Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. City

Since the early 1990s, Henri Lefebvre's theory of the social production of space has become widely used by Anglophone academics to understand contemporary urban processes in the Western world. This article argues that care must be taken in transporting Lefbevre's theoretical framework from one context to another. When applied in places like U.S. cities, it must be contextualized in relation to significant sociospatial processes, especially race. It is also argued that when the racialized geographies of U.S. cities are taken into account, Lefebvre's work—with its focus on the role representation plays in the production of space—aids our understanding of contemporary urban processes. The article develops this argument through an engagement with the racialized public spaces in and around downtown Lexington, Kentucky. The killing of an African-American teenager by a White police officer and the ensuing violence and commentary, especially two editorial cartoons, provide the opportunity to contextualize Lefebvre's theory. Furthermore, the case allows us to understand the role racialized representations of space play into the construction of urban geographies. The paper concludes by emphasizing the role of the body in Lefebvre's understanding of space and suggests that his twin notions of "the right to the city" and "the right to difference" hold out hope for the grassroots development of antiracist urban public spaces.