Degree
Master of Arts
Program
Theory and Criticism
Supervisor
Daniel Vaillancourt
Abstract
This thesis analyzes the relationship between the body and space through the works of Henri Lefebvre, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The aim of the project is to move beyond Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, which relies on a phenomenological understanding of the body and space. In order to do so, it will find in Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘territory’ a non-phenomenological and constructivist concept of space that does not posit the ‘lived body’ as a transcendent ground. As a result, it will also attempt to trace out a non-phenomenological concept of ‘dwelling’ that is not based on a concept of the subject, but is ‘involuntary’ and constructive, and emphasizes the spatio-temporal dynamisms or rhythms that a ‘space without world’ consists of. Finally, by being loosely guided by the global Occupy movement, it seeks to invoke a politics ‘of’ space, where the concept of ‘occupy’ emphasizes a being-in-space that is primarily political and only secondarily ontological.
Recommended Citation
Mommersteeg, Brett, "Space, Territory, Occupy: Towards a Non-Phenomenological Dwelling" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2510.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2510