Your
blog comments will be due on Wednesday, August 14th at 10:00 am. You
may draw from these questions for your posts, or develop
your own response to the readings.
1) How do both Ellison and Soja suggest the ways in
which we internalize spatial identity?
Use examples from both texts to support your answer.
2) In Soja’s prologue, he suggests that the BRU victory
could have had the potential of forcing any public work having to pass a “justice test.” What does he mean by this “justice test”? Do
you think public works should abide by such standards? Consider your own work as an architect. Would
your work pass a “justice test”? Should
it? Use examples from the text to
support or defend your answer.
3) What does Soja mean by the term “spatial justice”? We began this session reading the works of
two architects—FLLW and Le Corbusier—who, in their own ways, sought to remedy
the social ills of their time through space and the built environment. How would Soja critique their efforts? What does spatial justice mean for the 21st
century? Use examples for the text(s) to
support your answer.
What does Soja mean by the term “spatial justice”? We began this session reading the works of two architects—FLLW and Le Corbusier—who, in their own ways, sought to remedy the social ills of their time through space and the built environment. How would Soja critique their efforts? What does spatial justice mean for the 21st century? Use examples for the text(s) to support your answer.
ReplyDeleteSpatial justice is the conglomeration between social justice and space. In order to cure the social injustices of society, one must understand the space that the injustice is taking place. Therefore the combination of space and social justice seems to be the most logical means at solving social injustice in today’s world.
Soja would perceive the idealistic cities of Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier as a success because they were able to see the social injustices that occurred in their time and sought to remedy these issues. Soja may critique these idealistic cities through specific portions of the theories because they do not go very far in analysis.
Spatial justice in the 21st century is a means of showing the people where social injustice lies and with the activism of the day, form groups to combat these injustices. BRU is a perfect example of these activist groups. The success of BRU versus MTA led MTA to purchase “new environment-friendly buses, it would also have to reduce overcrowding, freeze fare structures, enhance bus security, reduce bus stop crime, and provide special services to facilitate access to jobs, education, and health centers” (Soja vii). These improvements on the minority groups lifestyles were a result of the classist segregation that “disproportionately favored the wealthy to a plan that worked more to benefit the poor” (Soja viii). These victories against injustice open up people’s eyes to spatial justice more and more, where they understand of the overall environment. This case brought about the activist in many people’s minds.
"Soja may critique these idealistic cities through specific portions of the theories because they do not go very far in analysis." I wish you had pushed this statement a little further. I think Soja would critique both Wright and Le Corbusier in the sense that neither of their utopias were "classless" and bestowed certain spatial privileges on those people who held positions more "valuable." For instance, in Le Corbusier's fantasy, there is an elite class who would have larger living spaces. We talked about in class how easily Wright's vision could fall into exploitation as some citizens might have better plots of land than others. I would be very careful how you frame this concept of "social justice." Just because something claims to be a cure for social ills, doesn't mean it actually is.
DeleteWithin the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, the author, Susan Cain, explores the ever profound interaction between Rosa Parks and the Public bus driver, where she refuses to move from her seat with the simply powerful word ‘no.’ The interesting notion was that after her death in 2006, her obituary referred to this prominent woman as soft-spoken. She was not a boisterous character, but she was willing to stand by what she believed to be true.
ReplyDeleteIt may be my optimistic perspective that if given the chance, we each would willingly jump from our seat to offer it to someone who would benefit from it more than ourselves. This, however, was not the situation. It was an issue of expectation, discrimination, and adversity. In Ralph Ellison’s Harlem is Nowhere, we read, “For if Harlem is the scene of the folk-Negro’s death agony, it is also the setting of his transcendence.” (Ellison 53) We are taught by our adversities to rise above. This is never the same. To rise above could mean, to forget ourselves or as in the case of Rosa Parks, to remember ourselves, our value, and know we far beyond what some belittling person, society, space, or geography has labeled us as. We learn in times of opposition.
Edward Soja’s Seeking Spacial Justice notes, “All who are oppressed, subjugated, or economically exploited are to some degree suffering from the effects of unjust geographies, and this struggle over geography can be used to build greater crosscutting unity and solidarity.” (Soja 24) I am not arguing that Parks was lucky enough to learn from bigotry her own value, but I will say that from the injustice she experienced, justice and truth was highlighted and in-mistakingly made clear. Her right to her seat in no way was lessened due to any visual or emotional variance.
