Zhang Yibing: A Fluid Dynamics Perspective on the Field-Context of Social-Spatial Relations
Lefebvre is a legendary figure in the history of Western Marxist thought. Over a lifetime in which he authored nearly seventy books and a vast corpus of articles, his original formulation of the "critique of everyday life" effected a shift in alienation theory from macro-level politico-economic relations to micro-level social life. Furthermore, on his path toward historical materialism, he achieved a transition in the observation of history from a temporal thread to a logic of the production of space, the latter being the central theme of his book The Production of Space (1974). In this work, Lefebvre’s introduction of the concept of social space is closely linked to the method of historical materialism from the outset. In terms of its core structural orientation, he ties the context of social-spatial relations [1] tightly to productive activity; he even utilizes the method of fluid dynamics to describe this new perspective of observation. Here, Lefebvre proposes several fundamental principles for the study of social space: methodologically, one must shift from the old problematic of the "thing" [2] to a relational horizon; one must focus on the actual activities of human beings; the core of research must be the production and reproduction of social relations; and one must remain vigilant against the invisible ideological shadows within spatial studies. In doing so, he forges a brand-new theory of social space grounded in historical materialism.
I. The Complex Context of Social-Spatial Relations
Within Lefebvre’s "thought-context" [3], social space breaks free from the "pseudo-context" of the traditional empty field used for placing objects and becomes the result of productive ordering activities within the expression of general historical materialism. For him, spatial existence is described as a context of spatial relations generated by spatial praxis. Moreover, the relational context of this new production of space is shaped to "establish a very particular dialectic of the movement process (mouvement dialectique)." Extending this to contemporary reflections on social-spatial issues, it encompasses "productive forces and their constituent elements (nature, labor, technology, and knowledge); structures (property relations); and the superstructure (institutions and the state itself)." This includes nearly all the discursive elements of Marx’s historical materialism. However, this already constitutes the structural logic of historical materialism in the narrow sense [4] because, according to Marx’s explanations, property relations and superstructural phenomena like the state did not exist in primitive tribes and will not exist in future communism; likewise, technological phenomena and scientific knowledge are products of specific historical stages of industrial production. The boundary between general and narrow historical materialism is clearly a muddled account in Lefebvre’s work.
Of course, unlike Marx’s classical late-19th-century expressions of historical materialism and historical dialectics, Lefebvre’s discussion of the dialectics of social space stands upon the foundation of entirely new 20th-century scientific progress. He vividly advances the abstract concepts of production discourse into today's complex ordering of spatial relations. He informs us that social space is primarily not a visible object but a non-intuitive relational existence; thus, the physical boundaries of traditional spatial contexts cannot sever the relational existence of social space. For instance, in our lives today, "the space of a dwelling—its bedrooms, interior, or courtyard—is separated from social space by fences or walls and all the signs of private property, yet it fundamentally retains the components of social space." This isolation can distinguish different architectural spaces in physical space, but as the production of social space, the isolation itself is an expression of the existence of private property relations. The spatial syntax of "opening and closing doors" or "entry and refusal" in the palaces and commoners' huts of feudal social space, or in the private buildings of today’s bourgeois world (corporate towers, secluded mansions, and high-end clubs), generates boundaries of isolation that in turn become the realization and daily reproduction of social relations. It is also in this "contextual" sense that Lefebvre explicitly states that in the non-substantial relational context, "social spaces interpenetrate and/or superimpose upon one another (Les espaces sociaux se compénétrent et/ou se superposent)." These important contexts of spatial relations are clearly inaccessible to ontologies based on the "substance" or "entity" (shiti) view.
