Courses / Module

How might we think about questions of justice and equality at a time of climate, environmental, social and political crises? This five-credit lecture module discusses what geographical approaches to justice offer beyond existing Western models of criminal and social justice by adopting a historical and multi-scalar approach. We consider justice according to key concepts in geography, including space, place, landscape, environment and scale, and also adapt a feminist and decolonising approach. We will draw upon insights from social movements as well as different subfields of human geography (cultural, social, historical, political and environmental) and related fields to consider case studies from Ireland and North America. (Some examples from other parts of the world may be introduced. Specific examples of geographies of injustice in colonial and postcolonial Ireland and North America, as well as other parts of the world, will enable us to examine: present-day unequal distributions of resources; forms of oppression that privilege some groups while marginalising others; legacies of colonialism, slavery, capitalism, patriarchy, racism and other processes that produce and affect current-day uneven geographies and power relations; Western legal systems that privilege individual rights and property, in ways that reinforce and ignore injustice and violence; indigenous understandings of human/more-than-human relations. By learning about the histories of the underlying spatial structural processes and geographical imaginations that lead to injustice, we can acknowledge past wrongs, work on forms of reparative justice, and create healthier futures. Thinking geographically about in/justice means beginning the work creating more just worlds at multiple scales, starting with where you are. The module is intended to empower students to begin the important critical work to begin of identifying possible geographies of justice in their own hometowns and cities. The ‘Spatial Justice at Home’ projects in the class will support student learning through creative, archival, and mapping methods, and may include: documenting and mapping placenames, interpreting existing monuments, and imagining alternative possibilities in the landscape (commemorative justice).