Space and society from the perspective of spatial justice : Editorial

Abstract

The studies of this special issue focus on the concept of spatial and social justice. The editors’ and authors’ shared aim was to stimulate further research on spatial justice in Hungary,and to connect to its three main strands in international academic discourse.

The first strand concerns social theories on spatial justice with three marked streams. The liberal stream drawing on Rawls’ theory on social justice defines justice based on distribution. Soja’s critical spatial approach emphasizes the role of capitalist market economy in the emergenceof social injustices. Transcending the concept of social justice linked exclusively to economic production systems and class relations, the post-structuralist approach highlights the various ways different social groups experience social injustices.

The second strand of academic debates on social and spatial justice are related to different spatial conceptions, which are all linked by a relational approach that views social injustice embedded in the (re)production of social relations. This relational approach analyses spatial configurations in relation to the social processes that are (re)producing them. Studies in this vein,also followed by most papers in this special issue, concentrate on such instances of social and spatial injustice as the segregation of disadvantaged social groups, inequalities related to environmental problems, access to public services and resources as well as to participation in the share of public goods.

The third strand of discourse pertains to the practical applications of the concept of spatial justice. One stream within this approach examines the practical application of the concept interritorial and local development policies, while another discusses its applicability in social movements. These studies can be particularly instructive for spatial justice research in Hungary in its start-up phase, since they aim to critically evaluate different development programmes and institutional practices through the concept of spatial justice.

By studying the horizontal and vertical relations of various developmental actors, most of the studies in this special issue, linked to the RELOCAL research project, focus on scrutinizing local actors’ – local governments’, NGOs’ or church-related organizations’ – room for manoeuvre to implement place-based development needs and goals, the kinds of resources they can mobilize forthese goals and the way these are accommodated by the overall goals of domestic policies and institutions. Some of the findings indicate that EU cohesion policy has only limited capacities to trigger more extensive implementations of spatial justice.