Lost in Space? Lefebvre, Harvey, and the Spatiality of Negation

Urban public spaces have become focal points for mass uprisings and occupations. There is thus a significant spatial dimension to the movement against austerity. This article looks for clues to how to theorize the relation between space and "saying no" to austerity in the work of Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey. The article finds that the two versions of the "production of space" offered up by these ostensibly complementary thinkers are not as easily reconcilable as one might be led to think - and notwithstanding their respective championing of "the right to the city." Indeed, both thinkers open the door to markedly different notions of the critique of capitalist space and of the spatiality of emancipatory politics. © 2014 Duke University Press.