From their very beginnings cities have been sites of social tension, exploitation and emancipatory movements. This remains the same today, with a host of contemporary processes giving rise to new questions of justice and, at the same time, resurrecting some age-old issues. Indeed, cities today face unprecedented challenges. Migration, rapid urbanization, growing inequality, authoritarian governments, racial tensions, terrorism, climate change, and the list goes on. These issues are also transformed by processes of globalization, whereby the connections and networks between cities separated by vast physical distances have intensified, leading to complex urban relationships that have required new theoretical understandings.

The module investigates cities and social justice from a geographical perspective.  The concept of justice is itself sprawling, its complicated lineaments a persistent source of intense philosophical debate. At its core, justice refers to the standards used in assessing what is fair; measuring social justice is assessing what is fair, good or moral across society, especially the distribution of benefits and burdens between different population groupings. Definitions of a just society are necessarily wide-ranging, incorporating a variety of cross-cutting tensions between individual versus societal norms, and between universalism and group difference. These musings on social justice are not simply an academic exercise; they are also reflected in the real world, from segregation and polarization to homelessness, environmental racism and violence.

1. Critically engage with the nature and purpose of geographical knowledge
2. Understand different notions of justice with whom geography and geographers could engage
3. Critically engage with the real-world implications of justice and injustice in urban space
4. Critically examine how these debates play out in real life examples.

The module will be delivered through a combination of 2-hour lectures and 1-hour presentation/discussion/seminars.

1. Ability to mobilise and present theoretically-informed arguments and relate them to empirical material
2. Ability to  understand and communicate clearly issues related to  the diversity of cognitive and normative perspectives of people in different societies and cultures, and those of policy makers, and institutions
3. Ability to verbally analyse and summarize key readings in the social justice literature, presentations skills that also constitute employability skills.

Type of assessment

%

Contribution

Title

Duration
(if applicable)

Approx. date of Assessment

Individual Essay

50%

 Apply one of the four social justice theories to a specific case study

2000words

Autumn

Final exam

50%

Unseen exam, with mandatory short answers and 1 out of 5 essay question

1.5 hours

Autumn

The opportunity for reassessment in this module

Students are permitted to be reassessed in a module which they have failed, in line with the course regulations. The reassessment will usually take place during the summer.

The following topics will be covered:

Defining justice, injustice, social justice

Four approaches to social justice: Liberal approaches (Rawls), radical approaches (Harvey, Iris-Young), planning approaches (Fainstein), spatial approaches (Soja)

Case studies of in/justice: the ghetto; environmental racism; homelessness; resilience/remaking/resistance

Fainstein, S. (2010) The Just City. Cornell University Press.

Harvey, D. (1973) Social Justice and the City. Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Mitchell, D. (2003) The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. London: Guilford Press.

Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Smith, D.M. (2000) Moral progress in human geography: Transcending the place of good fortune. Progress in Human Geography 24: 1-18.

Smith, D.M. (2000) Social justice revisited. Environment and Planning A 32: 1149-1162.

Soja, E. (2010) Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Young, I. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton NJ: University of Princeton Press.

Cloke, P., May, J. and S. Johnsen (2010) Swept Up Lives. London: Wiley-Blackwell.

Why spatial justice? (2007) Critical Planning. Summer Edition.

Davis, M. (1990) City of Quartz. New York: Verso.

Merrifield, A. and E. Swyngedouw (1996) Editors. The Urbanization of Injustice. New York: New York University Press.

Pulido, L. (2000) Rethinking environmental racism: White privilege and urban development in Southern California. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90: 12-40