Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time: The Contribution from Henri Lefebvre

Author(s): Kirsten Simonsen

Source: Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, Vol. 87, No. 1 (2005), pp. 1-14
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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME:

THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE
by
Kirsten Simonsen

Simonsen, K., 2005: Bodies, sensations, space and time: the conalthough he was very firm about the need to reinstate
tribution from Henri Lefebvre. Geogr. Ann., 87 B (1): 1-14.

the body in philosophy and social thought:

ABSTRACT. In geography as well as other human/social sciences, issues on the body and embodiment have increasingly come
to the fore over recent decades. In the same period, and in particular following the English translation of The Production of Space,
Henri Lefebvre has been a central figure in the geographical discourse. However, even though a range of writers on Lefebvre do
acknowledge his emphasis on embodiment, it seems that he has
only partially found his way into the core of the body literature.
The aim of this paper is to explore Lefebvre's contribution to a

Western philosophy has betrayed the body; it

has actively participated in the great process
of metaphorization that has abandoned the
body; and it has denied the body. The living
body, being at once 'subject' and 'object',
cannot tolerate such conceptual division, and
consequently philosophical concepts fall into
geographical theory of the body, in particular when it comes to the
the category of the 'sign of non-body'.
conception of a generative and creative social body as an intrinsic
(Lefebvre, 1991, p. 407;
part of social practice. I start by exploring the way in which Lefeemphasis in original)
bvre's conception of the body is developed in creative dialoque
with other philosophers, such as Marx, Heideggger and Nietzsche, and continue by way of an explication of his own contri-

Probably one of the reasons why the Lefebvrian

bution. This is done under the headings of 'spatial bodies' and

contribution had not the great appeal for the early
'temporal bodies', in this way also emphasizing creative, moving
(mainly sociologist) theorists of the body is that
bodies. Instead of a conclusion the paper argues that Lefebvre's
contribution could gainfully interact with later (not least feminist)
when

authors like Featherstone and Turner argue

'we need to develop an embodied notion of the
human being as a social agent and of the functions

approaches, and through such interactions add to current discusthat

sions on 'body politics' and 'performativity'.

Key words: body, embodiment, space, time, Lefebvre

of the body in social space' (1995, p. 7), space is

conceived of in a purely metaphorical sense. To
Lefebvre, on the contrary, theorizing the body inev-

Introduction

itably involves a focus on space, on the body's im-

In recent decades there has been an outpouring of litplication in and constitution of a 'sensory-sensual

erature on the importance of embodiment and the

space'. Later, with more geographical interventions,
body in (not least feminist) geography as well as oththe space-body relationship has come much more

er parts of the humanities and social sciences.into

A the centre of analysis. All the same, although
number of monographs (see e.g. Turner, 1984; Shilquite a few writers on Lefebvre notice his emphasis
on embodiment (see Gregory, 1994; Blum and Nast,
ling, 1993; Butler, 1993; Grosz, 1994; Longhurst,
1996; Pile, 1996; Shields, 1998; Merrifield, 2000;
2001) and collections (e.g. Feher et al., 1989; Featherstone et al., 1991; Duncan, 1996; Ainley, 1998;
Elden, 2004), he does not seem to be considered a
Nast and Pile, 1998) have appeared, and in 1995 the
major contributor to a theory of the body.
As in many of his themes, Lefebvre's writings on
journal Body & Society was established. These attempts to establish the body in social theory have
the body-space relationship include a conceptual
been fuelled by a diverse range of theoretical tradias well as a historical and a political dimension, and
tions; among the most important are French feminist
his discussion slips in and out of these different diauthors such as deBeauvoir, Kristeva, Irigiray mensions.
and
Smith, not without some justification,
talks about an unresolved contradiction between
Cixous; phenomenological critiques of Cartesian-

ism in the work of Husserl, Heidegger and Merleauontology and history in much of Lefebvre's vision
(Smith, 1998). But Lefebvre also mindfully dePonty; and histories of the body like the ones of Elias
and Foucault. Few, however, seem to consider Lefeploys these slippages and ambiguities in his Nibvre to be a major contributor to these endeavours,
etzsche-inspired style of Anti-Logos, in particular
?Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, 2005