Soja examines spatial(geographic) justice as an avenue to amplify new understandings, often through political involvement. (Soja 5) The fact of the matter is, is that humans are genuinely excellent at making mistakes. We learn extensively from negative examples and experiences in the past. We evolve over time as our pasts grow richer, “Time brings us to life, tempers our existence, makes us unalterably and irreversibly contemporary, and, in the end, unavoidably temporary.” (Soja 15) To think of ourselves in the here and now is just as important as the future or past. We are unavoidably in the present. Our conditions and surroundings are, they simply are. We are forced to react to what is placed at our feet. Unfortunately, this definite reality is lost by our ability to change the future. And so, “It explains the nature of a world so fluid and shifting that often within the mind the real and the unreal merge.” (Ellison 53)
In some ways I see you exploring a familiar theme of "adverse spaces"--a concept that has cropped up a lot for you this session. I like how you're putting this idea in conversation with Soja's ideas of "spatial justice," but in talking about Rosa Parks I think you're missing an opportunity to explore what her soft-spoken "no" was really negating. Inherently, it speaks to her right to space and that space should not be privileged based on race. I think it would have been interesting to see you analyze the Civil Rights movement spatially. Consider the empty buses of the bus boycott, the young black men sitting resolute at the counter of a diner, the fire houses trying to push marchers back. It's really incredible to consider how these struggles could be mapped out spatially.
DeleteThe article “Seeking Spatial Justice” makes a case for including spatial justice as an alternative to conceptual justice. The author Edward Soja outlines the social production of space, consequential geographies and the basic human right for equitable distribution of resources. He conducts a “wide ranging exploration of spatial justice as a theoretical concept” (Soja 1) with the intent to put into motion many more participatory practices of social activism and spatially attuned political structure. Simultaneously, he hopes to stimulate various new ways of thinking and acting so as to change the unjust geographies which surround us.
ReplyDeleteThe case for Soja’s argument revolves around the 1996 victory of the Los Angles Bus Riders Union over the city’s Metro Transit Authority. The result of this decree forced the MTA, over the following decade, to reorient the public transit system to better meet the needs of the Los Angeles’ lowest income residents. The judicial outcome exhibited local inhabitants not as consumers but as residents who develop the city’s sense of space. Thus, they are endowed with the right to use the space in which they fashion. This relationship between social justice and space is what he refers to as ‘spatial justice.’
Space is a fundamental aspect of human society and thus the notion of social justice is embedded within it. The study of the interaction of space and societies are essential to the understanding of social injustices and to generate urban planning policies that aim to improve these inequalities.
Sonja is critical of seeking the notion of freedoms or liberties which he believes as “increasingly conservative overtones” have made equality to appear as unattainable and fails to structurally change the geography. Yet by seeking justice, one is “imbued with a symbolic force that works more effectively across cleavages of class, race and gender to foster collective political consciousness” (Soja 21).
This is a great summary of Soja, but I'm not getting what *you* think of this text. Do you agree with Soja's conclusions? Where do you see examples of spatial (in)justices? What might be some spatial solutions for the 21st century? I wish you had positioned yourself critically with this text. I'm much more interested in your ideas in relationship to Soja and Ellison rather than a summary.
DeleteAndrea is having some trouble posting, so I'm going to post for her. Here you go!
ReplyDeleteConversation started today
10:18am
Andi Tejeda Gámez
Hi Colleen,
I can't post on the blog. I've been trying for half an hour already and it just tells me than Blogger reports a mistake.
I can't send it via email since my Outlook account also tells me there is a mistake with their service at the moment.
Here is my response to the readings:
Both Soja and Ellison talk about social and planning racism by the way in which they describe the places that the urban poor, who usually inhabit the hearts of cities all over the U.S., are forced to live in not only because it is the only places they can afford to live in but also because the city planning commission pushes them to reside in these areas. Very much like the case Dessie and his family are forced to face in Dermot Bolger’s “From These Green Heights”, those who are not able to afford a car, those who are forced to rely on their city’s help, are sorely disappointed and let down. But as Ellison mentions in his writing “Not that a Negro is worse off in the North than in the South, but that in the North he surrenders and does not replace certain important supports of his personality” (Ellison, pg. 2), which to me means that he, in this case the Negro, simply survives without really living having lost his identity in space and time.