First, the relational existence of social space penetrates the material reality of facilities such as buildings, roads, and squares, coexisting and interpenetrating within a non-intuitive ordering of objective spatial praxis. In Lefebvre’s view, "the various places and sites (lieux) of social space are still very different from natural space and cannot be equated with them: they may be interspersed, combined, superimposed, or sometimes even in conflict with one another." A city square is different from a clearing in a primeval forest. In different socio-historical periods, it might be a religious space for the public execution of witches, a market for bourgeois commodity exchange, or a space for political rallies. The physical square remains the same square, but what truly changes is the different social negentropic quality [5] of human spatial praxis. If natural space without human presence is silent and discrete, social space occurs from the beginning within a relational existence of interdependence and conflicting human spatial praxis; its material reality is merely the inverse material crystallization of the "real abstraction" [6] of spatial praxis. Without cars or pedestrians on the roads, without activities in the squares, or without life within the buildings, they are merely ruins.
Second, the interpenetration and superimposition of social-spatial relations may lead to the concealment of the spatial relations themselves. Precisely because the production of social space is primarily a production of non-intuitive relational contexts, these interacting spatial relations hidden behind material reality are deeply obscured. In fact, this should be seen as a characteristic of modern bourgeois social-spatial production. In the construction of social space in ancient times, the initial contexts of social relations were simple and direct—for example, the single blood-relation of matricentric societies or the patriarchal hierarchies of historical spaces. The slave owner's whip and the power of the royal family were publicly proclaimed. It is only with the production of social space in the bourgeois era that a multi-layered concealment of complex social-relational contexts appears; power is no longer explicitly flaunted, and relations of dominance become hidden forces. Lefebvre analyzes this, saying: "The principle of the interpenetration and superimposition of social spaces yields a very helpful conclusion, for it means that every moment of social space under analysis does not hide just one social relation (un rapport social), but many social relations, all of which may be revealed through analysis. By the same token, it recalls the experience of objects (objets): as responses to needs, they arise from the division of labor, then enter the circuit of exchange, and so on."
When explaining this characteristic of the production of social space, Lefebvre inevitably enters the division of labor and the circuit of commodity exchange found at the onset of capitalist industrial production. Because of the complexity of this specific context of social-spatial relations, different interpenetrating and superimposed spatial relations undergo varying degrees of concealment and distortion. At times, they do not merely hide one spatial relation but obscure the entire reality of an alternative spatial context. For example, under the condition of the division of labor, the product-thing undergoes a distortion from a general objet to an "economic thing" (jingji shiwu). Upon entering commodity exchange, the use-value—the direct human need for the object—is "real-abstracted" into a commodity-value relation and is invertedly "reified" (wuxianghua) into money and capital relations that are not the thing itself. In this new space of economic reification, the interpenetration and superimposition of complex spatial relations obscure the production and reproduction of the capital-exploiting-wage-labor relation. When we encounter the complex financial derivatives in today's capitalist space of economic reification, the original relationship between these virtual exchanges of wealth/valorization and labor production has become completely unintelligible.
Third, the mutual influence and interaction of different levels of spatial relations. In the production of social space, there are the labors and everyday lives of individuals and collectives and their objective sites of activity. The spatial existence of individuals and collectives is inevitably influenced and shaped by the production and reproduction of social relations in a regional social space; it is also subject to the projection of social-spatial relations from the national and international levels. These complex tiered spatial relations are fundamentally different in different eras. In 2018, I taught at Nanjing University and lived in the city of Nanjing; I was an individual "power source" in the production of Nanjing's social space. Naturally, my work and life were involved in and invisibly structured by various regional spatial relations of the Jiangsu-Nanjing area. At the same time, as Chinese people stride forward in the world upon the great economic achievements of forty years of "Reform and Opening-up," we can directly feel the profound changes in spatial relations. Lefebvre tells us that the social space we all encounter is a highly complex, multi-layered spatial existence: "What we are faced with is not just one social space, but many, indeed an infinite variety and an uncountable number of social spaces, which we generally call 'social space' (espace social)." A person does not remain on just one spatial level; they are simultaneously influenced by multiple spatial relations. In the process of social-spatial production, the "local" (or "punctual," in the sense of being determined by a specific point) generated by personal and regional spatial production does not disappear, because it is never swallowed up by the regional, national, or even global levels. "The national and regional levels accommodate countless 'places'; national space includes regions; and global space not only includes national space but even (at least for the time being) promotes the formation of new national spaces through a remarkable process of fission."