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KIRSTEN SIMONSEN

space,
bute.g.
also in the work of images, signs and symas performed in The Production of Space
(see
bols. These bodies are transferred and emptied out
Merrifield, 1995), and his genealogical exploration
via the
eyes, a process that is not only abstract and
of concepts and relations. In his search for
a nonvisual,
but also phallocratic. It is embodied in a masessentialist Marxism, Lefebvre incessantly
resisted
will-to-power and, metaphorically, abstract
even the slightest hint of systematization culine
and founand its material forms symbolize force, male
dationalism, and for him the conceptionsspace
of body
fertility
and masculine violence.1
and space are inseparable both from their
history
and the concomitant critique and politics. For Lefebvre, however, the body serves as a critical figure too. It is not possible totally to reduce the
Among these dimensions, Lefebvre's contribuor the
tion to the understanding of the history body
of the
hu-practico-sensory realm to abstract
space.
The
body takes its revenge - or at least calls
man body is the most thoroughly explored,
first
and
for revenge
most elegantly by Gregory in his Geographical
Im-- for example, in leisure space. It seeks
to make itself known, to gain recognition, as 'genaginations (1994). With take-off in The Production
erative'.
of Space, he identifies one of its major themes
to This
be renders necessary another understandingthus
of the body, not only as the subject of hisa history of the decorporealization of space,
abstraction and visualization, but also as an
establishing an indispensable connectiontorical
between
part of social practice. It is Lefebvre's conthe history of the body and the history ofintrinsic
space and,
tribution
to this endeavour, to the conception of the
more particularly, comprehending the shift
from
generative
and creative social body - a phenome'the space of the body to the body-in-space'
which
nological body, you could say - that I want to exsomehow facilitates 'the spiriting-away or scotplore in the remaining part of this article.
omization of the body' (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 302).
The term is borrowed from psychoanalysis, but is
used here to signal a historical process of abstraction of the body through an overlapping of the vis- Inspiration and dialogue
Lefebvre's interest in the body is founded on a conual and the linguistic. Gregory (with Lefebvre)
traces this decorporealization of space through the ception of practice that is complex, open-ended and
history of space - from analogical space, over cos- holding many dimensions. It relates to nature, to the
past and to human possibilities, and it ranges in scale
mological and symbolic space, to abstract space and demonstrates it by examples from philosophy from gestures and corporeal attitudes, over everyday
and science, from cities and architecture, and from activities, to overall social practice in the economic
art. Here, the body is disdained, absorbed, and bro- and political spheres. The considerations on the
body in this connection are formulated in dialogue
ken into pieces by images:
with a range of philosophers and social theorists,
Picasso's cruelty toward the body, particularly only the most important of whom I will touch upon.
First and foremost, a point of departure is taken
the female body, which he tortures in a thousand ways and caricates without mercy, is dic- in Marx. It is important to maintain that Lefebvre
tated by the dominant form of space, by the was first of all a Marxist philosopher, but also that,
eye and by the phallus - in short, by violence. in his view, Marxism should be treated as one mo(1991, p. 302)
ment in the development of theory and not, dogmatically, as a definitive theory. From Marx comes
As indicated in this opinion on Picasso, for Lefebvre the idea that human beings are characterized by the
other processes or 'histories' accompany the decor- way in which - through work - they transform naporealization of space. First and foremost, although ture and, at the same time, their own nature. In this
this is less developed in the text, the decorporealiza- process of production - or domination and approtion of space is paralleled by a decorporealization of priation of nature - both biological (physiological)
time. The optical and visual world fetishizes abstrac- and social (historical) dimensions are involved.
tion and detaches the pure form from its impure con- Productive activity is always oriented towards an
tent - 'from lived time, everyday time, and from objective, and during the process bodies, limbs and
bodies with their opacity and solidity, their warmth, eyes are mobilized, involving both 'materials'
their life and their death' (1991, p. 97). Furthermore, (stone, wood, leather) and 'materiel' (tools, lanthe process involves a logic of visualization and one guage, instructions, agendas) (Lefebvre, 1991, p.
of metaphorization; living bodies, the bodies of 'us- 71). In this way, a dialectic is established between
ers' are caught up, not only in the toils of parcellized social practices (work), bodies and nature.
2

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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME: THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE

However, Marx's concept of social practice is

not sufficient to an understanding of human beings
and their bodies. The most important reason for this
is that he reduces human reality to work, to making
tools or to conquering nature. As Lefebvre tells us,

is, besides Heidegger also to Merleau-Ponty and in

particular to Sartre3 - in his development of the a
tive side of consciousness and sensations in the

process of human becoming. These considerations

also, more or less explicitly, involve the body.
Marx accentuated homo faber, without neglecting Heidegger himself does not refer explicitly to the
homo sapiens too much; he did not insist on homo body, but with notions such as 'being-towardsridens, and also homo ludens was put aside; he also dead' or 'ready-to-hand' his terminology is highly
suggestive. Lefebvre, then, stresses the fact that,
disregarded death and the consciousness about
death (Lefebvre, 1975, p. 143). In other words, sub-with his restitution of the practico-sensory realm,
jectivity was founded in work and partially in Heidegger continues the work that young Marx
knowledge, while issues such as joy, desire andhad started (Lefebvre, 1975). He emphasizes
Heidegger's introduction of the question of 'the
play were missing. Shortly, it was reduced to toolmaking and had no right of satisfaction of its own.
thing', not as technical product but as 'the work'
Marx therefore was unable sufficiently to integrate
(oeuvre) - as process and result of creative, bodily
materialism and spiritualism.2 To cope with these
activity. In this sense the thing was rich in poetry
problems and elaborate a richer conception of hu-(not understood as verbal art, but as the practical
man beings, Lefebvre enters into dialogue with oth- truth of orientated, bodily activity). Lefebvre critier authors, in particular Heidegger and Nietzsche. cized Heidegger for translating this insight into a
In doing so, however, he makes clear his dissocia- cult of the artisan, touchingly patriarchal and Gertion from what he considers the false, fascist inter-manic feeling for the home.4 For him, rather than
pretation of Nietzsche's thinking and the tendencythe home, it was the city that symbolized a person's
in Heidegger towards German chauvinism (Lefeb- being and consciousness, reflecting a shift from the
individual to the collective level. So when Lefebvre
vre, 1975).
Heidegger is probably the twentieth-century
adopted the existentialist concept of poesis - conphilosopher with whom Lefebvre was most ennecting orientated bodily activity with the experigaged. They shared a number of preoccupations ence and creation of human nature - he gave it a
rather broad content. It includes the creation of vilconcerning existence and the world, but did not
come to the same conclusions (see also Elden,
lages and cities, the formation of territorial groups,
2004). The relationship is most obvious in Lefebthe idea of 'absolute love', psychoanalysis, the devre's trilogy Critique of Everyday Life (1958,
cision to change one's life - all connected in the
1961, 1981). The concept of everydayness (Lefecreative ability of daily life (see also Poster, 1975).
bvre; Quotidiennete, Heidegger; Alltaglichkeit) in Yet it is important to maintain the dialectical nature
both authors refers to a theory of alienation, even of everyday life. Poesis cannot be sustained beyond
if the substance is divergent. In Being and Time
specific 'moments'; continuous dis-alienation
(1962), Heidegger uses the concept to characterwould be an impossible, utopian condition. It exists
ize the inauthentic existence of Dasein. As every- in dialectic with the routinization of everyday life
day Being-with-one-another, it stands in subjec- and the historical process of institutionalization
tion to others, not some definite others, but the in- and stabilization of interaction into systemic domains.
determinate mass of 'they', of averageness and
Another important source for the understandpublicness. Dasein stops being itself and the ascendancy of others rids it of its being. In this way, ing of the body, including sexuality, poetry and
everydayness opens the way to a loss of direction, drama, is Nietzsche, whom Lefebvre sought to
to dereliction and disquiet. Lefebvre 'marxianizconjoin with Marx. Lefebvre (1991) himself dees' these ideas, reformulates them from an exisclares his critique of philosophy as rooted on the
tential critique towards a more social one. He adds one hand in social practice (Marx) and on the other
a historical and a utopian dimension and develops hand in art, poetry, music and drama (Nietzsche)
a theory of alienation that is an extension of what - and rooted, too, in both cases, in the (material)
he considers Marx's incomplete one, extending it body. From Nietzsche comes the idea that prior to
from production to the whole range of spheres of knowledge, and beyond it, is the body and the acsocial life.
tions of the body - suffering, desire and pleasure.
In this connection Lefebvre also looked to
Let Lefebvre himself summarize the consequencthese ideas:
French phenomenology and existentialismes-ofthat
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KIRSTEN SIMONSEN

