Abstract
This paper emphasizes Lefebvre’s interpretation of relational space as a
social construct that enabled a “spatial turn” in the social sciences
in the late 1960s. This is evidenced by his most important essays and
books (1968, 1991, 2003) on space, the results of which have been
transposed into other disciplines, as evidenced by works from a wide
range of social sciences, from geography (Harvey, 1973; Soja, 1989;
Peet, 1998; Dear, 2000; Elden, 2004; Castree, 2004; Shields, 2011;
Gregory, 2015), spatial planning, urbanism and urban studies (Kipfer,
2008; Goonewardena, 2008) to economics (Berend, 2009; Nijkamp, 2012,
Capello, 2016, Suwala, 2021). This led to theoretical bases for new
disciplinary directions in geography (radical and postmodern geography)
and regional economy by introducing a new classification of relational
space (diverse-stylized and diverse-relational). Understanding this
epistemological transition is possible through different concepts of
space and absolute, relative, relational. Broader ontological reasoning
is needed, and this has been provided by numerous theorists, such as
sociologists (Blaas and Foster, 1992; Schmidt, 2008) to philosophers and
social theorists (Bachelard, 1969; Foucault, 1984; Prigge, 2008; Cusset,
2015; Knoblauch and Löw, 2017). In this way, the theory of the social
production of space became widely accepted. Still, the ideological
component of that concept (material social practice as a Marxist thesis)
became the antithesis of the emerging poststructuralist antithesis
(fragmentation of socio-cultural issue of nations, through cultural
studies, into numerous identity micro groups) led to a neoliberal
synthesis (privatization and deregulation of the market, to strengthen
the role of financial capital in socio-economic relations).