2009 a conceptual and analytical framework for interpreting the spatiality of social life

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A Conceptual and Analytical Framework for Interpreting
the Spatiality of Social Life
Lee Pugalis
Newcastle University
lee.pugalis@newcastle.ac.uk

Abstract This paper provides a framework for understanding the
phenomenon of the discursive-material production of space, and also, for
considering how unknowns may be organised. Language is instrumental to
the production of place but has been overshadowed by investigations of
material transformations. This is partly being redressed by the ‘linguistic
turn’ in urban policy analysis over recent decades which recognise the
performative aspects of language. However, the methodological ‘gap’
between discursivities and materialities remains as too often analysis of
urban policy discourse has taken an aspatial analytic approach.
Representations of space cannot be divorced from spatial practices and vice
versa. Based on my premise that many visions, plans and strategies never
materialise, and even some that do materialise have little bearing on what is
produced, a mixed-method approach is required that considers the recursive
interactions between spatial practices and representations of space.
Grounded in the theories of Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault, which
conceptualis space as a social process and broaden discourse to embrace
spatial practice respectively, I devise a conceptual and operational analytics
which I refer to as interpretive-spatial analysis with the goal of helping to
bridge the problematic ontological, epistemological and methodological
divide between discursivities and materialities.

Keywords spatial practices, social production of space, Lefebvre, Foucault,
discourse theory

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© 2009 by Newcastle University. All rights reserved.
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A Conceptual and Analytical Framework for Interpreting the Spatiality of Social life

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Introduction

Models provide an overall framework for knowing reality; how we perceive
and construct reality. Any analysis of shifting spatial practices or the
spatiality of social life more generally is based on premises about the world
(ontology) as well as assumptions about knowledge of this world
(epistemology). I wish to challenge the accepted wisdom (spatial logic)
underpinning analysis of the production of space. With this in mind, this
paper provides a conceptual framework for understanding the phenomenon
of the discursive-material production of space, and also, for considering how
unknowns may be analytically organised and interpreted.
Language is instrumental to the production of place but has been
overshadowed by investigations of material transformations (Tuan, 1991;
Valentine et al., 2008). This is partly being redressed by the ‘linguistic turn’
in urban policy analysis over recent decades (see for example Portugali &
Alfasi, 2008) which recognise the performative aspects of language (see for
example Wittgenstein, 2001 [1953]). However, the gap between discursivities
and materialities remains as too often analysis of spatial policy discourse has
taken an aspatial analytic approach (Richardson & Jensen, 2003). It is in light
of this that the conceptual and analytical framework put forward in this
paper is intended to bridge this methodological ‘gap’. In the words of
Richardson & Jensen, ‘[t]he particular challenge is to establish a framework
which operationalises an analysis of both the cultural and material
dimensions of a cultural sociology of space’ (Richardson & Jensen, 2003: 15-
16). I take up this challenge by devising a conceptual and implementational
analytics – influenced by the works of the theories of Henri Lefebvre and
Michel Foucault – that bridge the problematic ontological divide between
discursivities and materialities.
Edward Soja calls for ‘a critical re-reading of the presuppositional work on
space, knowledge and power by Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault’ (Soja,
1997: 246), which I perform and is reflected in this article. But I do so with
eyes open to their distinct worldviews and epistemic frames, that entails a
problematic relationship to which Soja has not always appreciated1. Dipping
into the works of Foucault and using his theories as a ‘tool-box’ to be
reworked, as he urged his readers to do (Foucault, 1974), helps bring closer
some of his notions regarding the institutional embeddedness of
power/knowledge with Lefebvre’s appreciation of the spatial embeddedness
of power and knowledge, most apparent in his theory of the social
production of space. By recognising their theoretical overlaps (e.g. Lefebvre

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and Foucault are both inspired by Nietzsche) and appreciating their
conceptual divergences (e.g. politics), through a creative reappropriation of
elements of their extensive corpus of work I seek to use Foucault’s writings
on discourse theory and Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space and
the material embeddedness of everyday social space (Hakli, 1998).
Echoing the words of Lefebvre (1991 [1974]) and Foucault (1972),
Christopher Mele contends that ‘consideration of the significance of urban
discourses about the city does not require an abandonment of the analytical
focus on urban form and spatial practices’ (Mele, 2000: 629-630).
Representations of space cannot be divorced from spatial practices and vice
versa. Based on my premise that many visions, plans and strategies never
materialise, and even some that do materialise have little bearing on what is
produced, a multidimensional analytics is required with ‘a shift of focus away
from the text alone [in the narrow sense] to embrace the events and arenas
where struggles over the nature of policy and implementation are played out’
(Richardson, 2002: 355), to which I term interpretive-spatial analysis.

