Critical Legal Studies and the Politics of Space

• Published in: Social & legal studies Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 313 - 332
• Main Author: Butler, Chris
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.09.2009; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Citizenship; Governance; Interdisciplinary aspects; Law; Lefebvre, Henri; Lefebvre, Henri (1901-1991); Legal studies; Planning; Planning law; Political culture; Political geography; Politics; Public spaces; Regulation; Renewal; Scholarship; Social theories; Social theory; Sociologists; Sociology of law; Spatial Analysis; Transformation; Urban Areas; Urban government; Urban space; Henri Lefebvre; space and politics; critical legal geography; right to the city; production of space
• ISSN: 0964-6639; 1461-7390
• DOI: 10.1177/0964663909339084

A growing body of work over the past two decades has been explicitly concerned with the interdisciplinary connections between law and questions of space. Traversing topics such as the regulation of the city, control of public space and the symbolic dimensions of spatial conflicts, this literature constitutes an important contribution to critical legal scholarship. However, there is still much work to be done on the development of the theoretical foundations of this field. This article will present the writings of the French philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre as revealing a sophisticated theory of space with potentially profound implications for the research program of critical legal studies. Lefebvrean ideas are directly relevant to the renewal of critical approaches to the structure and form of planning law and regimes of urban governance. His work also contains fertile resources for research into the transformation of traditional forms of political citizenship into the broader concept of urban citizenship. Both these examples highlight the importance of the politics of space for critical legal thought and the role Lefebvre’s social theory may play in its future development.