International Conference « SPATIAL JUSTICE »
University of Paris X, Nanterre, March 12-14-2008
After a brief plenary meeting five themes were discussed in the different workshops:
· Theoretical and Epistemological Approaches
· Spatial Justice: Identities and Minorities
· Environmental Justice and Injustice
· Spatial Justice and Segregation
· What is a “Just” Territorial Policy?
In the plenary, Edward Soja discussed the way thinking about space have changed and the concepts of spatial justice and “Right to the City”. Until very recently the term spatial justice was not used. But by thinking about this concept and adopting a critical spatial point of view new insights can be found for improving democracy. Thinking spatially now is widespread in different disciplines. Today we recognize the “spatialization” of justice and also the “spatialization” of capital. Justice also is obtaining a different significance. Seeking to increase justice is a fundamental objective. Joining spatial and justice brings new views. He gave as an example the struggle of the buss drivers union in Los Angeles. They sued the Mass Transit Authority and won as the plan for mass transit did not afford the flexibility needed by the working poor of the inner city. Their action resulted in the shift of funds from the rich to the poor.
Then Peter Marcuse presented his book “The City and Spatial Justice” by asking what is justice? What is spatial justice? One cannot find a just city in an unjust society. He discusses the forms of spatial injustice. Such as unfair distribution of resources, confinement in ghettos, lack of freedom to move.
Social injustice always includes spatial injustice. Spatial remedies however are not sufficient to treat spatial injustice. He uses Harlem in New York City as an example of spatial injustice. It has been a classical case of spatial injustice with a limitation of good housing, limited educational opportunities, poor health care, and poor transportation. And even now that there is gentrification in Harlem the welfare of the people is not improving. His conclusion was that to center on spatial justice one must have social justice in mind.
Many of the papers given in the workshops were either very theoretical or were case studies in very specific circumstances. I have selected two abstracts of papers that I feel are of interest to members of HIC as they deal with methods of resistance.
The New Enclosures: Public Housing, Privatization and Resistance in Contemporary Britain
Hodkinson Stuart, British Academy Research Fellow, School of Geography, University of Leeds
From the late 1400s onwards, Britain’s dramatic transformation from a Feudal society to a capitalist one was inseparable from the land enclosures that gradually dispossessed the vast majority of the population from the means of reproduction. Since 1980, and more intensely since New Labour, an historic new wave of ‘enclosures’ has gripped Britain under the rapid shift from post-war social democracy to free market society. Nowhere has this process been more acute than in housing: over the past three decades more than three million publicly-owned homes have been transferred to private individual or corporate ownership. Existing public housing provision is now being marketised through ‘Arms Length’ management companies and the use of private sector finance. Large-scale demolitions are also clearing vast areas for new private housing under the government’s so-called ‘sustainable communities agenda’ while proposed regulatory changes could eventually see social housing providers becoming Real Estate Investment Trusts that would float on the stock market. Despite the obvious role of finance capital in these processes, surprisingly little academic research of either theoretical or empirical nature exists into the ‘financial geographies’ of Britain’s housing privatization story.
This paper explores two hypotheses: first, that housing policy is being primarily driven by the particular investment needs of over accumulating finance capital; and second, this process is in turn driving a ‘new enclosures’ movement in Britain beyond the simple ‘public to private’ transfer of assets that incorporates the ‘privatization of welfare’ through associated benefit and labor market reforms, and the ‘privatisation of place’ through ‘displacement by gentrification’ of the poor from their own communities.
The paper will assess these hypotheses in relation to recent research conducted in the Northern England city of Leeds where the New Urban Enclosures are particularly acute as governments and multinationals force submissive local authorities to sell off – even give away – more and more of their housing stock, playing fields, and other land assets as part of massive urban regeneration schemes aimed at gentrifying communities and dispersing the poor further and further out of the city.
The paper will explore the various mechanisms of Enclosure through case studies of a local public-private partnership housing renewal scheme in an innercity estate and a major joint-venture regeneration project in the deprived suburbs of East and South East Leeds. However, as the chapter will argue, ordinary people are fighting back whether through traditional tenants groups or more self organized campaign networks. The paper ends with a critical analysis of how far these movements can truly resist the New Enclosures and what strategies and tactics might be adopted in the future.
