Henri Lefebvre's Critical Theory of Space

Henri Lefebvre's Critical Theory of Space offers a rigorous analysis and revival of Lefebvre’s works and the context in which he produced them. Biagi traces the historical-critical time-frame of Lefebvre's intellectual investigations, bringing to light a theoretical constellation in which historical methods intersect with philosophical and sociological issues: from Marxist political philosophy to the birth of urban sociology; from rural studies to urban and everyday life studies in the context of capitalism. Examining Lefebvre’s extended investigations into the urban sphere as well as highlighting his goal of developing a “general political theory of space” and of innovating Marxist thought, and clarifying the various (more or less accurate) meanings attributed to Lefebvre's concept of the “right to the city” (analysed in the context of the French and international sociological and philosophical-political debate), Henri Lefebvre's Critical Theory of Space ultimately brings the contours of Lefebvre’s innovative perspective—itself developed at the end of the “short twentieth century”—back into view in all its richness and complexity.

Chapter 1 – Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Reflection beyond the Academic Disciplines

• Introduction
• Henri Lefebvre between Philosophy and Sociology: a Thinker who Defies Categorization
• Young Lefebvre. Philosophy as Shared Critical Thought
• Marx against Marxism: Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Political Philosophy
• The Specter of Lefebvre’s Literary Production on the Second Half of the Twentieth Century
• Henri Lefebvre and Guy Debord: a Controversial Intellectual Friendship
• Henri Lefebvre and Jean Paul Sartre: from the Polemic on the Theoretical Foundations of Existentialism to Antistalinist Action within the French Communist Party
• Henri Lefebvre and Louis Althusser: against Structuralism
• Henri Lefebvre and the Birth of French Urban Sociology
• The Urban Critical Theory: Reading Henri Lefebvre between the Twentieth and the Twentieth-First Century
• Conclusion

Chapter 2 – The Lefebvrian Lexicon

• Introduction

2.1 Rural

• Rural Sociology’s First Studies
• The “Progressive-Regressive Method”
• The Theory of Ground Rent as an Application of the Progressive-Regressive Method
• Conclusion

2.2 Urban

• Introduction
• In Praise of the Fringe: Henri Lefebvre and Our (Mis)Understanding of the Suburbs
• What is (the New) Urban Society? From the City as a Form to Urbanisation as a Process
• The Asymmetrical Relation between the Urban and the Rural
• Habitat, Dwelling and the Housing Question in Lefebvre’s Thought
• A Critique of Le Corbusier’s Functionalist Urbanism
• Conclusion

Chapter 3 – The Philosophy and Sociology of Space

• Introduction
• The Political Theory of Space Project
• The Production of Space
• Historical Phenomenology of Space
• The Paris Commune and the Destiny of the City: Insurgence for Space
• On the Concept of “Urban Utopia”
•  “Changer la vie”: The Critique of Everyday Life and the Lefebvrian Roots of Situationist Thought
• Conclusion

Chapter 4 – Understanding the Present with Henri Lefebvre

• Introduction
• The “Right to the City”: a Lefebvrian Genealogy
• Power’s “Passive Revolution”: the “Right to the City” as Governance from Above
• What is the “Right to the City” Now? Taking back Space and Time
• Conclusion

Chapter 5 – Conclusion

Francesco Biagi is a PhD Researcher in Political and Social Sciences at the University of Pisa, Italy, and collaborates with the research group GESTUAL (Group of Socio-Territorial, Urban and Local Action Studies) at the Faculty of Architecture of Lisbon, Portugal. He is rediscovering Henri Lefebvre’s thought in order to understand the current neoliberal urban questions.