What does spatial justice mean to me in practice?

What does spatial justice mean to me in practice?

It means offering convincing responses to the lived experiences of abandonment among older people in mountainous areas of Greece or on small islands, when they are left without health centres, post offices, banks or even an ATM. It means reducing the spatial inequality experienced by children attending schools in remote areas without teachers or internet access — a form of spatial injustice that was brought into sharp focus during the COVID-19 pandemic through online schooling. It means resisting confinement in places of extreme racist isolation, such as migrant detention centres in Europe and Greece, where the very notion of justice is absent, as international conventions signed by our country are violated. It means challenging exclusion from the city when certain neighbourhoods lack adequate public transport, as depicted in the film The 47 set in Barcelona. It means reducing intra-European inequalities that triggered the economic and political crisis of 2008–2012. Finally, it means supporting just responses to the extreme humiliation currently endured by Palestinian men and women in the West Bank, at the dozens of checkpoints they must cross through the arbitrary wall constructed by the neo-colonial state of Israel, enclosing their land. Not to mention the epitome of spatially situated criminal injustice — the genocide unfolding in real time in the enclosed space of Gaza.

Inequalities are not only social but also geographical; we are always dealing with socio-spatial inequalities that concern all places, all individuals and all bodies

I could go on with many more examples, but these are enough to introduce something important: equality and justice are not pursued in the abstract, but in concrete times and spaces. We are not simply dealing with injustices, but with socio-spatial injustices located in places that have names. For this reason, actions for justice must also have a spatial dimension. Inequalities are not only social but also geographical; we are always dealing with socio-spatial inequalities that concern all places, all individuals and all bodies, marked by class, gender, ethnic, age and LGBTQI+ distinctions. It is therefore important to think about injustice, justice and equality spatially, to view them through the lens of geography, and to act accordingly.

The organisation of space, a crucial dimension of human societies, reflects social conditions and shapes social relations, as the French philosopher Henri Lefebvre argued and theorised from the early 1970s. Consequently, both justice and injustice become visible in space. Feelings such as indignation, abandonment, confinement/exclusion and exploitation are experienced unevenly by individuals and social groups, but always in specific places and regions. For this reason, analysing the interactions between space and society is essential for understanding socio-spatial injustices and for shaping spatial policies and actions aimed at addressing them.

Some places and societies […] pay with their lives for errors and omissions, while elsewhere life and property are protected

Environmental justice is closely aligned with socio-spatial justice, as a demand for change in response to unequal living conditions and the negative impacts on the environment and local communities — for instance, from extractive activities, the deprivation of vital resources such as land and water, industrial pollution or noise, and above all the climate crisis. Certain places and societies, due to the vulnerability of their regions, pay with their lives for errors and omissions, while elsewhere life and property are protected. 

In the unequal and unjust world we live in, spaces and places are therefore not neutral; they are not simply “containers of life.” From central urban areas undergoing gentrification (the forced displacement of residents due to rising land prices or overtourism) to marginalised rural regions, and from protected communities in the Global North to communities in the Global South exposed to hunger and disasters, the spaces we inhabit reflect the deeper structures of exploitation and exclusion that characterise the dominant model of social reproduction of our time — neoliberal capitalism. Socio-spatial and environmental justice provide a useful framework for approaching the current neoliberal conjuncture, as they take a critical stance towards these injustices and offer ideas and practices for transformative change in dominant power relations in all their forms: from institutional and political power relations at European, national and local levels to those imposed by markets and capital accumulation, and down to the micro-powers that shape everyday social relations.

Power always appears and is exercised spatially, spreading across multiple scales, from the global to the local

It should be noted that there is a long tradition of treating power as a-spatial, as if it operated on the head of a pin. Yet power always appears and is exercised spatially, spreading across multiple scales, from the global to the local. It is no coincidence that socio-spatial and environmental issues at different scales often serve as key starting points for political claims and struggles against various forms of power.

Below, I outline four indicative directions for transformative policies, given that the demand for socio-spatial and environmental justice has multiple addressees:

a) Redistribution, for example in terms of income, infrastructure, services and information — that is the opposite of the current EU regional policy, which is also implemented in Greece and promotes the destructive competitiveness of cities and regions. 

b) Recognition of inequalities and discrimination, both individual and collective, for example in relation to social class, age, gender, ethnicity and sexuality. Individuals and groups within these categories have different spatial demands and needs, which must be acknowledged.

c) Planning for foresight and the collective protection of nature, settlements and societies from crises, from irrational “development” proposals, and from the destructive effects of the climate crisis.

d) Support for initiatives addressing minor delinquency or neglect of the “commons” — public space in cities, forests, water resources and coastal areas.