Regional space, national space, and global space together constitute the macro-structural relational map of the production of space. Clearly, this is not a discussion of social-spatial relations in the sense of the physical-natural scale or size of a space, but refers specifically to the activities of individuals and social groups within different levels of spatial production, the unique spatial praxis of a nation within a specific territory, and the interaction of different regions and nations within a larger context of spatial effects. For instance, the "geopolitical relations" in international space we usually speak of are not general border issues between countries, but the dynamic pattern of international spatial relations generated by the contest of political, economic, and military forces of different nations and blocs. It is also in this sense that when Lefebvre says that in the production of social space, "the global does not abolish the local (Le mondial n'abolit pas le local)," he refers precisely to the influence of global spatial production relations on regional or even individual life; the global is realized through localization. For example, KFC introducing Chinese-style breakfast in China, or Diet Coke changing from "caffeine-free" in Western products to "sugar-free" [7]—these are all expressions of global capital relations merging into local spatial relations. This point has reached an unprecedented level today, driven by capitalist network and information technology.
II. The "Fluid Dynamics" of Modern Social-Spatial Existence
In Lefebvre's view, this interpenetration and interdependence of social-spatial production has been further strengthened today by the development of "global communication networks, exchange networks, and information networks." Within the rapidly developed space of computer technology and information science (espace de l'informatique), "these newly developed networks do not abolish those networks established over many years within the context of earlier social spaces; together they constitute various markets: local, regional, national, and international markets; these markets include commodity markets, financial or capital markets, labor markets, as well as markets for works, symbols, and signs (symboles et signes); and finally—markets within recently created spaces."
The market is precisely an invisible field of social-spatial relations. It is not merely a collection of physical shops or streets, but an existential network of complex relations established by the exchange of commodities occurring within various commercial buildings and multi-dimensional transport systems. For example, from the perspective of the concrete spatial scales in which people live, it encompasses local markets, regional markets, domestic markets, and international markets. From the perspective of the concrete content of market exchange, it includes various markets for commodity exchange, labor power exchange, finance and capital exchange, as well as symbolic and codified cultural exchange. All of this constitutes a social-spatial network accumulated over many years and continuously created by the social spaces in which people are situated. Lefebvre vividly remarked that "the social spaces that emerge in all their diversity—especially urban space—are much more complex than the homogeneity and isotropy (l'homogénéité-isotropie) of classical (Euclidean/Descentian) mathematics; they suggest a structure like a mille-feuille." Compared to the simple, abstract representations of space in geometry, the situational field of spatial relations in real life is as complex as a mille-feuille [8]. Especially today, these traditional market exchange spaces within urban space have been reconstructed by electronic financial spatial relations and e-commerce networks—such as "Alipay" or "PayPal"—into an omnipotent "market in newly-created space." If I wish to buy David Harvey’s 2023 monograph on Marx’s Grundrisse, I need only click the relevant purchase link on my smartphone, and it will be delivered to me a few days later. Lefebvre noted that, unlike how "each type of market becomes established and takes on concrete form through networks—including networks of buying and selling points under conditions of commodity exchange, networks of banks and stock exchanges (les banques et bourses de valeurs financières) under conditions of capital circulation, and networks of labor exchange under conditions of the labor market—correspondingly, the architecture in the city serves as the material evidence (matérialise) of this evolution."