Soja makes a same reference to this sense of “spatial identity” as well: “...it was also a stirring expression of the environmental justice movement, combating racial injustice and discrimination based on place of residence and affirming the view that where one lived could have negative repercussions on important aspects of daily life as well as personal health” (Soja, pg. viii). It is the urban poor of Los Angeles, who ironically have been slummed to live next to the city’s financial district, who rely the most on public transit to go to their multiple jobs, school, entertainment, hospitals, entertainment, etc on a daily basis. But “when well-intentioned transportation planners” are “making the choice between rail and bus, the bus will lose out every time” (Soja, pg. xv), and that is because, as has become the norm everywhere in the world, money has the final say in this consumerist world we live in.
As Soja makes us believe, there is hope in the ever approaching horizon though. Environmental social justice, people outside of Harlem and the L.A. area mentioned previously, are coming together to bring justice (in all of its glorious ramifications) to the people who are most affected by the city planning’s decisions to put aside their needs and benefit, in this case, the car owner. “I’m nowhere” (Ellison, pg. 2) is a sentiment echoed throughout thousand of cities by millions of people. It is time to start designing and addressing city planning with a justice test and the impact these decisions will have on everyone. Otherwise we will continue to have areas in major urban areas, that don’t belong anywhere and that don’t provide a sense of space to any of their inhabitants.
This is a great post. Perhaps in an extended version for a major essay you could explore some of these "solutions" for urban planning that would rectify spatial injustices. How do we provide a sense of "space" to inhabitants? How do we infuse justice within a space? How do we make people feel valuable, like they are actually "somewhere"? Is the idea of spatial justice utopian? Could it ever really exist, or is it something that we continually work toward and reassess?
DeleteSorry, Andrea, I didn't mean to post your correspondence. I can't edit it :(
ReplyDeleteIn Soja’s Prologue, he suggests that the Bus Riders Union (BRU) victory could have had the potential of forcing any public work having to pass a “ justice test.” According to Soja, a justice test is system that would test every public authority and would “determine whether the distributional pattern proposed was fair and equitable for all areas and communities affected, with fairness based on the different needs of the rich and poor as well as majority and minority populations. Similar legal tests could potentially be applied to tax policies, electoral districting, hospital closures, school buildings programs, heath effects of air and water pollution, the siting of toxic facilities, practically every planning and policy decision influencing urban life (Soja XVII).” I agree with Soja because the public institutions are created to serve every person from this particular society with equality and fairness; otherwise there is no need of having public institutions. I do not think the public institutions should be designed to serve only a certain category of the community. Past experiences have shown that this type of practice is dangerous to the society as a whole. In the past, the public institutions in the US implemented the Jim Crow laws that facilitated racial segregation. As result, a certain group of people received better opportunities than others did. The unprivileged people then decided to move out the segregated areas. Dr. Martin Luther King, a civil right leader, argued that, “Injustice anywhere is a treat to justice everywhere (Soja VII).” My interpretation of King’s statement is that any unjust act is in fact dangerous to the nation as a whole. For example, once the unprivileged people have a certain responsibility; they then tend to abuse it and treat the privileged person unfairly. It is an opportunity for the unprivileged people to take vengeance for what they endured in the past. It then becomes a vicious cycle and this phenomenon of injustice tears the country apart. As an architect, I would strive for “justice test” in my work because I believe in equality. In addition, the architect’ s job, in my opinion, is to solve issues and not create them; “Justice test” in architecture should be a must because it does not make sense that Ralph Ellison, an African-American, felt “perpetual alienation in the land of his birth (Ellison 1).” Ellison argues that certain groups of the community such as the African-Americans are located in bad areas because the public institutions do not care about them. He describes Harlem, an major African-American neighborhood, as a “a ruin many of its ordinary aspects (Its crimes, its casual violence, its crumbling buildings with littered areaways, ill-smelling halls, and vermin-invaded rooms) (Ellison 1).”
ReplyDeleteThank you,
Edgar Irakiza
Excellent analysis of the "justice test." You might want to continue analyzing the way in which such a "test" might prove challenging for the various stakeholders involved. Consider how an "environmental justice test" might mean more money for tax payers, or how those same tax payers might be opposed to public housing going up in their neighborhood. Consider how that test might be at odds with a client's desires and visions and the way in which the architect might have to negotiate his conscience with his income.
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