While the mental and the physical fields appear rather straightforward, it is the social field which poses most problems. Confusion arises from Lefebvre's writings, where the term ‘social space’ is employed in two senses: In its broad meaning, it is understood as the socially produced space, which is conceived, perceived and lived. In its narrow meaning, it relates to the lived space, as opposed to the mental and physical fields. (Stanek, 2011, p. 129). It is the latter, narrower understanding of the term which is under scrutiny in the following.
Yet to approach the social field in its definition as the third component of a socially produced space still raises some analytical and methodological difficulties – as exemplified by Soja's struggle to develop his Thirdspace concept on its basis – arguably the most prominent reappraisal of Lefebvre as of today.12. He proposes an alternative “trialectics” of space to
Lefebvre's conçu / perçu / vécu spaces, and argues for an own triade consisting of Firstspace,
Secondspace, Thirdspace. Firstspace is akin to Lefebvre's perceived space and is characterised
by “material – spatial practices”, while Secondspace covers the narratives on space. These two perspectives are intertwined and simultaneously opposed to each other. But Soja castigates them for remaining descriptive, for leaving aside processes, and for indulging in a passive view of space: “Only rarely cityscape is recognized as a dynamic process of (social) spatial construction, as a source of explanation in itself” (Soja, 1997, p. 11). Out of this concern, Soja introduces Thirdspace, which is called upon to overcome these shortcomings. It is understood as “a fully lived space, a simultaneously real-and-imagined, actual-and-virtual, locus of structured individual and collective experience and agency” (Soja, 2000, p. 11). Thirdspace incorporates the dimensions of dynamic time and static space and is therefore meant to overcome a binary vision of both. As it does not lend itself to interpretative schemas, it is open to emancipatory practices. (Routledge, 2009, p. 754).
To my eyes, in practice, Soja's spatial trialectics are limited to one dimension only – the
12 At some early stage of my working on space production in Central Asia, I gave a presentation at an interdisciplinary round-table organised by the foundation which generously sponsored my research project. I laid out Lefebvre's theory and its implications to the study, and did not hide the difficulties I encountered when dealing with Lefebvre's concept of social space. Following the presentation, a young art historian came to me and said: “Why don't you use Soja's “Thirdspace”? It's as good as Lefebvre, and it doesn't have all that Marxist tail to it”. I was left both intrigued and sceptical.
Thirdspace. Indeed, this focus might serve as a good interpretative framework for looking at phenomena of modernity, which are all meant to be intertwined in a constant process of communication and hybridisation – even taken as a “creative misunderstanding” (Schmid, 2010, p. 65) of Lefebvre's theory. Yet the complexity of Thirdspace, and its ambition to encompass everything in one word, makes it less useful for an empirical study. By the author's own definition, Thirdspace is a “mode of critical spatial awareness “(Soja, 1999, p. 57), and does not provide a toolbox in the same way as Lefebvre's “original” theory.
Indeed, Lefebvre's social space which is both “lived” and “alive”, potentially covers every aspect of human life. It is a space which is passively experienced, for it is the space where domination and alienation are experienced on the everyday level. At the same time, it is a space of interaction and passion (Bertuzzo, 2009, p. 32), and a space of desire and imagination.
(Bertuzzo, 2009, p. 31). Out of the Lefebvrian désir, “lived” space is not just a passive one, but also a space of action. In my view, action based on désir is closely related to Lefebvre's concept of transduction. It is in the lived space, where practice and thinking “run parallel to each other and vis-à-vis others”(Bertuzzo, 2009, p. 25). In the lived space, the city is constructed on an everyday basis, based on the information of urban realities, but also on propositions of possible urban realities. They target “a virtual 'object' and its realization on a path heading toward a “pro- posed” horizon”(Lefebvre, 2009c, pp. 197–198). Although proposing a virtual object is not the same as implementing it, it is on the basis of this proposition that realisation becomes possible. In Lefebvre's words, “Proposing does not amount to producing, but propositions open the way for those who will produce” (Lefebvre, 2009c, pp. 197–198).
The lived space is therefore the space, I would argue, where reality and propositions meet in order to constantly produce a new reality: “as new theoretical imaginings are given concrete form, the feedback mechanism ensures that subsequent projections / projects are informed by this newly altered reality in an endless loop of speculation-investigation-critique- implementation” (Parker, 2004, p. 178). The lived space amounts therefore to a “transduction in action”, which links up to Elden's reading of the social space as a space modified in everyday life (Stanek, 2011, p. 129), the space of a perpetual “remaking and refashioning of urban space to meet the exigencies of the users” (Parker, 2004, p. 164). Out of these considerations, this will be the approach which I will adopt in the third part of my analysis of space production in Khujand.