The social production of space

Henri Lefebvre set out to expose a unified theory of ‘the actual production
of space by bringing the various kinds of space and the modalities of their
genesis together within a single theory’ (Lefebvre, 1991 [1974]: 410-411,
emphasis added). His ruminations on the analytic notion of the social
production of space remain vague, but perhaps because of this it presents
stimulating possibilities for interpretive-spatial analyses. The production of
space is a continuous process of social development of the dialectical
relations of material engagement, scientific conception and cultural
expression. A Lefebvrian tripartite view of space exposes the traditional
dualism of material space versus mental space for its profound neglect of the
third pillar of the triad: social space. Each triadic element is present in the
everyday flow of life; in action, thought and interaction; in continual
dialogue and interaction with one another.
The ‘spatialised trialectic’ is to be understood not as three
compartmentalised spaces – it cannot be deconstructed and then quantified
into three polemics. Lefebvre is interested in the complex interactions
between each of his three expressions of space. Each of these expressions is
a synarticle of the simultaneous dimensions of space; each space

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incorporates the others providing a unionised theoretical structure. Whilst
distinguishable, each expression is inseparable though the relations between
the three are never stable. Taking that which is perceived as the real material
space of geographic locality, that which is conceived as imagined space of
representations and the lived space that which stems from social interaction,
Figure 1 seeks to illuminate the core aspects of each of the three expressions
of space, helping to demonstrate the trialectical interrelations and overlaps.
Whereas some have represented Lefebvre’s spatial schemata in a triadic
arrangement of three points (e.g. Gatrell & Worsham, 2002), I prefer to
stress its fluidity, openness and relationality. For Lefebvre, spatial practices,
representations of space, and representational spaces stand in direct relation
to the dialectical triad: the perceived, the conceived, and the lived.

Socio-physical,
material space
is seen, generated and
used. The actual,
Mental concepts, concrete, ‘real’ space
ideas, idealism and First space:
abstractions about perceived space
space, The spatial spatial practice
arts, knowledges (l'espace perçu)
and sciences

SPACE
Second space: Third space:
conceived space lived space
representations of spaces of
space representation
(l'espace conçu) (l'espace vécu)

Social space as experienced
(physically, emotionally,
intellectually, ideologically,
etc.). The lived social
relations of users

Figure 1: Spatialised trialectic


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Following Lefebvre’s (1991 [1974]) trialectic understanding of the social
production of space, interpretive-spatial analysis has a triple focus on the
discursivities, materialities and socialities of the spatiality of social life. ‘Social
spatialisation’ is conceptualised as the social construction of the spatial; the
processual practice (i.e. perceived, conceived and lived) by which social
agents appropriate and give meaning to spaces (Shields, 1991). This suggests
that space is both a field of action and a basis for action. Such an ontological
view of the social production of space, open to the notion of multiple
foldings of space coexisting within the same material space, is important for
it brings to the fore the role of representations; ‘[w]e must not imagine that
the world turns towards us a legible face which we would have only to
decipher. … [T]here is no prediscursive providence which disposes the
world in our favour’ (Foucault, 1981: 67). This is not a rejection of the
materiality of events but a recognition that knowledge (and therefore power)
is made comprehensible through discourse. Indeed, a Foucauldian
influenced interpretive-spatial analysis examines how particular
representations of space provoke how people perceive, think and act, and
produce socio-material transformations.
In line with postmodern spatial theory and other modes of thought such as
neo-Marxism and humanism, I work on the premise that space is socialised
partly through discourse: ‘nothing has any meaning outside discourse’
(Foucault, 1972: 32) (i.e. it is through discourse that socio-spatial practices
are knowable). This ‘way of thinking space’ views urban space, and
consequently its production, as simultaneously ‘real’ and ‘imagined’: a
material reality and a symbolic sphere of cultural meanings. As Zukin and
colleagues put it, ‘[w]hile sets of meanings of the social imaginary are
conceptualized in symbolic languages, these meanings are materialized and
become real in all sorts of spatial and social practices, from urban design to
housing policy’ (Zukin et al., 1998: 629). Developing this argument further,
representations of space not only arise from social experiences and
imaginations (spatial practices and representational space)2, but they also
perform back on those forms of practice prescribing a domain of
‘meaningful’ actions, thus creating a complex dialectics. Hence, the social
world is linguistically constructed, but nevertheless remains spatially
constituted. In an often cited passage from The Eighteenth Brumaire of
Louis Bonaparte, Marx wrote,
“Men [sic] make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please;
they do not make it under the circumstances chosen by themselves, but under

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circumstances [including discourses] directly found, given and transmitted from
the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on
the brain of the living. And just when they seem engaged in revolutionizing
themselves and things, in creating something that has never yet existed, precisely
in such periods of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of
the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle cries and costumes
in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise
and this borrowed language” (Marx, 2008 [1852]).

