Trialectics of Space (Firstspace–Secondspace–Thirdspace)

Definition

The trialectics of space is Edward Soja's expansion of Henri Lefebvre's triad of the production of space into a triple epistemology for studying cityspace — and, by extension, all spatiality. Firstspace is the perspective on perceived space: cityspace "as a set of materialized 'spatial practices'… physically and empirically perceived as form and process, as measurable and mappable configurations" (Soja 2000, p. 10) — the dominant, materialist mode. Secondspace is the perspective on conceived space: "a mental or ideational field, conceptualized in imagery, reflexive thought, and symbolic representation… the urban imaginary" (p. 11) — mental maps, urban utopias, urban epistemologies. Thirdspace is Soja's own addition: "fully lived space, a simultaneously real-and-imagined, actual-and-virtual, locus of structured individual and collective experience and agency" (p. 12) — the space that "incorporates both Firstspace and Secondspace perspectives while at the same time opening up the scope… of the geographical or spatial imagination," beyond the "pronounced concentration on real and/or imagined surface appearances" that mutes space's explanatory power.

The trialectic is epistemological, not ontological: every lived space is simultaneously perceived, conceived, and lived; the three are "co-equally linked" and inseparable ("keeping the three co-equally linked together is a vital part of the spatial turn," p. 8). Studying lived space "can be compared to writing a biography" or historiography — knowledge is necessarily selective, guided by a project. In Postmetropolis the trialectic structures the whole book: Part I tilts toward Firstspace (the geohistory of material cityspace), Part II toward Secondspace (the scholarly discourses and the urban imaginary), Part III toward Thirdspace (the fully lived spaces of 1992) — "every chapter is informed by all three modes" (p. 12).

The concept's critical edge: the historical dominance of Firstspace-and-Secondspace modes — "things in space" and "thoughts about space" — has reduced spatiality to fixed form or product; Thirdspace recovers space as "an active arena of development and change, conflict and resistance, an impelling force affecting all aspects of our lives" (p. 11).

Key Thinkers

• Henri Lefebvre — the triad's source: The Production of Space (1974); perceived space / conceived space / lived spaces ("spatial practice, representations of space, representational spaces"); Soja's correction of the Nicholson-Smith translation ("spaces of representation" for les espaces de représentation; "spatial practice" not "social practice," pp. 372–373 of Soja).
• Edward W. Soja — the trialectic's elaborator: Thirdspace (1996) as the theoretical volume, Postmetropolis (2000) as its application; "critical thirding-as-othering" (p. 199) — the third term is not a compromise between two but the creation of "a new and different way of understanding."
• Barbara Hooper (referenced, not paged — see log) — Part III's lived-space practitioner: "Bodies, Cities, Texts," somatography, border work.
• Iain Borden — downstream user: the "space of flows" as the Firstspace-plus alternative to object-spatiality, naming Soja in its lineage.

Related Concepts

• spatial-specificity-of-urbanism — the object the trialectic studies.
• postmetropolis — the book structured by the trialectic's three tilts.
• space — the umbrella concept whose competing accounts (existential, political, poetic) the trialectic organizes differently.
• urban-imaginary — the Secondspace object: the conceived city.
• Practiced Place — the Firstspace pole: perceived, material spatial practice.
• warped-space — Vidler's parallel catalogue of late-modern spatial pathologies, adjacent to Thirdspace.
• milieu — the lived-space texture of territory (Deleuze/Wise) that Thirdspace absorbs.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• Postmetropolis (Soja 2000) — the trialectic's application: "The trialectics of cityspace" (pp. 10–12), the Part-by-Part tilting (pp. 12, 351), the Lefebvre translation intervention (pp. 372–373), and lived space as biography ("perfect or complete knowledge is impossible," pp. 11–12, 351).
• Thick Edge (Borden 1996/2006) — the concept's adjacent wiki presence: Soja named in Borden's theoretical lineage; the "space of flows" as a Firstspace-plus formulation of the same reorientation.

Source Support linking rule: All entries in this section must be wikilinks to source note pages in wiki/source-notes/ using the source-notes/ path prefix. Never link to raw files — raw files are not wiki pages.

Open Questions

• Is Thirdspace a synthesis, a third term, or a practice — and can it be operationalized as a design method rather than only an interpretive stance?
• Soja criticizes the English translation of Lefebvre for repeatedly "eliminat[ing] Lefebvre's persistent injections of the lived" — what other load-bearing spatial concepts have been flattened by translation (the wiki's representational spaces vs spaces of representation distinction)?
• Does the trialectic map onto the wiki's interior cluster: Firstspace the room as built fabric, Secondspace the interior as image and imagined, Thirdspace the inhabited interior? What would a trialectic of the interior add to interiority?