Law Space: Geographies of Justice

to think carefully and critically about the relationship between law and space. In this way, it introduces the interdisciplinary field of study known as ‘legal geography’. In what is a very broad field, our focus will be on how law responds to the most pressing situations of violence, displacement, conflict and injustice. It is relatively easy to identify places of legal practice, such as court rooms, and legal definitions of particular types of spaces, such as national borders or war zones. It is harder – but necessary – to think about how particular places or scales give rise to or trouble particular forms and uses of law. Over this four-week intensive, we will interrogate a series of historical and contemporary, as well as mundane and extraordinary, ‘law spaces’. This will include examinations of the roles of bodies, objects, digital media, and everyday practices in making and sustaining different legal spaces.

• 1Describe and evaluate the major concepts and theories of legal geography;
• 2Identify key trends in legal response to injustices in different places and kinds of spaces;
• 3Apply and modify concepts and theories in response to observations and experiences in the field;
• 4Evaluate and debate the social and spatial justice implications of existing legal regimes.