This reading suggests that materialities and discursivities operate dialectically.
Discourses are constitutive of reality operating as ‘practices that
systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault, 1972: 49; ,
1980). Different agents produce and consume representations, creating
discourses and enabling the reproduction of particular spatial formations
(Lefebvre, 1991 [1974]; Thrift, 1996). In the urban sphere, discourse shapes
and is shaped by urban reality: the materialisation of discourse and discourse
materialised. The materialisation of discourse demonstrates the power to
transmit idealised spatial imaginaries of present and future needs and desires,
whereas discourse materialised demonstrates the power of urban reality to
shape future needs and desires as reflected in discourse. In this way, insights
into social structures of the material world are mediated through discourse.
Flowing from this understanding, Harvey argues that discursive struggles
over representations of space are ‘as fiercely fought and just as fundamental
to the activities of place construction as bricks and mortar’ (Harvey, 1996:
322). Underpinning visible changes such as the creation of a regeneration
partnership or construction of an edifice, ‘there is the creation, thickening or
discarding of meanings … arguments might seem factual and scientific, but
they are also meaningful, suggestive and atmospheric … Language has the
capacity to make politics, to create signs and symbols that shift power
balances, to render events harmless or, on the contrary, to create political
conflict. The analysis of structures in ‘texts’ (in the broadest sense) can help
to bring this out and thus demystify [policyspeak and policy
action/inaction]’ (Hajer & Versteeg, 2005: 176 & 179). In other words,
‘reality’ is always mediated by our representations. However, I would like to
stress that the discursive-material articulation of the social production of
space does not imply
“that words build houses or discourses drop bombs. Using the language of
discursive-material formations does not imply that discourses telekinetically
transform reality or that the landscape does not exist prior to our views of it.
What it does demonstrate is that the concepts enabling and legitimizing the
material reproduction of place originate not from a perception (denotation) of a


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material landscape, but from the various conceptualizations (connotations) of
that landscape, mediated by discourses that are often quite independent from
the materiality of that place” (Davis, 2005: 611).

Following a similar line of reasoning to other commentators such as, Laclau
& Mouffe (1985) and Christopher Mele (2000), I uphold that the discursive
assemblage of ideas, concepts, and categorisations do not necessarily
produce socio-material outcomes in a deterministic fashion, but they do
however provide epistemic frames that guide and influence spatial practices.
In Foucauldian terms, discourse is productive; it governs what is knowable
and in turn it controls – but not without contestation – the production of
ideas, concepts and meanings into practice by way of how people act and
respond to particular ways of knowing (Foucault, 1972). I would like to
sound a note of caution here that Foucauldian discourse theory can give an
impression that it leans towards a view of people being subjectified, which
has prompted some discourse analysts to use the concept of ‘interpretative
repertoires’ (Potter & Wetherell, 1987) in order to place more emphasis on
human agency. However, I stress that discourse circulates in a continuous
process of contestation by drawing on the Foucauldian notion of
subjectivation which refers to a person being at once rendered a subject
(through practices of the self) and subjected to relations of power through
discourse (constituted through the technologies of disciplinary power):
“This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes
the individual, marks him [sic] by his own individuality, attaches him to his
own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which
others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power which makes individuals
subjects. There are two meanings of the word subject: subject to someone else by
control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscious self-
knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and
makes subject to” (Foucault, 1982: 212).

Therefore, power constitutes and constrains but does not entirely determine
the subjects with whom it is concerned. To rephrase Foucault, if subjects tell
the ‘truth’ about themselves, they are in part constituted as subjects across a
number of power relations which are exerted over them, which they exert
over themselves and which they exert over others (Foucault, 1988: 39).