Spatial practice is neither determined by an

Spatial bodies
existing system, be it urban and ecological,
The or
relationship
between human bodies and space
nor adapted to a system, be it economic
pois mostenthoroughly explored by Lefebvre in his
litical. On the contrary, thanks to potential
'SpatialArchitechtonics'
(1991, pp. 169-228), perergies of a variety of groups capable of
diverthaps the most complex section of The Production
ing homogenized space to their own purposes,
of Space. There Lefebvre describes an anatomy of
a theatricalized or dramatized space is liable
to arise. Space is liable to be erotisized and re- space generated by living bodies; at the same time
stored to ambiguity, to common birthplace of he makes an ontological claim and establishes a
material basis for the production of space consistneeds and desire, by means of music, by
means of differential systems and valoriza- ing of
tions which overwhelm the strict localizations

... a practical and fleshy body conceived of as

of needs and desires in spaces specialized eia totality complete with spatial qualities (symther physiologically (sexuality) or socially
metries, asymmetries) and energetic proper(places set aside, supposedly, for pleasure).
ties (discharges, economics, waste)
An unequal struggle, sometimes furious,
(1991, p. 61).
sometimes more low-key, takes place between
the Logos and the Anti-Logos, these terms being taken in the broadest sense - the sense inThe emphasis on production is vital because it enables Lefebvre - in critical dialogue with psychowhich Nietzsche used them.
(1991, p. 391) analytical assumptions of prohibition - to treat social space as not only a space of 'no', but also a
space of 'yes', of affirmation of life. An important
Lefebvre thus prioritized Eros (erotic knowledge)
precondition of this material production is that each
over Logos (logical knowledge) in his political
thinking, very much as Nietzsche did with his de- living body both is space and has its space; it prosire for 'Anti-Logos'. So, even if Lefebvre was al- duces itself in space at the same time as it produces
ways guarded against the nihilism and anti-democ- that space.
racy involved, the emphasis on the body, desire, Theoretically, then, the body serves both as
sexuality and not least festivals as 'intense mo- point of departure and as destination. It is an inments' of everyday life have direct resonance from trinsic part of the 'lived experience' - an experiNietzschean thought. As does the above-mentioned ence that in modernity, from Lefebvre's point of
idea that the visual increasingly takes precedence view, is exposed to a tendency to be drained of all
over elements of thought and action deriving from content by mechanisms of language, signs and abother senses - the sense of smell, taste and touch - stractions, but which cannot be totally erased. As
and that sexuality and desire are more or less being part of the lived experience, the body constitutes a
practico-sensory realm in which space is perceived
annexed by sight.
All these dimensions - work and social practice, through smells, tastes, touch and hearing as well as
bodily creativity and poetry, Eros, sexuality and de- through sight. It produces a space which is both bisire - are connected in Lefebvre's conception of the omorphic and anthropological. The physiological
body. Of the utmost importance too, though, is the closures of the body imply a conceptual differenintrinsic way in which this conceptualization re- tiation between internal and external spaces - and
lates to space and time, or rather to the spatiality hence of a distinct body - while the external enviand temporality of the body. In other words, how ronment is perceived through a double process of

bodily practices that give rise to socially construct- orientation and demarcation. Orientation someed modes of space and time are at the same time what replicates the structure of the body itself, projecting into the world pairs of determinants such as
definitions of selfhood internalized within the
and left, symmetries and asymmetries, axes
body. In the following, I will consider the two right
in

and planes or centres and peripheries. Demarcaturn. This, of course, should be seen only as an antion adds to this traces and marks that are both
alytical distinction, since in practice spatiality and
temporality is inseparable. Or, with Lefebvrepractical and symbolic - directions which not only
act as guidance to the world, but also make it mean(1991, p. 175), time is distinguishable but not sepingful. All this is connected to a conception of the
arable from space - the two of them manifest themselves as different yet inextricable.

spatial body:

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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME: THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE

stating the work of the mirror-effect by demateriA body so conceived, as produced and as the
alizing it and abstracting it out of its spatial context
production of space, is immediately subject to
the determinants of that space ... the spatialinto the form of purely mental 'topologies'. This
objection is parallel to Lefebvre's general critique
body's material character derives from space,
of structuralist and poststructuralist writings for refrom the energy that is deployed and put to use
there.

(Lefebvre, 1991, p. 195)

ducing space to a linguistic mental space. Lefebvre

does not deny the importance of (Lacan's) Imaginary and Symbolic spaces for the constitution of

Lefebvre's repetitive references to the energy of the

the self, but he wants to establish their material in-

body may seem not only biomorphic, but also al-

scription in social space. He wants to include the

underlying material, spatial and political forces
that have the possibility to transcend the visual domain. The most interesting thing about the mirror

most naturalistic in character. He refers to living organisms that capture energies that are active in their

vicinity - energies that are dedicated by nature to

productive expenditure.5 In the next step, however,
Lefebvre withdraws from any functionalism or
'principle of economy' in relation to that energy,

is therefore not so much the fact that it projects the

'subject's' image back on the 'subject' as the way

characterizing it as a low-level principle applying

only at the level of survival. Again with reference
to Nietzsche, he emphasizes the Dionysian side of
existence according to which play, struggle, art,
festival, sexuality and love - in short, Eros - are
themselves a necessity and a potentiality of the living being. They are part of the transgressive energies of the body.
In continuation of this, Lefebvre discusses how
the relationship between body and space are in-

