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2191&editorial_
id=9838) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20030626092609/http://www .radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?cha
nnel_id=2191&editorial_id=9838)26 June 2003 at the Wayback Machine.
10. Henri Lefebvre and Leszek Kołakowski.Evolution or Revolution; F. Elders (ed.), Reflexive Water: The Basic
Concerns of Mankind, London: Souvenir. pp. 199–267. ISBN 0-285-64742-3
11. "Préface de : Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life. o
Vlume III. (1981)" (https://web.archive.org/web/2016060802
2258/http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/Trebitsch/pref_lefebvre3_MT.html). Archived from the original (http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/Tre
bitsch/pref_lefebvre3_MT.html) on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
12. Vincent Cespedes, May 68, Philosophy is in the Street!(Larousse, Paris, 2008).
13. Mark Purcell, Excavating Lefebvre: The right to the city and its urban politics of the inhabitant
(http://faculty.washingt
on.edu/mpurcell/geojournal.pdf), GeoJournal 58: 99–108, 2002.
14. "Right to the City" as a response to the crisis: "Convergence" or divergence of urban social movements?
(http://www.
reclaiming-spaces.org/crisis/archives/266)Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20120310001029/http://www .reclai
ming-spaces.org/crisis/archives/266)10 March 2012 at theWayback Machine., Knut Unger, Reclaiming Spaces
15. Radical Philosophy obituary, 1991 (http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2191&editorial_id=983
8) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20030626092609/http://www .radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id
=2191&editorial_id=9838)26 June 2003 at the Wayback Machine.
16. Gombin, Richard (1971).The Origins of Modern Leftism. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-021846-6., p40
17. Radical Philosophy obituary, 1991.
18. Lefebvre, Henri (1947).The Critique of Everyday Life. Verso. ISBN 978-1844671946., p40
19. Lefebvre, Henri; Regular, Catherine (2004). Rhythmanalysis. Continuum. ISBN 978-0826472991.
20. "Préface à : Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life. V
olume I. Introduction" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160608
040420/http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/Trebitsch/pref_lefebvre1_MT.html). Archived from the original (http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/T
rebitsch/pref_lefebvre1_MT.html) on 8 June 2016. Retrieved 17 May 2016.
21. Elden, 2004, pp. 110–126.
22. Ross, Kristin (2005). May 68 and its afterlives. University of Chicago.ISBN 978-0226727998.
23. Shaw, Joe; Graham, Mark (February 2017). A " n Informational Right to the City? Code, Content, Control, and the
Urbanization of Information".Antipode. 49 (4): 907–927. doi:10.1111/anti.12312 (https://doi.org/10.1111%2Fanti.123
12).
24. Place, A Short Introductionby Tim Cresswell
25. Shields, Rob, Places on the Margin, Routledge, 1991, ISBN 0-415-08022-3, pp. 50–58.
26. Stanek, Lukasz, Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory
, University
of Minnesota Press, 2011, p. ix.
27. Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, Blackwell, 1991, ISBN 0-631-18177-6. p. 26.
28. Lefebvre, Henri The Production of Space, Blackwell, 1991, ISBN 0-631-18177-6. p. 59
29. DES stands for diplôme d'études supérieures, roughly equivalent to anMA thesis.
30. Elden 2004, p. 96.
Sources
Stuart Elden, Understanding Henri Lefebvre: Theory and the Possible
, London/New York: Continuum, 2004.
Alan D. Schrift, Twentieth-Century French Philosophy: Key Themes And Thinkers, Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
Further reading
Andy Merrifield, Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction(London: Routledge, 2006)
Goonewardena, K., Kipfer, S., Milgrom, R. & Schmid, C. eds. Space, Difference, Everyday Life: Reading Henri
Lefebvre. (New York: Routledge, 2008)
Andrzej Zieleniec: Space and Social Theory , London 2007, p. 60–97.
Chris Butler, Henri Lefebvre: Spatial Politics, Everyday Life, and the Right to the City
(New York/London: Routledge,
2012)
Shields, R.,Lefebvre, Love, and Struggle(New York/London: Routledge, 1998)
External links
Quotations related to Henri Lefebvre at Wikiquote
The Ignored Philosopher and Social Theorist: The W ork of Henri Lefebvre by Stanley Aronowitz, in: Situations, vol.
2, no. 1, pp. 133–155 (PDF available).
Henri Lefebvre, Urban Research and Architecture oTday
Review of The Production of Spacein Not Bored
Review of The First Situationist Symphonyin Not Bored
"La Somme et la Reste" Newsletter (in French)
"Henri Lefebvre: Philosopher of Everyday Life" (2001) by Rob Shields
Lefebvre, Love and Struggle - Spatial Dialectics(London: Routledge 1999) by Rob ShieldsIncludes largely complete
bibliography of Henri Lefebvre's work.
Review of Lefebvre, Love and Struggle
"An English Précis of Henri Lefebvre's La Production de l'Espace" Urban and Regional Studies orking
W Paper
(Sussex University 1986) by Rob Shields
"Bioinformatic Alignments" by Jordan Crandall
"Central Europe and the Nationalist Paradigm" (University of exas
T at Austin 1996) by Katherine Arens
"La Méthode d'Henri Lefebvre" inMultitudes by Rémi Hess (in French)
Stadt, Raum und Gesellschaft: Henri Lefebvre und die Theorie der Produktion des Raumes by Christian Schmid (in
German)
"Postmodern Spacings" inPostmodern Culture by Mark Nunes et al.
"Towards a Heuristic Method: Sartre and Lefebvre" by Michael Kelly in Sartre Studies International, vol. 5, no. 1,
1999, pp. 1–15.
Henri Lefebvre on Space Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory by Lukasz Stanek
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