Justice et injustice spatiales: le cas du Brésil
. Maricato Erminia, Professeur Titulaire et Chercheur, Laboratório de Habitação e Assentamentos Humanos, de la Faculté d´Architecture et d’Urbanisme de l´Université de São Paulo (LabHab FAUUSP)
. Sette Whitaker Ferreira João, Professeur, Docteur et Chercheur, Laboratório de Habitação e Assentamentos Humanos de la Faculté d´Architecture et d’Urbanisme de l´Université de São Paulo (LabHab FAUUSP)
L´impact de la restructuration du système de production (selon David Harvey) des années 70 et de la “mondialisation”, a été assez semblable dans le monde capitaliste: progrès technologique impactant les relations espace-temps, flexibilisation de la localisation du capital, précarisation du travail, fragilisation des syndicats et des partis politiques, recul de l´Etat et des politiques publiques,
dérégulations et privatisations. Mais les différences existent, non pas parce qu´il y a des “régions qui gagnent” (ou qui perdent) (selon Lipietz et Benko), mais surtout parce que dans les pays de la périphérie du capitalisme selon Mike Davis, d´après les rapports de l´ONU, le monde s´est définitivement urbanisé a partir de 2005.
Au Brésil, cet impact s´est produit sur une société n´ayant jamais connu les bénéfices de l´Etat Providence, comme la sécurité sociale, le droit la santé, l´éducation, au logement. En ce qui concerne les relations entre société et territoire, l´avancée néolibérale a approfondi l´injustice spatiale dans un pays où l´urbanisation dépasse les 80%, et dont les 11 régions métropolitaines concentrent 80% de la pauvreté urbaine. Les causes de cette injustice – qui se traduit spatialement par le fait que près de la moitié de la population urbaine vit dans l´informalité – sont liées aux processus structurels de la formation du pays: l´illégalité et la restriction du droit la justice comme norme des relations du travail et des formes d´occupation de la terre. Les classes dominantes minoritaires ont toujours eu la mainmise sur les bénéfices des sauts de modernisation et de croissance économique, et maintenu une hégémonie absolue sur les relations politiques, traitant la sphère publique comme un bien privé et utilisant des relations de faveurs comme monnaie d´échange dans l´appareil de l´Etat.
Les régimes dictatoriaux qui ont marqué le continent n´ont fait que consolider ce système. L´offre de main-d´oeuvre bon marché a permis ces pays leur insertion dans l´économie capitaliste au long du XX siècle. Ainsi, de meilleures conditions de vie pour la force de travail n´ont jamais orienté les politiques publiques. Les villes ont grandit au large des normes, les masses de travailleurs occupant les terres peu favorables l´urbanisation, privées des services essentiels comme l´eau, les égouts, et soumises au risque d´épidémies, écroulements et inondations, en conséquence du manque absolu de politiques urbaines et de logement autres que celles destinées aux classes dominantes.
Lors des derniers 25 ans, alors que le monde s´est urbanisé, le recul des investissements publics préconisés par le Consensus de Washington, n´a fait qu´augmenter au Brésil l´inégalité spatiale. Dans les grandes villes, deux aspects seront l´objet de notre attention. D´abord, le fait qu´une nouvelle législation pour restreindre le droit la propriété a été approuvée, grâce aux mouvements populaires urbains s´opposant l´intense spéculation créée par la valorisation de l´immobilier. Mais son application est un défi, dû la difficulté d´affronter les forces hégémoniques, alors que des quartiers entiers continuent être construits sans la présence de l´Etat, soumis la violence du crime organisé. Deuxièmement, le fait que les pauvres, soit la majorité de la population des villes, exclus du marché immobilier privé et ignorés par les politiques publiques, finissent par s´établir informellement dans les seules régions qui restent: celles légalement protégées en raison de leur fragilité. Cela constitue un autre défi, face l´antagonisme entre l´urbanisation des périphéries pauvres et la protection de l´environnement.
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