in which it extends a repetition immanent in the

body into space. He is interested in the social relationship between repetition and difference, in the
conflictual way in which the production of social
space is involved in the constitution of the self. In
this process, the mirror works into social life and
subjectivity in the form of a dual spatiality; a space
that is imaginary with respect to origin and separation, but also concrete and practical with respect to
co-existence and differentiation (1991, p. 186).
This means a shift of emphasis from the 'psychic'

volved in the constitution of the self. In this discus-

towards the social and material, to the social rela-

sion, he draws on ideas of the mirror and the mirror- tionships in work when the body/subject is facing
effect, which he relates to the mathematical theory the 'other' as another body. These relationships in-

of symmetry, to Nietzsche and surrealism, and to

psychoanalysis. In an immediate sense, the mirror
extends a repetition immanent to the body into
space; in another sense it presents the Ego with its
own material presence, with the doubleness of its
absence from and at the same time its inherence in

this 'other' space:

clude a set of 'doubles' in time-space, such as symmetry/asymmetry, repetition/differentiation, connection/separation, surface/depth, opacity/transparency, imaginary/real, material/social, and consciousness of oneself and of the other.

As an illustration, Lefebvre (as one of the very

few places in his text where he does so) discusses

the relationship between the sexes. Here we find the

Space - my space - is not the context of which 'double' of symmetry and asymmetry between
I constitute 'textuality': instead, it is first of all male and female and subsequently displaced illumy body, and then it is my body's counterpartsional effects (an oscillation between transparency
or 'other', its mirror-image or shadow; it is the and opacity). The other emerges and turns out to be
shifting intersection between that which the same, albeit in an ambiguous and shadowy
touches, penetrates, threatens or benefits my manner. Each person seeks him or herself in the
body on the one hand, and all other bodies on hope of finding the other, while what he or she
the other.
seeks in the other is a projection of the self. A frag(1991, p. 184; emphasis in original) mentation ensues and, thanks to the oscillation between knowing and misapprehending the other, a
A few authors (Gregory, 1995; Blum and Nast, will to power is able to intrude itself.
The 'socialization' of the mirror-effect is based
1996; Pile, 1996) have shown how Lefebvre's discussion of the mirror is - among other things - pro- on a dual existence of social space relative to its
voked by Lacan. However, Lefebvre's relationship participants. On the one hand, Lefebvre says, each
to psychoanalysis is definitely one of critical dia- member of society relates itself to space, situates itlogue. He criticized the psychoanalysts for over- self in it. This is part of the process of constitution
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KIRSTEN SIMONSEN

places and space in gestural systems is obvious.

of the self- of designating oneself to an of
individual
But organized
gestures, which are codified gesas well as a public identity. On the other hand,
space
are not simply performed in space. Bodies
serves an intermediary or mediating roletures,
through
themselves generate spaces, which are produced by
which 'one' seeks to apprehend something or
and for their gestures, and this also goes for systems
somebody else. It offers sequences, sets of objects
and concatenations of bodies, giving the impres- ranging from the everyday microgestural realm to
the most highly formalized macrogestural one.
sion of transparency, of the world as reflected within each body in an ever-renewed to-and-fro of re-Lefebvre sees gestural systems as something that
ciprocal reflection. Social space itself becomes a can connect representations of space and spaces of
mirror, in a collective and historical sense.
representations.
This duality between opacity and transparency, More generally, therefore, the articulation besubjectivity and objectivity, is a point of intersec-tween bodily practices and social space may be untion between the body and social space. Lefebvre derstood through the way in which the body is inhowever also offers more material solutions to the

volved in the constitution of the dimensions of so-

relationship between the two. More precisely, hecial space. In order to consider this, let us very
considers the articulation between sensory and briefly recapitulate Lefebvre's by now widely discussed conceptual triad of social space (see e.g. Sopractico-perceptual space on the one hand and speja, 1989, 1996; Shields, 1998). He introduces it
cific or practico-social space on the other. Historically, sensory-sensual space may be seen as sedi-twice in the introductory chapter of The Production
ment, destined to survive as one layer or element inof Space and even though it is not developed later
in the book, it permeates the whole text.8 Briefly rethe stratification and interpenetration of social
spaces. But that does not address the issue of more capitulated, the three dimensions are:
specific articulations.
One immediate answer given by Lefebvre is a 1. Spatial practice, which embraces social production and reproduction and the particular loconception of social practice and its objects as an
cations and spatial forms characteristic of a givextension of the body. Among the last-mentioned
en social formation. It would, for example, inare everyday utensils or tools, which extend the
clude the built environment, urban morphology
body in accord with its rhythms, or speech and writand the creation of zones for specific purposes.
ing, which sometimes disclose and sometimes disThrough everyday practices, space is dialectisimulate.6 Practically, this takes place through percally created as a human and social space. This
formance of gestures and development of gestural
aspect of spatiality helps to ensure continuity
systems. Social gestures in Lefebvre's sense consist
and some degree of cohesion in social configuof articulated movements mobilizing and activatrations. The spatial practice of a society at the
ing the whole body. Their accomplishment implies
same time propounds and presupposes its space
the existence of affiliations, of groups (family,
in a dialectic interaction; it relies on a 'commontribe, village, city) and of activity - the most obvisense' understanding of space including both
ous example being gestures of labour.7 Ensembles
the taken-for-granted dimensions of everyday
of gestures or gestural systems are further invested
life and the rationalized institutions and urban
with meaning and codes. Like language, they are
networks that we pass through in our daily roumade up of symbols, signs and signals. Such codes
tines. Lefebvre characterizes this space as aperare, of course, specific to a particular society:
ceived space, which embodies the interrelations
between institutional practices and daily expeTo belong to a given society is to know and
riences and routines.
use its codes for politeness, courtesy, affection, parley, negotiation, trading, and so onas also for the declaration of hostilities.
2. Representations of space are connected with the
dominant 'order' of any society and hence with
(1991, p. 215)
its codes, signs and knowledge about space.
What this sentence says is that gestural systems These are the forms of knowledge of space in
society, the ideological content and claims of
embody ideology and history and bind them to
truth of theories, and the conceptual imaginapractice, thus recalling a spatialized version of
Bourdieu's theory of practice and the body's incor- tions of space linked to production relations.
poration of history (1977, 1990). The importance This is a conceived space, conceptualized and
6