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Spatial policy-making: a discursive event

The complex policy fields of ‘doctors of space’ (to borrow Lefebvre’s
terminology), including architects, regeneration practitioners and planners, is
a messy entanglement of formal and informal pathways of collaboration,
interactions and contests over claims to privileged knowledge. Spatial policy-
making (including implementation) is a process whereby the different
interests of actors and actants struggle for control over meaning. Competing
discourses seek to frame policy issues by means of language use and forms
of practice, which themselves express cultural stories, institutional objectives
and political ideologies (i.e. forms of power/knowledge). The dialectical
relations between socio-spatial practices and symbolic-cultural
representations ‘suggests the importance of close attention to the fine grain
of the [spatial] policy process’ (Richardson & Jensen, 2003: 12).
I approach discourse theory as a way of engaging with the empirical world in
its entirety. Discourse is the focus of an eclectic body of theory and what
constitutes a discourse is not always obvious. In accordance with
poststructuralist thought where meaning remains fluctuating in relation to
other statements, Foucault does not provide one authoritative definition of
discourse preferring to retain its multiplicity, fluidity and interchangeability.
Indeed, even if a conclusive definition existed it would be read, interpreted
and reproduced in many different ways. Nevertheless, to prevent from
falling into the trap of applying discourse theory without elucidating on
interpretations (see Lees, 2004), this section cogently explains what I mean
by ‘discourse’ and how I interpret the term and theoretical outlook.
Van Dijk understands ‘discourse’ as ‘language use’ (Van Dijk, 1997: 3).
Zukin and colleagues refer to it as the sets of meanings of the social
imaginary conceptualised in symbolic languages (Zukin et al., 1998: 629).
However, I do not consider discourses as mere linguistic expressions, but
also understand them to be produced and reproduced in an identifiable set
of practices (Hajer, 1993, 1995; Jensen, 1997; Jensen & Richardson, 2004;
Hajer, 2005). Discourses are ways of knowing, acting, organising and
representing things in particular ways. They are repeatable systems of
communication, devices of understanding and instruments of power:
linguistic articulations, socio-spatial material practices and power-rationality
configurations (Jensen & Richardson, 2004: 56). Multiple discourses exist in
the same space, whereby each presents different perspectives on the same
policy issue. It is through the realm of discourse that people make sense of
the world: understanding realit(ies) in particular ways.


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Discourse understood as communicative action ‘is here defined as a specific
ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorisations that are produced, reproduced, and
transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical
and social realities‟ (Hajer, 1995: 44). Hajer has since elaborated on this
definition, asserting that „[t]he „discussion‟, in other words, is the object of analysis;
discourse analysis sets out to trace a particular linguistic regularity that can be found in
discussions or debates‟ (Hajer & Versteeg, 2005: 175). However, I find this
additional component to his definition restrictive. All practice – be it mental,
material or social – are discursive in so much that they possess meanings,
therefore all practice is discursive in a very broad sense (which is a departure
from Foucauldian discourse theory). Discourse enters all realms of social
life: materialities and discursivities represent each side of the same coin3.
Indeed, Hajer’s treatment of ‘linguistic regularity’ would render his work on
the dramaturgical aspects of policy-making inconsequential, which views
discourse as a set of acts not merely a matter of talk that forms a discussion
(Hajer, 2005).
I view discourses as being productive (i.e. they have power outcomes or
effects). For Foucault, discourses are systems of knowledge such as
economics or medicine and also ways of producing space such as prisons or
schools. It is this latter form or ‘effect’ of discourse that I am most
concerned with. Discourse is immersed and constitutive of complex social
events: historically and spatially contingent, whereby cultural meanings are
conditional to change. Discourses are therefore conceived as having material
properties (McKenna, 2004; Jacobs, 2006). To reiterate the point made
earlier, discourses are expressed through cultural texts such as written
content, utterances, practices and artefacts like built space. This implies that
discourse theory is not a case of analysing language-use only, but should also
consider practice as each aspect is complementary and reinforcing (Sayer,
2000; Richardson, 2002; Richardson & Jensen, 2003; Tait & Jensen, 2007).

