Justice: An Epistolary Essay. Issue 1 (2nd January 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Barkan, Joshua; Pulido, Laura
• Is Part Of: Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Volume 107:Issue 1(2017)
• Page Start: 33
• Page End: 40
• Publication Date: 2017-01-02
• Subjects: corporate social responsibility -- disciplinarity -- environmental justice -- justice -- social movements; 企业社会责任, 学科制度, 环境正义, 正义, 社会运动。; responsabilidad social empresarial -- disciplinaridad -- justicia ambiental -- justicia -- movimientos sociales; Geography -- Periodicals; Environmental sciences -- Periodicals; Geography; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 550
• DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2016.1230422
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2469-4452

Abstract

Abstract : This exchange of letters considers the relationship between geography and different formulations of justice. On one hand, social movements have made visible the particular geographies of racialized, gendered, and class-based injustice. For this reason, the discipline of geography can be useful for social justice activists making justice claims. On the other hand, the public and private institutions to which justice claims are addressed often treat justice as a stable "thing" that can be achieved through protocols and procedures. Moreover, these institutionalized approaches to justice often limit justice claims, at times even enabling the unjust actions that initiated struggles for justice in the first place. Inasmuch as geographic knowledge is incorporated into this disciplining of justice, it, too, potentially limits social struggles. By considering this tension, we highlight the tremendous need for justice and the poverty of our institutionalized responses to that need.