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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME: THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE

the abstract together; we need a dialectic relation

discursively constructed by professionals and
between materialism and idealism. This is where
technocrats - planners, developers, urbanists,
the notion of the lived comes in - as a third term besocial engineers and scientists - and mediated
tween
the poles of perception and conception. Sothrough systems of verbal signs. If we apply
a
Foucauldian term, it is the dominant discourses
cially lived space depends on material as well as
mental constructs - and on the body. Here again we
of space in a given society. These 'representations' are abstract, but have a substantial and can
de- see the influence of both Heidegger and Nietzsche. The influence of the former may be seen in
cisive role in the production of space through
the emphasis on the spatial notion of 'poetic dwellsocial and political practices.
ing' (Lefebvre, 1975, 1991, pp. 121, 314): Lefebvre's discussion of the contradiction between
3. Spaces of representations embody complex
symbolisms linked to the 'clandestine or under- habiter (translated as residence; a better translatio
ground' side of social life. In this sense, it is awould probably be dwelling) and habitat (housin
terrain of struggle on the way to realizing our-suggests a direct lived experience, a bodily embed
selves as 'total persons' and bringing into beingded understanding of space and place. The Nialternative imaginations of space. This space etzschean influence is evident every time Lefebvre
embraces places and their symbolic value, con- argues that embodied lived experience comes from
flicting rhythms of everyday life, feminine/mas-the excessive energies of the body, from creative
culine and so on. It is the lived space; the space activity and from the level of affection - involving
of inhabitants and users as well as of some artneed and desire, passion and sexuality, images and
ists and writers, the space they incessantly seek
the spoken word. Furthermore, Lefebvre notes, the
to create through appropriation of the environpart of embodied lived experience is highly comment. Lefebvre cites Dada and the Surrealists as
plex, because 'culture' intervenes here. But he does
examples of art, literary comment and fantasynot develop this line of thinking; one could probadealing with other, possible spatialities. The bly do this by way of a dialogue with the corporeal
elements in the later cultural studies.
spaces of representation, Lefebvre says, tend towards more or less coherent systems of non-ver- Even if the three dimensions of spatiality enjoy
bal symbols and signs. In some of Lefebvre's
the same ontological (but not necessarily historipresentations, this category may appear in rath- cal) status, with no one privileged, there is no doubt
er comprehensive oppression/opposition rheto- that the element of lived space is central to Lefebric. However, as I see it, spaces of representation vre's project, from a strategic political viewpoint,
will also work in more modest everyday appro- and also in theoretical terms. More than once in The
priations of space.
Production of Space he stresses that spatial practices are lived directly before they are conceptualHere, however, the issue at stake is more than just ized. The centrality given to the body in this disthe production of space by way of the three ele- cussion as well as the position of the body in all
ments, but also the role of the body in this process. three dimensions of spatiality renders possible an
As an initial point, Lefebvre stresses how social/ understanding of the body as a mediator of the respatial practice, which is performed at the level of lationship between the different dimensions.
the perceived, presupposes the use of the body - of
the hands, members and sensory organs, performing gestures of work or of activity unrelated to work Temporal bodies
(1991, p. 40). As for the conceived - the represen- Although Lefebvre never effectively produced an

tations of the body - they derive from the discours- analyses of the production of time, his analysis of

es of scientific knowledge, from the knowledge of everyday life and rhythmanalyses do yield signifianatomy, of physiology, of sickness and its cure, cant insights on time, multiple temporalities and the
and from the knowledge of the body's relations time-body relationship. For Lefebvre, time was
with nature or with its surroundings or 'milieu' .9 In closely connected with space and apprehended in
this way, the body is involved in the opposition be- space, and both enjoyed the same ontological status.
tween our perception of space - concrete and ma- He also sketched out a periodization of time in soterial - and our conception of space - abstract and ciety (Lefebvre, 1970), but dissociated himself from
mental. In order to understand the production of a reduction of time to history or evolution. Time is
space, however, we need to grasp the concrete and also part of the lived experience, and it can take
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KIRSTEN SIMONSEN

many forms, such as physical, biological, mental,

Lefebvre played with metaphors of everyday
cosmic, social, cyclical and linear time, alllife.
ofThere
which
is a cliche, he said, which compares crewe encounter in everyday life and in the ative
body.
moments to the mountain tops and everyday
The development of a theory and a critique
ofplains, or to the marshes. He himself
time to the
everyday life was one of Lefebvre's lifelong
preferred another metaphor, comparing everyday
projects, and it is a double-sided effort producinglife to fertile soil. A landscape without flowers or
'at once a rejection of the inauthentic and the almagnificent woods may be depressing for the pasienated, and an unearthing of the human which ser-by; but flowers and trees should not make us
still buried therein' (Trebitch, 1991). This double-forget the earth beneath, which has a secret life and
ness relates to the temporalities of daily life; evea richness of its own (Lefebvre 1958). The idea of
ryday life is made of repetitions or recurrences,
outstanding creative moments was however not
basically of two different forms, which are irre-strange to Lefebvre. Sporadically he developed
ducible to each other (Lefebvre, 1961). Lefebvre
what he called a 'theory of moments'."M In this he
somewhat nostalgically traces back the first type interpreted the moment as fleeting, but decisive
to archaic societies in which social life is closely sensation implicating a double recognition of the
connected to cosmic cycles and rhythms of nature 'other' and the self. It is a conjunction of temporaland of the body. This cyclical repetition is organ- ities, a function of the individual's history and a
ized according to phenomena such as days and
form that is superior to and elevates itself over repnights, seasons and years, generations, and youth etition and reappearance. Among the 'moments'
and age. The other type of repetition is linear. It that arise from everyday life are love, games, rest,
is mechanical, such as a series of gestures, of
knowledge, poetry and justice, activities that in a
blows of the hammer; it is enframed, constrained temporality of rupture and spontaneity tend toand colonized by the space of the commodity andwards a unification of the festival and everyday life.
the territory of the state; it is the dominant tempo-For Lefebvre, the moment was also characterized

rality of modernity. Even if linear time has en- by its orientation towards the realization of a poscroached on the cyclical, however, the latter neversibility; the possibility is given, stands there to be
fully disappeared. Emotions and affections, pri-both uncovered and achieved, and the realization
vate life and its symbols cannot submit to cumu- implicates a constitutive action. This idea allowed
lative and linear processes.10 And at the point ofhim to extend the theory of moments from the analintersection between the two we find everyday lifeysis of everyday life to the understanding of suband the body:
lime moments of revolutionary fervour, such as the
declaration of the Paris Commune or the student

