Spatial justice: law and the geography of withdrawal

By: Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, A. (2010)

The concept of spatial justice is the most promising platform on which to redefine, not only the connection between law and geography, but more importantly, the conceptual foundations of both law and space. The article attempts two things: first, a radical understanding of legal spatiality. Space is not just another parameter for law, a background against which law takes place, or a process that the law needs to take into consideration. Space is intertwined with normative production in ways that law often fails to acknowledge, and part of this article is a re-articulation of the connection. Second, to suggest a conception of spatial justice that derives from a spatial law. Such a conception cannot rely on given concepts of distributive or social justice. Instead, the concept of spatial justice put forth here is informed by post-structural, feminist, post-ecological and other radical understandings of emplacement and justice.