Spatial Justice: Body, Lawscape, Atmosphere

Against a recent tendency to despatialise materiality, the central argument of this book is that there can be no justice that is not articulated through and in matter. Spatial justice is a new theory and a radical application of the material connection between space – in the geographical as well as sociological and philosophical sense – and normativity – in a broad sense that includes law, but also social and political norms, environmental structures and financial flows. More specifically, spatial justice, it is argued here, names the struggle of various bodies – human, natural, non-organic, technological – to occupy a certain space at a certain time. Seen in this way, spatial justice is the most radical offspring of law’s recent turn to space, since, as this book demonstrates, spatial justice can be found in the core of most contemporary legal and political issues – issues such as geopolitical conflicts, global commons, population movement and environmental resource scarcity.

Written by a leading theorist in the area, Spatial Justice forges a new interdisciplinary understanding of space and normativity, while offering a fresh approach to current geopolitical, legal and ecological issues.