The body does not fall under sway of analytic uprising in 1968.
thought and its separation of the cyclical from These different ideas on temporality are connectthe linear. The unity, which that reflection is ated in Lefebvre's rhythmanalysis, which is a kind of
such pain to decode, finds refuge in the cryptic phenomenological-hermeneutic description of the
opacity that is the great secret of the body. For relationship among the body, its rhythms and its surthe body indeed unites the cyclical and the lin-rounding space. As an idea, it was envisaged in Proear, combining the cycles of time, need and duction of Space, announced as a project in Comdesire with the linearities of gesture, perambu- munication in 1985, and published in a rather inlation, prehension and the manipulation of complete collection after his death (Lefebvre,
things - the handling of both material and ab- 1992). Lefebvre held high hopes for rhythmanalystract tools. The body subsists precisely at thesis, he imagined a kind of general 'rhythmology' aplevel of the reciprocal movement between
plied to the living body and its internal and external
these two realms; their difference - which is
relationships, and he even considered it a possible
lived, not thought - is its habitat.
replacement for psychoanalysis.12

(Lefebvre, 1991, p. 203)

To take a less ambitious view, two qualities of

rhythmanalysis might be accentuated. First, it tran-

This is why we - as well as the spatial body - can scends any separation between space and time.
talk about a temporal body living out the different Rhythm can be defined as movements and differtemporalities of self and society and, in this proc- ences in repetition, as the interweaving of concrete
ess, preserving and developing difference within times, but it always also implies a relation of time
repetition.
to space or place. Lefebvre talks about a localized
8

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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME: THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE

the question on development of alternative methtime or a temporalized place to underline the spaodologies in order to grasp the more opaque sides
tio-temporal reality of rhythms and their participaof social life. Lefebvre himself in a couple of essays
tion in the production of space. Second, rhythma(one of them with Catherine Regulier) explores the
nalysis accentuates the centrality of the body to sorhythms of the city - from flows of bodies, spectacial understanding:
cles and sounds to political centrality and struggle
between homogeneity and diversity (both in LefeThe body's inventiveness needs no demonstration, for the body itself reveals it, and de-bvre, 1996) - thus making preliminary suggestions
ploys it in space. Rhythms in all their multi- as to the directions such analyses of temporality
plicity interpenetrate one another. In the bodyand spatiality might take.
and around it ... rhythms are forever crossing
and recrossing, superimposing themselves
Perspectives
upon each other, always bound to space....
Such rhythms have to do with needs, which Above, I have tried to distil Lefebvre's contribution
may be dispersed as tendencies, or distilled to a social understanding of the body, in particular
into desire. If we attempt to specify them, we as it relates to social practice and everyday life.
find that some rhythms are easy to identify: Lefebvre did not deliver a coherent theory of the
breathing, the hartbreak, thirst, hunger, and body; what we have got from his hand is a concepthe need for sleep are cases in point. Others, tual effort calling attention to human capacities and
however, such as those of sexuality, fertility, creativities involved in an 'authentic' everyday life,
social life, or thought, are relatively obscure. and a focus on the spatiality and the temporality of
the body. These efforts could profitably be connectSome operate on the surface, so to speak,
ed with work from other authors who bring togethwhereas others spring from hidden depths
(1991, p. 205). er the body and everyday life.
One such author is Merleau-Ponty.14 While both
The body, then, represents the surmounting of di- authors were interested in the spatiality and tempovisions between the sensory, the mental and the so- rality of the body, Merleau-Ponty adds something to
cial, even if a tension between biological and social Lefebvre when it comes to a careful philosophical
working-through of issues of the body. In his phiprocesses remains unsolved.
From the starting point in the body, Lefebvre losophy of embodiment, he developed a sensuous
(and Catherine Regulier with whom he wrote a few phenomenology of lived experience, located in the
of these essays) extended rhythmanalysis to wider space between mind and body, or subject and object
- the intersubjective space of perception and the
sociological relationships:
body (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). In this, as in Lefebvre,
It is on the one hand a relationship of the hu- perception is not seen as an inner representation of
man being with his own body, with his tongue the outer world, but rather as a practical bodily involvement. It is an active process relating to our onand speech, with his gestures, in a certain

place and with a gestural whole, and on the going projects and practices. This means that the huother hand, a relationship with the largest pub- man body is unique in playing a dual role both as the
lic space, with the entire society and beyond it, vehicle of perception and the object perceived, as
the universe.
the body-in-the-world, which 'knows' itself by vir(Lefebvre and Regulier, 1996, p. 235) tue of its active relation to this world. This duality or
ambiguity of the body as perceiving-perceived is
central to Merleau-Ponty's project and, at the level
of practice, may be related to Lefebvre's ideas of the
junction between 'rhythms of the self and rhythms
of social space relative to the body, as simulof the other', of 'the private and the public', or duality
of
This extension is based on a distinction and a con-

taneously part of the constitution of the self and me'presence and representation'. This polar opposition should however only be seen as a startingdiator to the perception of something else.
Merleau-Ponty too placed the body in a field of
point. Lefebvre emphasizes the relativity of

rhythms and the multiple transitions and imbrica-space and time. He started from the spatiality of the
tions between the spatialities and temporalities in-body and accentuated how this is not a spatiality of
volved.13 Obviously, rhythmanalysis is a rather un-position, but a spatiality of situation. This situatedfinished project from Lefebvre's hand, but it raisesness goes for time as well, but we should avoid seeGeografiska Annaler ? 87 B (2005) ? 1

