What is it about?
This article revisits the notion itself of “spatial justice”. The intention is not to offer an overview of the state of the art but to suggest a critical reframing of the discourse. The article is organized as follows. The first two sections clarify certain crucial issues connected with the idea of “justice” and that of “space”. The subsequent section discusses five cases in which space is effectively involved in justice issues. The final section critically discusses the findings and concludes.
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Why is it important?
The concept of “spatial justice” is widely employed in the contemporary debate and academic literature (for instance, in the fields of urban studies, planning theory, and human and political geography). The notion of spatial justice is usually deemed decisive for a radical change in urban policies and planning. However, there is no agreed definition of spatial justice. This happens also because the idea, while obtaining an immediate and widespread success, still lacks some necessary conceptual and analytical explorations and clarifications. Any attempt to formalise or operationalise the issue of spatial justice needs a preliminary specification of its possible meanings and scope.
Perspectives
Discussions on justice are very distinctive ways to assess human conditions and can include space only in certain ways. From our perspective, a credible and viable “spatial turn” is therefore an attempt to take “(geographical) space” seriously and systematically into consideration in various fields, political philosophy included. However, this does not necessarily imply any epistemological revolution but rather, simply but not trivially, a crucial enrichment of our (explanatory and normative) views.
prof. Stefano Moroni
Politecnico di Milano
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Spatial justice: A fundamental or derivative notion?, City Culture and Society, September 2024, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.ccs.2024.100593.
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