Foucauldian inspired discourse theory

There is no step-by-step procedure for applying Foucauldian analysis.
Foucault’s complexly mutable focus on discourse theory tends to be at
abstract levels and a prescriptive Foucauldian ‘method’ does not exist.
Rather, his theories provide an apparatus for thought and action. They
enable new perspectives to be cast on what are accepted as ‘truths’:
alternative ways of (un)knowing regimes of truth. It is therefore necessary to

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set out with a little more clarity how a Foucauldian flavour of discourse
theory informs an interpretive-spatial analytics.
Following Foucault, it is the effectiveness of sustaining knowledge (truth
effects) that is of utmost interest. How truth effects are created and
sustained in discourse and which discourses come to be accepted as normal,
providing the impression that they represent the truth (regimes of truth) are
important aspects of analysis. The notion of ‘power/knowledge’ was coined
to analyse these questions, where it is argued that it is from the practices of
power that knowledge is formed: ‘there is no power relations without the
correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that
does not presuppose and constitute at the same time, power relations’
(Foucault, 1977: 27). This triadic arrangement of power / knowledge /
discourse is used to investigate the rules about the production of knowledge
through communicative meanings and how this influences practice.
Discourses help establish norms by conveying messages pertaining to what
such norms should consist of. Normalisation is one apparatus of knowledge
through which power is deployed (Foucault, 1977, 1990), by establishing the
measure of judgement instituting conformity. As well as working in a binary
manner between conformity and nonconformity (good or bad),
normalisation also functions as a measure to which all should aim (i.e.
establishing the norm). Specific to the field of spatial policy, normalisation
works to constitute what measures and responses are appropriate and
acceptable. In a regulatory capacity (e.g. the planning system) normalisation
operates through legislation and legal frameworks and implicitly through
normative assumptions that underpin and inform policy and eligibility
criteria, with differentiating social effects and fragmentary spatial impacts,
penalising some people and places whilst favouring other locales and actors.
Discourses represent the institutionalisation of knowledge, they are never
neutral vehicles of ways of knowing but are embedded with cultural,
ideological and political objectives (Beauregard, 2003; Oakley, 2007). A
powerful aspect of discourse is its capacity to ‘naturalise’ meaning. By
expressing particular ways of knowing, discourses vie for hegemonic
knowledge control by embedding, rationalising and normalising certain
values to the point where they are accepted as conventional knowledge
systems or ‘regime of truth’ by which the society lives (Foucault, 1972, 1994
[1966]) and may consequently slip from critical attention. In concordance
with the view advanced by Foucault, when power operates so as to


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normalise knowledge of any set of statements as the ‘truth’, then such a
discursive formation produces a regime of truth.

Discourse produces specific power/knowledge configurations: constructing
a regulatory framework and thereby limiting and framing how we think
about things. It opens space for knowing, but at the same time sets the
boundaries of what is knowable. Discourse is a frame of reference for
positioning competing interests and giving meaning to sets of concepts,
ideas and categories. Problems are perceived, constructed and understood
through discourse, presenting some aspects at the absence of others, which
in turn, frames the solution by legitimising and de-legitimising certain socio-
spatial practices and actions. This performative role of discourse is crucial as
it steers proceedings (mental, linguistic and material) in a way that is
congruent with its regime of truth.

Particular ways of knowing space are aided by tools of representation such as
masterplans and diagrams, together with practices of representation such as direct
communication in the form of speech and spatial practices. How realit(ies)
are perceived, interpreted and conceived as a regime of truth are formed
through practices of representation and often institutionalised through tools
of representation. Applying this to the field of spatial policy, the
communication of discourses – involving the framing and performance of
policy issues – inscribes hegemonic conceptions of culture, society, politics
and economics in and on space to construct space.
I read discourses are porous but temporarily stable and more or less
coherent bundles of exchanges or repeatable discursive-material practices
between contentious ways of knowing (Beauregard, 2003). A discourse is
understood as being composed of a (limited) set of statements, working
together in a system of dispersion to produce what Foucault calls a
discursive formation. Statements are not limited to speech acts such as
utterances but include all équipements such as: written texts e.g. book,
report; visual representations - e.g. photography, cartoon; material
representations - e.g. the arrangement of things; urban form, practices – e.g.
speech, choices made, dress.
Combined, these cultural texts draw attention to the all-enveloping nature of
discourse as a fluid, shifting medium. Statements ‘are elements of knowledge
which, while deriving much of their intelligibility from the broader