This involves the relationship between spatial practice and material facilities within social space. In a modern city today, there are corporate commercial buildings, banks, and shopping centers; however, these are merely the physical carriers of economic exchange markets and commercial markets. The essence of the production of contemporary social space lies in the spatial practice activities occurring within these physical facilities. In fact, this is a new illustration of the non-substantial "thing" within historical materialism, which is the most difficult to grasp. In reality, Lefebvre wants us to understand that the relational interaction of the production of social space is like a fluid force generated by human activity within physical architecture. The essence of the production of social space is an objective situational existence of established power relations and contestations that are constantly occurring and constantly disappearing in the present. It is precisely within this special intentionality of ordering that Lefebvre, with a burst of inspiration, suggests that the mode of existence of social space can be examined through the perspective of fluid dynamics: "It seems to me that a more effective analogy can be found in the field of fluid mechanics (dynamique des fluides). The principle of superposition (Le principe de la superposition) of small movements tells us the importance of the roles of scale, direction, and rhythm. Large movements, grand rhythms, and giant waves—these movements conflict and 'interfere' with one another; whereas smaller movements interpenetrate."
Clearly, Lefebvre did not truly delve into the scientific content of fluid dynamics, but merely cited the superposition of small-scale fluid power relations and the mutual interference of large-scale movements. Lefebvre certainly knew this was a metaphor for the fluid essence of the situational field of social-spatial relations; he also explicitly stated that this fluid dynamics "could lead to serious errors if applied too far." We need not criticize the incomplete application of this scientific principle here, but rather appreciate the metaphor within it—namely, the non-substantial relational existence and the dynamic fluid power relations of the production of social space. This is precisely the latest manifestation of that difficult-to-understand, non-substantial, and non-intuitive "thing" within the context of historical materialism.
III. Basic Principles of Social Space Research
Following the above discussion, Lefebvre felt it possible to summarize several basic principles for the study of social space. First, methodologically, there must be a shift from the old problematic of the "thing" to a relational horizon. This is the aspect of relational ontology that he repeatedly emphasized. Thus, he argued that regarding the question of production in the field of social space research, a historical "situation" of transition has emerged: "a new problematic (problématique) is in the process of seizing the position of the old one, replacing it and superimposing itself upon it without completely eliminating it." According to Lefebvre's explanation, this is a transition from an old problematic—namely, "the study of the logic of the production of things (production de choses) in the usual sense, i.e., the production of goods and commodities"—to the problematic of the production of social relations in space. This is because this transition serves as the methodological entrance into Lefebvre’s theory of the production of social space. Of course, he also noted that for the academic community, this is an ongoing and incomplete process of methodological transformation. The implication is that he has already moved several steps beyond Marx.
Second, Lefebvre reminds us that the focus of his new problematic is space within a situational field of relations; this is naturally different from the macro-level social existence and the temporal historical process discussed in Marx’s historical materialism. This is another point of divergence from Marx. At the same time, the realistic basis for the emergence of the new problematic of social space production is the transition from the industrial age of capitalism to urbanized life. Thus, "the problematic of space—encompassing the urban realm (l'urbain, the city and its sprawl) and the realm of everyday life (programmed consumption, la consommation programmée)—has replaced the problematic of industrialization (la problématique de l'industrialisation)." This indicates that, unlike Marx’s 19th-century economic perspective which focused more on the problematic of capitalist industrialization, Lefebvre started from his long-standing micro-critique of everyday life and newly discovered urban issues to redefine a field of social space research. The core issues here are the sprawl of bourgeois urban space and the controlled, alienated consumption of everyday life. It is worth noting that in the book The Production of Space, Lefebvre does not discuss this "programmed consumption" (la consommation programmée) and the problem of the alienation of needs from his own critique of everyday life in great detail.
Third, the production of social space is a study focused on actual human activity. Lefebvre says that in Marx’s era, the bourgeois "economic science (or rather, the attempt to elevate political economy to the rank of a science) was drowned in an ocean of enumeration and description of products (i.e., objects, things, objets, choses)." In this science of "things" as wealth, the game of "pseudo-concepts" was based on a quantitative method of bookkeeping (dénombrement). In contrast, Marx’s historical materialism sees through these false economic images: "Through a critical analysis of productive activity (l'activité productive) itself (social labor, relations of production, and the mode of production, mode de production), Marx replaced the study of things as 'things-in-themselves' (en soi) with a rival approach. He revived and renewed the theories pioneered by the so-called founders of economic science (Smith and Ricardo) and integrated them into his fundamental critique of capitalism, thereby achieving a higher level of knowledge."
