Social Space (H. Lefebvre)

"(Social) space is not a thing among other things, nor a product among other products: rather it subsumes things produced, and encompasses their interrelationships in their coexistence and simultaneity - their (relative) order and/or (relative) disorder. It is the outcome of a sequence and set of operations, and thus cannot be reduced to the rank of a simple object. At the same time there is nothing imagined, unreal or 'ideal' about it as compared, for example, with science, representations, ideas or dreams. Itself, the outcome of past actions, social space is what permits fresh actions to occur, while suggesting others and prohibiting yet others. Among these actions, some serve production, others consumptions (i.e. the enjoyment of the fruits of production). Social space implies a great diversity of knowledge. [...]

A social space cannot be adequately accounted for wither by natures (climate, site) or by its previous history. Nor does the growth of the forces of production give rise in any direct causal fashion to a particular space or a particular time. Mediations, and mediators, have to be taken into consideration: the action of groups, factors within knowledge, within ideology, or within the domain of representations. Social space contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the networks and pathways which facilitate the exchange of material things and information. Such 'objects' are thus not only things but also relations. As objects, they possess discernible peculiarities, contour and form. Social labour transforms them, rearranging their positions within spatio-temporal configurations without necessarily affecting their materiality, their natural state (as in the case, for instance, of a island, gulf, river or mountain). [...]

We are confronted not by one social space but by many - indeed, by an unlimited multiplicity or uncountable set of social spaces which we refer to generically as 'social space'. No space disappears in the course of growth and development: the worldwide does not abolish the local. This is not a consequence of the law of uneven development, but a law in its own right. The intertwinement of social spaces is also a law. Considered in isolation, such spaces are mere abstractions. As concrete abstractions, however, they attain 'real' existence by virtue of networks and pathways, by virtue of bunches or clusters of relationships. Instances of this are the worldwide networks of communication, exchange and information. It is important to note that such newly developed networks do not eradicate from their social context those earlier ones, superimposed upon one another over the years, which constitute the various markets: local, regional, national and international markets; the market in commodities, the money or capital market, the labour market, and the market in works, symbols and signs; and lastly - the most recently created - the market in spaces themselves. [...] The corresponding buildings, in the towns, bear material testimony to this evolution. This social space, and especially urban space, emerged in all its diversity - and with a structure far more reminiscent of flaky mille feuille pastry tan of the homogeneous and isotropic space of classical (Eucliden/Cartesian) mathematics."

Lefebvre, Henri (2000 [1974]) The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. pp 73-86.