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discursive flows in which they are embedded, rise above the flux of everyday
… discourse. They can acquire a broad historical significance and are
systematically related to each other … [and] can perform a range of complex
functions … [such as] the articulation or synarticle of heterogeneous
discursive themes’ (Stenson & Watt, 1999: 192). Statements are not fixed or
static but exist in systems of dispersion, in their relation to other statements.
As statements are repeated they stabilise which is the key means by which a
statement is recognisable.
According to Foucault (1972) the production, organisation, ascendancy and
control of discourse/statements is regulated by three reinforcing rules of
practice. Firstly, the conditional source or internal delimitation refers to a
statements materiality: where it was produced, when and from what
position. Secondly, the external rules of exclusion dichotomising between
what is true and false, what constitutes accepted knowledge. External limits
are those imposed by surrounding statements (neighbouring concepts). And
thirdly, the conditions which determine how discourse can be deployed: who
can utter truth, in which manner, under which conditions, in which capacity,
and from which position. Separately and combined, these characteristics are
a means by which statements can be identified. It is the relation between
statements and discourse that sustain the potency of a discursive formation:
each is constitutive of the other.
I understand discursive procedures as the manner in which a statement is
temporarily ‘stabilised’ as it becomes inscribed in a discursive formation
through an iterative process of usage (practice) and connections with other
statements. Discursive procedures refer to the manner that a discourse is
deployed: how meanings are mobilised, the force that it holds, and through
which its ‘object’ is developed and ‘subjects’ are composed (Carabine, 2003).
Discourses can develop opportunistically by drawing on other discourses
and interacting with them to ‘hook’ into normative ideals and sometimes
contradictory or different ways of knowing ‘cohere’ to produce a stable
representation of a topic (Carabine, 2003). Often a variety of discourses are
called upon to produce a new discourse. For example, discourses of urban
regeneration utilise, interact and intercede with discourses about the
economy, the environment, social inclusion and so on. The procedures that
result in discursive formations tend to take two paths: i) they may occur
between two or more discourses as they traverse to form a new discourse, or
ii) they may be the product of recurring connections and alliances between a
relatively coherent pattern of statements. This infers that the range of
cultural texts analysed should span the breath of apparatuses of knowledge


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including both tools and practices of representation. An intertextual
approach will also support the identification and deciphering of statements.
Discourse is not necessarily omnipresent or some unstoppable and
uncontestable power ‘from above’ that controls every thought, perception
and action whereby human ‘subjects’ are brought under control. Rather,
discourse is open to challenge and adaptation by human actors, which
explains why discursive formations are socially, spatially and historically
variable. Discourse applied here, therefore, is conceptualised as operating in
a state of constant reconstitution. Discourse can be understood as both
space forming and space constitutive, as infused with power/knowledge and
also as playing a role in producing power/knowledge networks. In this
context it acts recursively with original frames of reference and transforms
them. Discourse theory is therefore significant to understanding the
processes of spatial restructuring, and thus relevant to the fields of planning,
design and regeneration.
In summary, I view discourses in a characteristic fashion as social
constructions, but also perceive them to be spatial constructions which is
less characteristic. This ontological outlook calls for an analytic framework
that accounts for the discursive-material dialectic. A frame of analysis where
‘how’ something is constituted, ‘what’ is created and also the spatial ‘object’
(Richardson & Jensen, 2003) informing and informed by the first two fields
are considered in relation to each other. Having set out the ontological
spatial framework guiding this study and how I understand discourse as the
sum of communicative socio-spatial action, I now move on to discuss how
my interpretation of Lefebvre’s notion of the social production of space and
Foucauldian discourse theory informs my interpretive-spatial analytic
approach. My proposition is that the role of discourse needs to be properly
integrated into a new methodology for understanding the production of
space, which might be termed as interpretive-spatial analysis.
In contrast to more orthodox policy analysis working within a positivist
framework where the task is to examine empirical material as factual (i.e. a
mirror of reality), interpretive-spatial analysis looks to the effects of a particular
cultural text or bundle of texts. Interpretive-spatial analysis examines the
production, circulation and dissemination of statements, as ‘a series of
discontinuous segments’ (Foucault, 1998 [1976]: 100), which relate to each
other in shifting yet clearly regulated ways. As meanings coalesce discursive
formations4 are produced, constructing a particular way of knowing that is

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normalised and accepted as ‘truth’ (Foucault, 1980).The objective is to
analyse rationalities: the rationalisation through discourse of relations of
power. To this end, interpretive-spatial analysis unravels the; i) production; ii)
social context; iii) and intended audience of cultural text to examine the
effects on ways of knowing and acting. The methodological strength of this
approach is its ability to unpack the power relations that inform particular
ways of knowing and acting.

