Space in Michel Foucault’s work and its intersection with Henry Lefebvre’s production of space

Abstract

Taking Henry Lefebvre’s The Production of Space (Translated by D. Nicholson-Smith, Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 1991) as its starting point, this paper examines Foucault’s seminal works, and Foucauldian scholars’ publications, to explore Foucault’s notion of space and its overlap with Lefebvre’s. The paper investigates the relation in Foucault’s work between knowledge, discourse, and spatial arrangements and discusses the Foucauldian space in relation to the exercise of power. It concluded that Foucault’s space encompasses features from Lefebvre’s lived, perceived, and conceived realms of space. But Foucault is mostly concerned with the experienced or lived space. Like Lefebvre’s, Foucault’s lived space hides the social relations embodied within it. Unlike Lefebvre, however, Foucault translates social relations into power relations in which power operates from the bottom up. This paper provides an original comparison between Foucault’s and Lefebvre’s understandings of space, filling a research gap. It encourages urban scholars to use the Foucauldian lens in future studies and consider applying a theoretical framework combining Foucault’s and Lefebvre’s conceptions of power in relation to space. Such studies can enhance knowledge about the built environment and further the understanding of Foucault’s space, expand on it, or contest it, especially in non-Western contexts. The paper emphasizes the practicality of the Foucauldian space and its implications to urban planning and design practices and provides practice-related recommendations.