Spatial justice – an Anglo-French dialogue, supported by the UCL/Institut Français du Royaume Uni Partnership

Social justice remains an enduring, if at times muted, driver of social policy. At the city scale, this normative imperative is increasingly being encapsulated through the notion of spatial justice – an attempt to conceptualise, and render actionable, the complex interplay of relations between distribution, recognition, governance and territory. Spatial justice is a bold and vivid concept, inherently dynamic and political and, as such, warrants closer scrutiny.

With the support of the UCL-Institut Français du Royaume Uni Partnership, colleagues from the Bartlett’s Development Planning Unit and Department of Geography at UCL will, on 7-8 September, have an opportunity to unpack the concept in dialogue with partners from Université de Paris Est (UPE).

The exchange will enable a rare exploration of the linguistic and conceptual appropriation of the term in Anglophone and Francophone literatures, as well as their translation into urban policy. Working across disciplinary and theoretical vantage points, grounded in Northern and Southern based cases of practice, the exchange will test the similarities and differences between so-called ‘French’ and ‘Anglo’ perspectives on spatial justice, and explore how these affect both the conceptualisation of appropriate policy responses, and the formulation of policy instruments to drive implementation.

The exchange will include a public event on 7 September with political philosophers Jonathan Wolff (UCL) and Catherine Audard (LSE & Forum for European Philosophy), who will explore the possible implications for urban development of justice debates in Anglo-American and Francophone philosophical and political thought.

For more information, please email Dr. Barbara Lipietz at b.lipietz@ucl.ac.uk