The three building blocks of an interpretive-spatial analytics

Foucault’s genealogy offers a lens to undertake spatial policy analysis and
with which discourses can be read. The ‘tracing’ of discourse(s) over time to
discover how power/knowledge circulates is central to this method of
analysis. Genealogy is a methodology for analysing history but not in the
traditional sense of historical analyses: it is a way of reading history through
discourse. Genealogy frustrates the ‘superhistories’ of approaches such as
Marxism, disrupting totalising effects of one progressive plan. It is focussed
on describing the institutions and apparatuses implicated in the production,
circulation and reproduction of discourse; the power/knowledge networks
underpinning discourse; and their power effects. Foucault demonstrates the
radical shifts in discourse over time, from period to period (e.g. Foucault,
1990). Detecting and analysing the nature of a particular discourse is only a
means to an end, I consider the major strength of this analytic approach in
its application to establish how discourse is practiced. By this, I mean how
discourse is both supportive and supported by institutional, political,
professional, economic and social interests. The role and concern of
genealogy, is therefore, ‘to map those strategies, relations and practices of
power in which knowledges are embedded and connected’ (Carabine, 2003:
276).
When the objective is to investigate the material as well as discursive effects
of regimes of truth, it is de rigueur to move beyond the study of language
(e.g. utterances and written text) to also analyse ‘the social context and social
relations within which power and knowledge occur and are distributed’
(Carabine, 2003: 275). Recognition of the limitations posed by a purely text
oriented approach, calls for an analytic frame that also comprehends spatial
practices; a framework that can grasp the social production of space
discussed earlier. By following a discursive-material ‘micro-political’ analysis
as advocated by Tim Richardson (2002) among others, an interpretive-


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spatial analytics takes one on a transgressive journey through policy spaces,
decision making arenas and social events where representational struggles
are played-out. This opens space for the analyst to capture why some
discourses fail to materialise during the implementation of projects and why
some materialised discourses are absent from policy discourses
(representations of space).
I take inspiration from Richardson & Jensen’s (2003: 16) proposition that a
mode of analysis focussing on the spatial policy-making process can be
applied ‘to study ‘how’ something is constituted as an object of knowledge
formation’, material analysis can be ‘used to study ‘what’ is created’ and
socio-historical analysis can be harnessed to decipher ‘under ‘which’ material
and societal conditions’ spatial transformations occur. Therefore, ‘to address
the ‘object’ in question’ implies that the dialectical relations between
discursivities and materiality should be analysed.
Mirroring the theoretical framework of the social production of space which
provides the ontological scaffolding for this paper, an interpretive-spatial
analytics attempts to bridge the gap between spatial policy discourses
(conceived space), spatial practices (perceived space) and spaces of
representation (lived space). Socio-spatial practices and symbolic-cultural
representations are separated for analytical purposes only (i.e. in ontological
terms they are perceived to be co-productive): ‘[t]hat is to say, we need to
conceptualise socio-spatial relations in terms of their practical ‘workings’ and
their symbolic ‘meaning’’ (Richardson & Jensen, 2003: 10).
Drawing on the works of Foucault, as well as other researchers who
embrace the spatial practices of discourse such as Richardson and Jensen, I
approach discourse as an actant in the social production of space.
Accordingly, three analytic fields constitute this operational framework:
i. Language
ii. Practice
iii. Power/knowledge
(Jensen, 1997; Richardson & Jensen, 2003).
Such an approach probes the different ways of framing space (how spatial
imaginaries are represented in policy), and how policy discourses manifest
and are reproduced in policy debate (through language use and practices). By

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doing so, one is able to unravel the power/knowledge knot, whereby
conflicting discourses compete for hegemonic status (associated with claims
of rationality) in contested policy spaces in order to bring about certain
changes in (socio-spatial) relations and prevent others (presence and
absence). By examining the reproduction of spatial policy discourses
through an interpretive-spatial analytics, opens space for underlying
ideologies and rationalities to be revealed, material effects to be probed and
rights to the city to be explored.
Having discussed what interpretive-spatial analysis means in practice, I now
elucidate the analytic building blocks of this framework. The first building
block is to open up the framing of policy issues. By viewing published (as
well as unpublished) policy documents as knowledge framing devices and
processes, the analyst is able to investigate how particular debates –
including institutions, material process and objects, actions and relations –
are framed ‘in the language of policy documents’ (Richardson & Jensen,
2003: 17). This process, scrutinising tools of representation, helps to build up a
corpus of information about the framing process and can help reveal some
of the power struggles and relations that contest the spatial knowledge
expressed in the language of policy documents. It ‘is important, not least,
because organisations and policy decisions are dependent on ‘writing’ in
order to regulate and legitimise their functions’ (Jacobs, 1999: 204).
However, this text oriented analysis on its own is inadequate for reasons
already alluded to.
In light of recognition that discourse is embedded within a social field of
actors, institutions and power/knowledge, the second building block
analyses the live policy debate: where struggles are being fought out in so far
as different interests seek to impose their way of knowing (representations
of space). By building on the textual analysis of the language of policy
documents and other tools of representation, a detailed analysis of
institutional practices (practices of representation) focussing on
performances, actions and social practices opens up the investigative process
to consider the policy debate in a more holistic manner. Constituting what
Healey (1995: 272) describes as an ‘ethnography of institutional practices’,
this building block looks to expose the messy world of policy-making that
tends to be ironed out in some tools of representation such as published
masterplans or vision statements. Conducting spatial policy research in place
can therefore be used to uncover the performative qualities of actors and the
power plays that pervade the process.


