Why Geography Cannot Be Marxist: Towards an Understanding of Lived Experience

The main aim of the paper is to provide a framework for understanding and explaining lived experience. It sets out to do this by examining the three strands of Marxian analysis that can be identified in human geography. All are subject to critique and found to present difficulties in terms of their own problematics for understanding lived experience. To retain a holistic, dialectical framework, humanistic elements from existential phenomenology are considered, although such humanism must be materially grounded. The notions of contradiction, alienation, seriality, and ideology are used to illustrate the potential of a critical, humanistic Marxian framework for understanding the nature, production, and reproduction of lived experience.