Postmodern Space, Postcolonial Resistance, '99 -- Postmodernism
-- Literary
Criticism -- IACD
Harvey on Lefebvre: A Grid
of Spatial Practices
1. Accessibiliy and distanciation
. . . distance is both a barrier to, and a defense
against, human interaction. It imposes transaction costs upon any
system of production and reproduction (particularly those based on any
elaborate social division of labour, trade, and social differentiation
of reproductive functions).
2. The appropriation of space
examines the way in which space is occupied by objects (house,
factories, streets, etc.), activities (land uses), individuals, classes,
or other social groupings. . . .
3. The domination of space [by
individuals or powerful groups] Systematized and institutionalized
appropriation may entail the production of territorially bounded forms
of social solidarity.
4. The production of space examines
how new systems of land use, transport and communications, territorial
organization, etc. are produced, and how new modes of representation (e.g.
information technology, computerized mapping, or design) arise. --[a
narrow definition]
[From
Harvey's definitions, individual agents' spatial practices belong more
to the second and the third kind.]
"My purpose [in setting up such a grid] is to
find some point of entry that will allow a deeper discussion of the shifting
experience of space in the history of modernism and postmodernism.
The grid of spatial
practices can tell us nothing important by itself. To suppose so
would be to accept the idea that there is some universal spatial language
independent of spatial practices. Spatial practices derive their
efficacy in social life only through the structure of social relations
within which they come into play. Under the social relations of capitalism,
for example, the spatial practices portrayed in the grid become imbued
with class meanings." (boldface added; 222-23)
Harvey pp. 220-21