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The third building block looks to connect the discursive-material realities of
the policy-making process with the discursive-material realities of
urban/social space. An analysis of everyday practices (practices of
representation) looks to examine policy-making from an implementation
aspect to reveal the presence and absence of different citizen’s rights to the
city (see Lefebvre, 1996). This building block helps the analyst identify the
changing urban sphere and shifting social dynamics that perform back to
inform institutional practices and tools of representation. It is a bridging
mechanism that helps close the gaps between discursivities and materialities
with the aim to ‘expose the actual production of space by bringing the
various kinds of space and the modalities of their genesis together within a
single theory’ (Lefebvre, 1991 [1974]: 410-411).
Parallels can perhaps be drawn with interpretive-spatial analytics and
Fairclough’s (1989; 1995) three-dimensional framework that looks
remarkably similar on the surface for it analyses the relations of texts,
discursive practices and social practices. However, a closer inspection reveals
a purely text oriented analysis that seeks to relate to the contexts and wider
social structures in which texts are framed (i.e. through an intertextual
reading). Where an interpretive-spatial analytics differs is that, as well as
being multidimensional and sensitive to historical, political and contextual
relations, it is also dynamic; tackling representations of space, spatial
practices and spaces of representation in situ as the live policy debate is
produced and reproduced in tools of representation, institutional practices
and everyday practices. This is in line with Lefebvre’s spatiality; his triadic
composition of space is inherently ‘turbulent’ (Gregory, 1994); actively
produced which is expressed for example in his history of space and also at
the level of the everyday (Lefebvre, 1991 [1958], , 1991 [1974], , 2004).

Concluding Remarks

The outlined reading of discourse – as a productive, socially constructed
regime of knowledge and truth, that forms the social reality about which it
speaks – provides the backdrop and intellectual scaffolding for the blend of
interpretive-spatial analytics sketched-out in this paper. Adding a new layer
of social critique to the (re)production of urban space (Zukin et al., 1998), I
employ a spatial policy analysis of cultural images, social practices and urban
space (the conceived, perceived and lived) to unpack how representations of

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space, spatial practices and representational spaces recursively interact to
effect the production of space.
Adopting a multidimensional analytics goes some way to help dispels
criticisms that research drawing on discourse theory can over-emphasise the
role of language through a myopic focus on written texts and spoken
utterances (Jacobs, 1999; Lees, 2004). I maintain that this analytic technique
is well equipped to deal with spatiality as it embraces the three moments of
space: perceived, conceived and lived. By linking discourse and space, this
conceptual and analytic framework demonstrates how spatial thinking can
benefit analysis of urban policy discourse (Richardson & Jensen, 2003).
Whilst I have endeavoured to illuminate the practicalities and specifics of
interpretive-spatial analytics, the actualities of this approach can never be
made fully transparent as it is highly dynamic and multidimensional.
Empirical studies are required so that this conceptual and analytical
framework for interpreting the spatiality of social life can be practised and
refined.

1 For a critique of the Anglo-American engagement with Lefebvre see (Elden, 2001).
2 Marx, for example, famously stated that ‘we erect our structure in imagination before we
erect it in reality’ (Marx, 1967 [1867-1886]: 178).
3 An ontological division of space into either material or discursive is problematic. Spatial

formations are a mesh of natural and social processes (Lefebvre, 1991 [1974]; Latour, 1993;
Haraway, 1997).
4 Discursive formation is often used synonymously by Foucault to describe discourse. I

refer to discursive formations as repositories of meaning and shared ways of knowing.

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