This is an extremely important methodological explanation by Lefebvre for understanding his own original spatial theory. In 1845, in the Theses on Feuerbach—the germ of the new world outlook—Marx began by criticizing the intuitive "object-thing" of philosophical materialism. After opposing the deviations of Hegelian subjective agency, he proposed the methodological starting point of active, objective material practice and the vital positioning of the situational field of social life. Lefebvre firmly grasped the methodological essence of the twofold critical perspective of Marx’s new world outlook, clearly identifying that within the political economy of Smith and Ricardo, Marx further revived and renewed this scientific critical perspective: starting from the presently occurring labor-objectification-shaping/ordering activity (at-handness/use-value) and exchange relations (salability/value) to deconstruct bourgeois economic fetishism. Only in this way could Lefebvre, in his study of social space, directly eliminate the illusions of the thing-in-itself and spatial fetishism, and grasp the essence of the production of the situational field of relations in social space.
Fourth, the core of social space research is to disclose the production and reproduction of social relations that are hidden within the production of space. This corresponds to the first principle mentioned above but further highlights the complexity in the study of contemporary bourgeois spatial production. First, today "the dominant ideology tends to fragment space into disjointed parts according to the requirements of the social division of labor. The idea that space is a passive container is used to understand the occupation of space by various forces in one's impression." The view of space Lefebvre criticizes here is one that divides space into different "passive containers" following the patterns of the social division of labor; this practice of halting spatial research at the fragmented state of empty sites is merely a variation of the old view of space. Second, the "dominant trend in bourgeois spatial research fragments and slices space into pieces, merely performing an inventory of the things—various objects—contained within space. The process of specialization cuts space into different parts and erects mental fences (barrières) or practical-social boundary stakes (clôtures) over these parts." Consequently, architects only study "architectural spatial problems" such as streets and houses; in the eyes of economists, there are only "economic spaces" like visible commodity trade centers and banks; while geographers see "territories under the sun" like rivers and grasslands. Lefebvre explicitly states that these are all pseudo-conceptual games of fetishistic spatial research that halt at intuitive objects. His own spatial research is absolutely "not an analysis of things in space, but of space itself, in order to expose the social relations embedded within it"! Social space is by no means an empty site plus objects; it is a situational field of relations constructed by human activities. It is only within the economic-objectified space of the bourgeoisie that these social relations are once again concealed. Lefebvre says that if, in the face of today’s bourgeois social space, "we fail to uncover the latent social relations in space (including class relations), fail to pay attention to the production of space and its inherent social relations—relations that introduce a specific contradiction into production, wherein the contradiction between private ownership of the means of production and the socialization of productive forces resonates—and instead fall into the conceptual trap of treating space merely as 'space' itself (discussing space for space's sake), we then begin to think using 'spatiality.' This may 'fetishize' (fétichisme) space, returning to the old path of commodity fetishism (fétichisme de la marchandise). The price is that traps have long been set in the middle, leading people toward a mistaken mode of thought that views things in isolation and deals with matters in a piecemeal fashion."
Lefebvre’s social space research, based on historical materialism, aims to critically see through and expose the social relations behind the image of "spatial fetishism." In particular, it seeks to see through the hidden relations of class struggle in the production of capitalist social space, especially the "contradiction between the private ownership of the means of production and the socialized character of the productive forces." It is the production and reproduction of these non-intuitive social relations that construct the specific social space production of the bourgeoisie. This critical method, derived from Marx’s Capital, is fundamentally heterogeneous to the physical logic of bourgeois fetishism found in traditional spatial research.
