The Dictionary of Human Geography

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a capitalist society. Examples would include

instrumental, utilitarian arguments for bio-

diversity conservation, which tend to both

render species in terms of net present value of

future benefits, while also individuating such

speciesinrelationtotheirecological(andsocial!)

context. A key facet of Smith’s thesis in this

respect is his anticipation ofsocial const-

ructiondebates within critical environmental

geography, but his mobilization of specifically

capitalistideologiesas decisive influences on

how nature comes to be known (constructed).

The production of nature thesis, despite

being influential and widely cited in critical

environmental geography, has arguably not

been sufficiently developed or elaborated since

its first publication. An exception is Castree

(1995), who argues (sympathetically) that the

thesis may reinforce Promethean discourses

by downplaying the productive capacity of

biophysical processes. Here, there is room for

some sort of rapprochement with thehybridity

literature (e.g. Whatmore, 2002a), which

emphasizes theepistemological andonto-

logicalco-production of nature by human

and non-human alike. Another avenue not well

travelled would explore the links between

Smith’s thesis and James O’Connor’s second

contradiction of capitalism (O’Connor, 1998).

While O’Connor would quibble little with the

notion of capitalism producing nature in this

respect (it also comprises part of his theory),

he places greater emphasis on this as a source

of contradiction andcrisisinherent to capital-

ism because of the under-production of nature

as a condition ofsocial reproduction. sp

production of space A term made famous

by French Marxist Henri Lefebvre (1901–91)

in his 1974 book The production of space

(trans. 1991). Lefebvre seeks to bring a

Marxist analysis of production to bear on

the wayspaceis created, coded and used

through social, political and everyday proces-

ses (cf.production of nature). Social space

is, for Lefebvre, a social product. Lefebvre

came to the analysis of space through three

main routes: his reworking of thephilosophy

ofmarxismand in particular the notion of

thedialectic; work supplementing Marxist

political economy, with an experiential

emphasis on everyday life; and work on

rural and urban sociology. Lefebvre was in

his early seventies when The production of

spacewas published, and had been publishing

for almost 50 years: this mature work is one

of the culminations of these varied interests

and concerns (for overviews, see Kofman and

Lebas, 1996; Shields, 1999; Elden, 2004;

Merrifield, 2006).

In the opening chapter ofThe production of

space, Lefebvre suggests that we should under-

stand space in three ways – asperceived, con-

ceivedandlived. The first of these, what he

callsspatial practices, are spaces that are con-

crete, material, physical. The second is what

he callsrepresentations of space, the space of

abstract plans and mental processes. Both of

these ways of thinking about space are rela-

tively common withinhuman geography, but

it is with the third that Lefebvre makes his key

contribution. Lefebvre claims that both these

spaces need to be thought together, in dialect-

ical relation. But this is not a linear sense of the

dialectic, in which the two terms react and

form a new term that then itself comes into

relation with its opposite. Rather, this is a

dialectic where the third term continues to

exist in relation with the other two (cf.tria-

lectics). Lefebvre’s third term here is what he

callsspaces of representation– confusingly ren-

dered as ‘representational spaces’ in the

English translation – spaces that are lived,

experienced and recoded through the actions

of those that occupy and use them. Lefebvre

therefore challenges both a crudely materialist

analysis and a politically detached idealist one.

For Edward Soja, whose reading of Lefebvre

has been influential in Anglophone human

geography, in contrast to the ‘real’ or

‘imagined’ spaces of the other two models,

these are ‘real-and-imagined’ spaces, which

he has deployed himself in readings of Los

Angeles and in his construction ofthird space

(Soja, 1989, 1996).

In the remainder ofThe production of space,

which is a complex work that defies straight-

forward summary, Lefebvre returns to this

three-part model and illustrates, complicates

and historicizes it. His is an analysis in the

tradition ofhistorical materialism, and the

spaces of a particular epoch are related,

though not slavishly dependent on, themode

of production(see figure 1) (for a summary,

see Gregory, 1994, who also emphasizes

Lefebvre’s suggestive reading of the changing

historical modalities of thebody,visuality

and space). Thuscapitalismproduces a par-

ticular political economy of space, centrally

defined through the ‘colonization of everyday

life’ through the production of abstract space

(see figure 2), which Lefebvre sought to

develop into a politics of space. As he declared

in a 1970 essay, ‘there is a politics of space

because space is political’. Lefebvre was

indebtedto arange of thinkers who he used

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PRODUCTION OF SPACE