Critical Geography's nature problem and the Lefebvrian ecological dialectic

Abstract

The human social-metabolic relation to what Karl Marx calls ‘the universal metabolism of nature’ has become dangerously antagonistic, altering the Earth System on a scale that threatens to undermine human existence itself. In the face of this threat, many anthropocentric or anthropomorphic notions — such as the human domination of nature, ‘the production of nature’, and a posthumanism that seeks to remove the grand abstractions of nature/society and naturalism/humanism — have proven to be encumbrances to the necessary critical and dialectical thought on the ecological problem. They have particularly riven geography, rendering it largely incapable — despite its rich history and still numerous important contributions — of coherently addressing our age of planetary ecological crisis. Here we argue that a path forward that avoids the pitfalls of dualism on the one hand, and a dubious monism, homogenization, and/or hybridism on the other, is to be found in Henri Lefebvre's ecological dialectic, underlying his theory of spatial dynamics and his engagement with Marx's theory of metabolic rift. His approach could allow critical geography to address the fissures of the mid-twenty-first century.