title: Law and the Social Production of Space
Creators: name: Butler, Christopher
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2004
Subjects: subject: law
subject: land-use planning
subject: urban planning
subject: Australia
subject: Henri Lefebvre
subject: space
subject: spatial

description: This study investigates the relationship between law and space by focusing on the role of the land-use planning system in producing the space of Australian urban regions. The primary aim of the project is to demonstrate the significance of the theoretical and sociological framework of Henri Lefebvre for an emerging field of socio-legal studies concerned with the relationship between law and geography. To this point very few contributions to this field have considered the theoretical connections between law and space in any depth. This thesis demonstrates how Lefebvre's sophisticated theory of the socially produced nature of space can broaden the scope of 'law and geography' research. It does so through a detailed survey of Lefebvre's work and a deployment of his ideas in a series of inquiries into the production of space in Australia. This endeavour is pursued in two stages. Part I of the thesis begins by examining how explanatory models within the social sciences have become increasingly concerned with the spatial dimensions of social life. This 'spatial turn' is reflected in a small, but growing literature within socio-legal studies which focuses on the interdisciplinary connections between law and geography. However the theoretical foundations of this field remain underdeveloped. Through an analysis of Lefebvre's writings, this thesis identifies an anti-reductionist methodological approach to space and its social production. This is used to establish a theoretical framework for the study of the spatial dimensions of law. Part II of the thesis uses this framework to address two questions about the law-space relationship. The first of these is concerned with how law is involved in the production of space. This is considered through three linked studies of the production, planning and legal regulation of space. The starting point for this investigation is the geographical site of suburbia. Lefebvrean categories are used to redescribe Australian suburbia as a form of abstract space - simultaneously fragmented, homogeneous and hierarchically organised. The thesis then argues that the land-use planning system in the post-war decades played a significant role in the development of this form of settlement space, by adhering to a form of bureaucratic thinking that Lefebvre characterises as the rationality of habitat. This rationality embodied technocratic functionalism, a visualised formalism and a structural imposition of expert authority in planning decision-making. With the shift to a neoliberal state form in the last two decades, there have been significant changes to spatial planning. Through an analysis and critique of the Integrated Planning Act 1997 (Qld), it is demonstrated that under neoliberalism there has been a reformulation of the rationality of habitat. In particular, the Integrated Planning Act relies on two new formal strategies, the exchange form and the integrative form, in instituting its changes to planning practice. The exchange form abolishes the technique of land-use 'zoning' and increases the use of market mechanisms in the designation of spatial uses. The integrative form restructures the relationships between local and State government agencies and attempts to channel most forms of public participation into the early stages of policy formation. This thesis argues that rather than changing the spatial outcomes of land-use planning, by commodifying space and restructuring the hierarchies of state decision-making, the Integrated Planning Act will continue to reproduce the social relations of abstract space. The second question in Part II deals with how Lefebvre's ideas can contribute to critical thinking about public law in general. It is argued that while law plays a significant role as a producer of space through the planning system, processes of spatial production also shape and structure state institutions. Two areas of research which could benefit from a Lefebvrean theoretical framework are identified. The first area concerns explanations of the effects on public law of the reterritorialised state form that has emerged under neoliberalism. The second is the renewal of critical theory in public law. In particular, the thesis makes the case that the spatial contradiction between the use and exchange values that are attached to space, challenges the normative orthodoxy within public law scholarship which relies on the values of participation and accountability. This thesis contributes to socio-legal research in three important ways. Firstly, it uses Lefebvre's theoretical approach to develop a critical planning law, linking state planning to the process of the production of space. Secondly, the thesis uses Lefebvrean categories to link the study of public law to political struggles which surround spatial production. It suggests a new way for critical legal scholarship to conceptualise public law in terms of the relationship between state power and the inhabitance of space. Lastly, these inquiries demonstrate the importance and relevance of Lefebvre's social theory for the discipline of socio-legal studies. By grounding the concept of 'space' in material processes of production, a Lefebvrean approach provides an alternative to existing theoretical accounts within law and geography research and will deepen our understanding of the relationships between legal and spatial relations.