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KIRSTEN SIMONSEN

Lastor
but
ing it in terms of our bodies being in space,
innot least, Lefebvre's approach to the
body is definitely in need of juxtaposition with
time - they inhabit space and time:
some of the extensive feminist literature on the

I have already touched on the fact that even

I am not in space and time, nor do I body.
conceive
if Lefebvre
in his later writings makes numerous
space and time; I belong to them, my
body
combines with them and includes them. The
references to male sexuality and its production of
spaces and to the symbolic distortion, objectificascope of this inclusion is the measure of that
tion and control of female bodies, he never seriof my existence.
(Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 140)
ously engaged with the production and practices of
sexualized bodies and their relationship to social
This means that the active body, using its acquired space. An interaction between Lefebvre's ideas
schemas and habits, positions its world around it- and those of feminist authors who, like him, are inself and constitutes that world as 'ready-to-hand', terested in concrete, material bodily practices
to use a Heideggerian expression. Lefebvre would would therefore stimulate the project. The most
agree with such a conception of the spatiality and obviously relevant contribution for this purpose is
temporality of the body, but he would find it inad- Elisabeth Grosz's (1994) corporeal feminism, emequate. Unique to Lefebvre's contribution to a con- phasizing the material and sexed/gendered characception of the body is the way in which he deals ter of bodies. She has a starting point in psychoawith its involvement in different social modalities

of space and time.

nalysis but departs from it by moving the body and

sexual difference from the periphery to the centre

Another author who can add to some of Lefebof analysis, thus considering it the very 'stuff' of
subjectivity. Moreover, in a seminal essay she apvre's ideas of the body is Goffman, in particular
proaches the way in which the modern metropolis
when it comes to the performance of gestural systems. When Lefebvre writes about gestures andassimilates the subject into the space of the city
(Grosz, 1992), an approach, however, which in my
gestural systems and considers the way in which
their codifications form the basis of social interacopinion would benefit from the input of Lefebvre's
stronger spatial dialectics. Other possible partners
tion, he definitely touches on a theme that is more
in a marriage between Lefebvre and feminism
thoroughly worked out by Goffman. Goffman's approach to the body is characterized by three maincould be Iris MarionYoung (1990) when she draws
features: (1) the body is viewed as a material prop-on phenomenology to explore the possibility of
erty of individuals, as a resource which both re-specifically 'feminist' body comportment in relaquires and enables people to manage their move-tion to space, or Toril Moi (1998) in her exploraments and appearances; (2) meanings attributed to tions starting from the idea of the body as a 'situthe body are determined by 'shared vocabularies ofation'. These perspectives could in different ways
body idiom' which are not under immediate controladd a much needed genderization/sexualization to
of individuals; (3) the body plays an important roleLefebvre's spatio-temporal bodies (see also Siin mediating the relationship between people's monsen, 2001, 2003).
self-identity and their social identity (Goffman, In conclusion, it may be interesting to relate
Lefebvre's formulations to a rather dominant ten1963, 1990). From this he demonstrates, among
other things, how social interaction in daily life re- dency in social discussions on the body - a theoquires a high degree of competence in controlling retical distinction that is often attributed to the work
the expressions, movements and communications of Merleau-Ponty and Foucault (Crosley, 1996).
of the body. Such an approach could definitely de- On one side of the line stand analyses of the active
velop Lefebvre's ideas, and some of the weakness- role of the body in social life, of the body as lived
es of Goffman's analysis - its lack of macro-social and generative, and on the other side are studies of
connections and its less adequate sense of the body the body as acted upon, as socially and historically

as an integral part of human agency - may be coun- constructed and inscribed from the outside. The interacted by the Lefebvrian contribution. Consider- teresting point about Lefebvre's discussion of the
ing the role that Goffman's work (acknowledged or body is that he transcends this division, and that the
unacknowledged) has achieved in contemporary means of this transcendence is the production of
space. In Fig. 1 I attempt in a very simple manner
geographical literature on performativity (see
Crang, 1994; McDowell, 1997; Gregson and Rose, to illustrate the two sides of Lefebvre's conjunction
2000), this connection gains particular relevance. of body, space and time.
10

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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME: THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE

Fig. 1. Body, space and time.

The upper part of the figure represents the dis- Thanks to its sensory organs, from the sense
of smell and from sexuality to sight ... the
cussion primarily conducted in this essay. It is
about the generative and creative social body, as it body tends to behave as a differential field. It
would be represented in a theory of practice. As behaves, in other words, as a total body,
part of the lived experience, the body constitutes a breaking out of the temporal and spatial shell
practico-sensory realm that is performed in the spa- developed in response to labour
tio-temporal rhythms of everyday life. In these
(Lefebvre, 1991, p. 384).
rhythms, constituting and constituted, different
This means that the body, as a producer of differmodalities of social spatiality and social temporality are incorporated, as cyclical and linear repetience (through rhythms, gestures, imagination), has
tions, and as the conjunction of the perceived, the
an inherent right to difference, formulated against
forces of homogenization, fragmentation, and the
conceived and the lived. In the lower part of the figure, Lefebvre's common interest with Foucault in
hierarchical organized power. Lefebvre located
struggles for the right to be different at many
power and the history of the body is represented. these
To
scales, but at the scale of the body two aspects are
Lefebvre, this is about the above-mentioned history

crucial. One is the 'Festival', as the site of particiof increasing abstraction, of the decorporealization
pation and of the possibility of the poesis of creatof space and time. For both space and time (and the
ing new situations from desire and enjoyment. The
body), Lefebvre describes this process of abstraction as simultaneously one of homogenization,other is sexuality, involving struggles of relations
between the sexes (a feminine revolt) as well as refragmentation and hierarchization. This history
between sexuality and society.
differs from the one given by Foucault because lations
of
its basis in the production of space. Here too Lefe-The second debate to which Lefebvre's conception of the body might contribute is the current one
bvre treats space as both producing and a product
on performativity (see e.g. collections edited by
of the human body, as a perception and a concepand Thrift, 2000, Dewsbury et al., 2002,
tion, not simply the imposition of a concept, orRose
a
space, upon the body (see also Stewart, 1995). Latham and Conradson, 2003). It has been argued
that these contributions represent a turn in cultural
As a consequence of this duality in Lefebvre's
from 'text' and representations to perdiscussion of the body, it is possible to argue that geography
he
locates himself in the centre of two recent debates
formance and practices (Nash, 2000), and the body
and embodiment are distinctive elements in this
on the body in geography. The first of these is about
body politics. In the intersection between Lefeb-shift. However, besides the above-mentioned inspiration from Goffman, one of the main points of
vre's social ontology of the body and his history of
access to this discussion was Judith Butler's
the body, the body turns into a critical figure - a site

of resistance and active struggle:

(1990, 1993) Foucauldian feminism in which

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11

KIRSTEN SIMONSEN

ideas
seemingly come close to Nietzsche when he
identity (and the body) is performative5.-These
that
is,
about the human body or 'organism' in the context of
enacted and inscribed by way of discourse. talks
Anoththe bodies of all organic beings.
er line of work informing this discussion
is what
6. The Heideggerian undertones in some of these formulations

are obvious.
has been labelled 'nonrepresentational theory'
in
Lefebvre also uses bodily gestures as a critical figure of, and
geography proposed primarily by Nigel7. Thrift
mediation between, distinctions such as inarticulate/articu(e.g. 1996, 2000). Drawing on a whole array
of
late, nature/culture or body/mind.
theoretical inspirations - ranging (to mention
just
8. In his book Thirdspace - Journeys to Los Angeles and otha few) from phenomenological (and related)
theoer Real-and-imagined
places (Cambridge,MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), Edward Soja interprets this triad
ries of practice through pragmatism and conversaas part of a general strategy in Lefebvre of 'thirding-astional analysis to the emphasis on non-human
Othering'.
agency and relational networks in actor network 9. These ideas come close to the ones of Foucault on the distheory and heterogeneous fragments, flows and ascursive formation of the body, even if Lefebvre several
times throughout The Production of Space dissociates himsemblages in Deleuze and Guattari - nonrepresenself from Foucault's thinking.
tational theory concerns practices shaping 'sub10. Lefebvre at this place refers to Gaston Bachelard for, unajects' as decentred, embodied, relational, expresware of it himself, having revealed the contradiction between
sive and involved with others and objects in a
the cumulative and non-cumulative, the linear and the cyclical.
world continually in process. Although there is
good reason to appreciate the work on bodies and 11. As for everyday life, these ideas date back to the 1920s.
Lefebvre developed around 1960 in Critique vol II op.cit.
embodiment in these traditions, I think that Lefeand in La somme et le reste (2 vols., Paris: La Nef de Paris,
bvre's both phenomenological, rhythmic and po1959), and later he linked moments with the idea of creating
new situations in Les temps de mdprises (Paris: Stock,
litical understanding of the body (whatever ro1975). In this way, his ideas conjoined with the ones of the
mantic bias it might hold) can still inform the dissituationist movement, also developed in Paris in the late
cussion and partially counteract Butler's more dis1950s.
cursive bodies and the barely living bodies of actor 12. The argument was that rhythm analysis is much more con-

network theory.

crete than psychoanalysis, closer to a pedagogy of appropriation (the appropriation of the body, as of spatial practice). Instead of some kind of fetishized unconsciousness,
then, the 'space of dreams' should be described as a space
where dispersed and broken rhythms are reconstituted
(Production, op.cit. pp. 205, 208-209). Lefebvre's inten-

Notes
1. Throughout Lefebvre's later writings are numerous references to male sexuality and its production of spaces and

tions by these suggestions, however, never become very

clear.
femininity, exploitation of women in everyday life, and the
objectification and control of female bodies. He does not,
13. In this sense, rhythm analysis may be seen as a social and
however, elaborate at length an interpretation of gendered
philosophical translation of Eisteinian notions of spacebodies and gender relations.
time relativity, as suggested by Kofman and Lebas in their
2. A similar critique may be found in Habermas' work, earliest
introduction in Lefebvre (1996).
in Jiirgen Habermas, Erkenntnmsse und Interesse (Frankfurt 14. Lefebvre himself was rather critical towards Merleau-Pon-

am Mein: Suhrkamp, 1968) and Jurgen Habermas, Arbeit

und Interaktion. Bemerkungen zu Hegels Jenenser 'Philosophie des Geistes', in Technik und Wissenschaft als 'Ideologie' (Frankfurt am Mein: Suhrkamp, 1968), pp. 9-47. But I
think the resulting formulations are quite divergent; partly
because of the more dualist character of Habermas' think-

ing, and partly because of his interest in communication

rather than practice.
3. In the 1940s, Lefebvre had dismissed Sartre's existentialism

ty. He criticized him of eclecticism, of conducting a mystifying syncretism between phenomenology, Gestaltism and
organic psychology, and of leaving out history and social
practice in the attempt (Henri Lefebvre, 'M. Merleau-Ponty et la philosophie de l'ambiguite', La Pensde 68, 1956,
pp. 44-58 and 73: 37-52). It seems to me, however, that
overlap in interest occurred, and that in the harsh critique
much was bound up with an ongoing debate in which Merleau-Ponty's increasing scepticism about Marxism was the

issue.
in uncompromising hostile terms, characterizing it as feminine - as passive and emotional. These male chauvinist formulations stand in contrast to his own later critique of the Kirsten Simonsen
phallocratic character of modernism. With the publication
of Sartre's Critique de la ralson dialectique however, some Department of Geography
rapprochement between the two of them occurred. For a
Development Studies
closer description of these debates see Mark Poster, Existen- Roskilde University
tial Marxism in Postwar France (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Postboks 260
University Press, 1975).

4. This parallels Lefebvre's later critique (Production of

and International

DK- 4000 Roskilde

Space) of the nostalgic aura in Heidegger's writing. Howev- Denmark

er, his own writings of everyday life, especially the early www.geo.ruc.dk
ones, do not escape a nostalgic glorification of the peasantE-mail: kis@ruc.dk
community.

12

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BODIES, SENSATIONS, SPACE AND TIME: THE CONTRIBUTION FROM HENRI LEFEBVRE

References

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