Fifth, one must be vigilant against the invisible ideological shadows within spatial studies. Lefebvre acknowledges that a certain development of the productive forces (croissance de forces productives) determines the historical nature of the problematic in spatial research; however, one must realize that the shift in the problematic of academic research is always "caused by the specific dominant mode of production and relations of production." These dominant relations of production inevitably generate a dominant system of ideas—ideology. Therefore, we must critically observe the concealed role of ideologies (idéologies) in spatial studies. For example, alongside the contemporary capitalist industrial process, "productive forces and technology now permit intervention at any level of space: local, regional, national, or global." Space as a whole was originally a geographical or historical space, yet bourgeois industrial productive forces, science and technology, and the practice of commodity production have profoundly transformed the nature and form of the production of social space today. Upon the substrate of spatial production, "natural space (l'espace-nature) has been replaced by a space as product. In this way, reflexive thinking moves from produced space, from production in space (things in space, des choses dans l'espace), into the production of space itself." This is a historical process: the space of "works" [9] existing in nature is replaced by the production space of industrial products; furthermore, the production of spatial products is replaced by the production and reproduction of the field-context of social relations—this is the production of space itself. Simultaneously, this leads the dominant bourgeois relations of production to transform the nature of all spatial practice and serves as a historical process for the deployment of a new type of ideology.
In the ideological deployment of spatial production, the field-context of consanguineous patriarchal relations and divine ideology found in original historical spaces have been replaced by a bourgeois ideology flying the banner of "Enlightenment, science, and the rule of law." Lefebvre incisively points out that the production of bourgeois social space always portrays itself as a democratic, fraternal, and just free space, deliberately masking the ideological nature of its production of specific social relations that serve class interests. Therefore, regarding the problem of spatial research, we "must expel ideology—which strives to conceal the role of productive forces in the mode of production in general, and particularly in the dominant mode of production. We must first destroy that ideology which promotes abstract (abstraite) spatiality and fragmentsthe representations of space. Naturally, ideology does not present its true face in these representations (représentations), but rather masquerades as established knowledge."
This is no easy task. In the study of contemporary bourgeois social spatial production, paying attention to the elimination of ideological factors within abstract spatial practices, representations of space, and lived experiences is a fundamental requirement of historical materialism. Lefebvre also uses this to distinguish his own spatial theory from the fundamental tenets of bourgeois spatial doctrine.
Finally, in his sixth and seventh principles, Lefebvre discusses the boundary issues of a scientific theory of space. In his view, traditional spatial research encompasses "multiple perspectives: philosophy, epistemology, ecology, geography, systems theory (decision systems, cognitive systems), anthropology, ethnology, and so on" within the disciplinary field. Regarding specific research content, there emerge categories such as "geographical space, ethnological space, demographic space, information science space," "pictorial space, musical space, or plastic space." However, spatial researchers are usually unaware that all these disciplinary and content classifications are precisely "accidentally integrated into existing society and forced to operate within this social framework." This also means that all spatial research that appears to function independently is, in reality, unable to escape the constraints of the entire existing social relations of capitalism. A true knowledge of space must possess this methodological self-consciousness, thereby striving to "discover time within space (first and foremost, the time of production) through space." At the same time, Lefebvre emphasizes the "retrospective (rétrospective) and prospective (prospective)" principles in the study of social space. Retrospection is historical analysis, while prospection is the anticipation of a completely new, heterogeneous future. This is another way of articulating his "regressive-progressive method." [10] "This prospect (prospect) for the future—in other words, the project (project)—is the planning of another space and another time (autre espace et d'un autre temps) in another (possible and impossible) society." Autre (Other/Another), in the French context, already signifies a heterogeneous, detourned [11] existence; it is a vision of the production of a new social space.
(The author is a Senior Professor in the Humanities at Nanjing University, a researcher at the Center for Marxism and Social Theory, and a doctoral supervisor.) Source: Journal of the Party School of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee (Fujian Academy of Governance), 2025, Issue 2. Web Editor: Ma Jingren