We are not all equal, however, when it comes to socio-spatial injustice or environmental problems. The spatial dimension sheds light on those who lose or gain from the impacts of, for example, a natural disaster, an infrastructure project, or even from the ideological use of (or indifference towards) a landmark, the inscribed memory of a place. The unequal socio-spatial impacts of the Mediterranean cyclone “Daniel” in the wider region of Thessaly are still visible. Not everyone lost equally, while photovoltaic companies seized the opportunity for profit by appropriating the fertile land of the plain. The struggles against the installation of wind turbines in the Agrafa mountains highlight the gap between the ambitions of international energy companies and the local community. For these companies, mountain peaks are seen as cheap plots of land, whereas in the local imaginary they constitute landmarks, a valuable memory embedded in a fragile ecosystem.

If there is one thing in contemporary Greece that underscores socio-spatial injustices […] it is the contrast between abandonment and overexploitation of space and local resources, particularly land and water

If there is one thing in contemporary Greece that underscores socio-spatial injustices and, consequently, the demand for socio-spatial and environmental justice in practice it is the contrast between abandonment and overexploitation of space and local resources, particularly land and water.

This contrast can be observed everywhere. In cities, the overexploitation of land takes the form of a frenzy of luxury developments in selected areas for the newly wealthy, both Greek and foreign, the spread of Airbnb, and the promotion of large-scale, often grandiose interventions. At the same time, lower land values in “other” neighbourhoods translate into their abandonment: a lack of green space, exposure to waste accumulation, chronic traffic congestion, areas that become heat traps in the summer, yet remain highly vulnerable to flooding at the first heavy downpour.

In rural areas, the contrast lies between the abandonment of mountainous regions –the “tragic mountains”, as described by Angelos Elefantis– and the overexploitation of coastal and island regions by tourism. In these “tragic mountains”, schools close due to a lack of pupils, the few remaining residents are over 60 years old, employment opportunities are almost non-existent, and agriculture and livestock farming are in decline. This abandonment is further reinforced by clientelist policies such as those associated with OPEKEPE1, which discourage honest entrepreneurship, while mountainous land becomes a target for extractive industries and industrial-scale renewable energy projects, and river waters –such as those of the Acheloos– are targeted for new dam constructions.

By contrast, in tourist islands, private schools are opening, profits from tourism and construction sustain local economies and generate some of the highest incomes in the country, and younger populations are more present than those over 60 years old. Yet tourism and international real estate markets also rely here on the appropriation of land and scarce water resources, through overbuilding and the proliferation of swimming pools, destroying what remains of the arid landscapes once celebrated by poets.

These different “Greeces” are not only the result of long-term structural changes in systems of social reproduction — some may even see them as inevitable. It is true that similar transformations have been taking place across Europe for years. The polarisation of land values in cities has deepened socio-spatial stratification and generated housing crises where social housing infrastructures are absent. The devaluation of the countryside as a site of production lies, unfortunately, at the core of neoliberal European policies on agriculture and regional development. 

In Greece, however, these dynamics take on additional dimensions. The severe damage experienced in recent years due to the erosion of the rule of law and the intensification of socio-spatial inequalities is often attributed solely to the neoliberal policies of central government and local authorities. Indeed, economic incentives, spatial planning frameworks and local programmes tend to follow the demands and profit strategies of capital, both large-scale and small-to-medium, in sectors such as extractivism, renewable energy, tourism and real estate, accompanied by attacks on labour and the degradation of social services.

Without underestimate any of the above, such dynamics must also be analysed in terms of social and political psychology: in terms of indifference, malice, and even hostility towards anything held in common — public space, nature, forests, water, mountain peaks, beaches, everything that remains for collective use. This aversion is diffused across large parts of society and is not confined to structures of power alone. Alongside the large-scale negative interventions of recent years, we also observe everyday forms of minor illegality and neglect by citizens and small business owners: from illegal constructions in forests, to the occupation of streets and squares by café seating, noise pollution, hostility towards the few remaining urban trees, and indifference towards waste, vandalism of benches, beaches and monuments.

The violent appropriation [of public space, nature, land and water] contributes to turning us into the subordinate subjects required by the neoliberal order

What is unfolding before us is a transformation of enormous scale in the conditions of social reproduction and survival in the place we inhabit. Public space, nature, land and water constitute the horizon within which meanings of collectivity, freedom and democracy are shaped. For this reason, their violent appropriation contributes to turning us into the subordinate subjects required by the neoliberal order. This situation will persist and intensify with the climate crisis — not only because it lies at the core of the dominant model of economic growth, but also because, for many, it constitutes an “existential amputation”, as Kostas Manolidis has written, and a push towards political resignation, precisely what the status quo seeks.

In the face of these tendencies, our collective resistance is urgent.