[URBANTH-L]CFP Justice and Injustice in the City

[Walter Nicholls]

Session Title: Justice and Injustice in the City

Session Proposed for the Royal Geographical Society – 
Institute of British Geographers Annual Meeting, 30 August 
– 1 September 2006, London

The recent series of riots in French suburbs and the 
impact of hurricane Katrina in New Orleans have once again 
put the issue of urban injustices on the agenda. These 
events make clear that many of the principal injustices of 
our time materialise, mature, and are governed in cities. 
Cities and national governments have increasingly 
prioritised penal forms of intervention over economic and 
social ones to address growing urban injustices. However, 
such efforts are continuously challenged through 
disturbances such as riots and more organized efforts such 
as urban social movements. These actors challenge how 
injustices are managed by political systems, but also, 
they challenge hegemonic understandings of what constitute 
just and unjust societies. These forms of resistance can 
produce a wide range of systemic responses varying from 
expanded political and material opportunities for the 
city’s marginalised residents to more restricted ones. 
This session aims to explore the geographies of 
(in)justice in contemporary urban worlds by addressing the 
following questions:

- How do public policies produce or contribute to urban 
injustices?

- What role does space play in the production and 
persistence of urban injustices?

- What are the everyday ways in which urban residents 
experience injustices?

- What strategies do people pursue to contend with urban 
injustices?

- What are the common forms for resistance to urban 
injustices (passive-active, individual, riots, movements, 
etc.)?

- What are the effects of different forms of resistance on 
the systems that produce and manage injustices?


Please a proposal by 20 January, 2006

Session Organisers:

Dr. Mustafa Dikeç, Department of Geography, Open 
University, United Kingdom (m.dikec at openu.ac.uk)

Dr. Walter Nicholls, Department of Geography, Queen Mary, 
University of London, United Kingdom 
(w.nicholls at qmul.ac.uk)