Spatial Justice - A Pandemic

As I sit trapped inside with limited access to humans and resources… dramatic I know… I can’t help but wonder how spatial justice comes up in pandemic times. Times related to medical issues in terms of who can be where and when or how people judge a particular person or group based on what is occuring at such a time.

We can look at space as more than just material form. Critical spatial thinking today hinges around three principles:

a) The ontological spatiality of being (we are all spatial as well as social and temporal beings)

b) The social production of spatiality (space is socially produced and can therefore be socially changed).

c) the socio-spatial dialectic (the spatial shapes the social as much as the social shapes the spatial)

Space and social being influence one another. In terms of spatial justice, one point relates to local discrimination. This encompasses environmental justice and health differentials. This is the point at which I wonder about pandemics or times like we are in now regarding how it shapes the social AND spatial environment. On an average day there are resources, stores, neighborhoods, public spaces etc. that certain groups or people are either directly or subconsciously unwelcome in. On a not-so-average day, like now, this seems to heighten. The fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and opportunities are no longer there. In some cases it's due to safety - we limit access to protect the worsening of the issue. In some cases it is due to panic, judgement, fear, discrimination, selfishness - spending the money you easily have in the bank on every resource you can which takes it from those who do not have the luxury, not shopping or eating at establishments due to who owns it, and the potential pain of us grads, cancelling ceremonies or events for safety but denying heavily valued social acts.

Unfortunately this may truly be an event that design cannot fix, but what is it’s role at this time? If social settings diminish and if this is what normally produces space, what happens to those spaces? This is my current question on space and our role in a time where we all feel out of control.