The infraspace. (il)legal and a-legal spaces as producers of subjectivity

Abstract

The subjectivity can be produced by the spaces; Foucault analyzed that in the hospital, the school and the prison. However, all of those places are legal. Based on that and inspired by the “spatial turn”, this text questions if only legal spaces can produce subjectivity or which other spaces can produce it as well. To answer the latter, it is exposed the legal spaces cannot be considered as the equivalent to “everywhere” due to the fact that there are other spaces that exist but are not visible from the legal perspective of the space or the spatial perspective of the legal. Then, I name the spaces that exist parallel to the legal spaces as infraspace. The infraspace is an (il)legal-a-legal space that works as the counterpart of the legal space and can produce subjectivity as well but in different terms. The infraspace is proposed as the space that complements the spatial possibilities that can produce subjectivity. Therefore, subjectivity can be produced by spaces that are legal, illegal or a-legal.