Reclaiming Henri Lefebvre as a Sociologist: Everyday Life, The State and the Urban

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  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2. Classical Theorists

Abstract

There have been attempts by various disciplines to 'claim' Henri Lefebvre, with the most vociferous coming from urban geography. This, however, overlooks the centrality of sociology to Lefebvre's work. While, in turn, urban sociology has begun to make its own claim upon Lefebvre, we suggest this is still incomplete, since Lefebvre's sociological project extended beyond the urban. To demonstrate this, this paper combines different elements of Lefebvre's project to demonstrate their common basis within sociology. We show how Lefebvre's emphasis on autogestion as a 'sociological alternative' which required the 'withering away of the state' shares with his urban sociology a common focus on the critical, utopian, potentialities within everyday practice. We also show how Lefebvre shares similar insights here to broader sociological schools, with his notion on why the state would wither away reflecting G.H. Mead's notions of the state as a means of social control and his radical sociological account of the potenialities of city streets found in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy. By drawing these elements of Lefebvre's work together and showing their overlapping themes we suggest that while, of course, urban sociology has much to learn from Lefebvre, to reduce his sociological value to the urban is overlook how this was a product of his broader sociological project, which should especially interest those working at the theoretical level.

Authors

• Matt Dawson, University of Glasgow

• Tilman Schwarze, University of Glasgow