Urban space and political consciousness: A report on theory

Abstract

How is space political? This article first highlights Marx and Engels's contributions to this question, then examines how a later generation of Marxists exemplified by Manuel Castells and his theory of "collective consumption" returned to it with decidedly structuralist and reductive readings of Marxism. In conclusion, the article outlines how Fredric Jameson's work on postmodernism and " cognitive mapping" provides a more holistic Marxist approach to urban experience by linking political economy to cultural theory. © 2004 Union for Radical Political Economics.