Spatial production and hybrid placemaking in marginalized communities: An academic love letter to our sons

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors present approaches to spatial production introduced by Henri Lefebvre along with complementary concepts suggesting how these approaches may shed light on the hybrid placemaking practices in and by marginalized communities. Recognizing the centrality of placemaking to the displaced and dislocated, an overview introduces Lefebvre’s approach to space and key concepts that derive from his insights. The authors draw from a Vietnamese Language and Culture Program to illustrate Lefebvre’s spatial practices, representations of space, and the spatial imaginary. These include a look at dispersal practices in refugee resettlement, a reconsideration of the program portables, and a look at the politics of pseudo-natural boundaries. Further, highlighted are central ideas that connect to their own personal experiences of hybrid placemaking that foreground the way this work speaks beyond “intellectually worked out signs,” but also to the body and to our affective and political commitments. The authors conclude with a discussion of how hybrid placemaking - informed by theories of spatial production - may yield new insights toward more socially just education that may have been foreclosed in traditional approaches to space and place.