Transcript pacification by cappacino”

A Tale of Two Rights:
The Right to the City and A
Right to Adequate Housing
Margot Young, LAW, UBC
PHRN Symposium November 19, 2014
The Just City
“pacification by cappuccino”
Sharon Zukin, 1995
NEOLIBERALISM
AND THE CITY
“…neoliberal governance works through the
hegemonic model of growth
politics…commercialization of public space,
the intensification of surveillance and
policing of urban space, the entrepreneurial
ways in which cities market themselves in
global competition and the concomitant
neglect of neighbourhoods falling by the
wayside.” Margit Mayer, 2010
“…another type of human
rights, that of the right to the
city.”
David Harvey 2008
…the right of everyone to an
adequate standard of living …
including adequate food,
clothing and housing…. The
States Parties will take appropriate
steps to ensure the realization of
this right...
United Nations Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, Article 11(1)
“horizons of possibilities”
Werbner and Yuval-Davis, 1999
“…another type of human rights, that of
the right to the city.”
David Harvey 2008
Conflictual,
agonistic
interactions
-surge in
attention to
participation
in the
production of
the spaces of
the city
Henri Lefebrve 1968: “it’s like a
cry and a demand.” Participation
and Appropriation.
The call “to radically rethink the
social relations of capitalism, the
spatial structure of the city and
the assumptions of liberal
democracy.” Mark Purcell, 2008
Struggles around homelessness and
new housing in Vancouver
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Oppenheimer Park
Oakridge
Kettle of Fish
Dunbar
– and so on…guerrilla
gardening, squats, safe
injection sites
INHABIT
VANCOUVER
Catalyst for a wide variety of
movements, policy, thought but…
• A difficult and open idea
• Whose city?
• More reformist contexts and contents…conflation
to liberal notions of multiple socio-economic
rights…not about a transformed and very
different just society
…the right to adequate
housing
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Court File No. CV-10-403688
Ontario
Superior Court of Justice
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BETWEEN:
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JENNIFER TANUDJAJA, JANICE ARSENAULT, ANSAR MAHMOOD,
BRIAN DUBOURDIEU, CENTRE FOR EQUALITY RIGHTS IN
ACCOMMODATION
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Applicants
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-and-
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ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA and
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF ONTARIO
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Respondents
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APPLICATION UNDER Rule 14.05(3)(g.1) of the Rules of Civil Procedure, R.R.O. 1990, O Reg.
194 and under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
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MOTION RECORD
(of the proposed intervener, Charter Committee on Poverty Issues, Pivot Legal Society, the
Income Security Advocacy Centre and Justice for Girls)
Canadian
Charter of
Rights and
Freedoms:
Section 7
right to
life, liberty
and
security of
the
person;
Section 15
right to
equality
• Law “reflects a dynamic relationship between
spatial forms and social discourses with
corresponding productions of control,
authority, and power.” Melinda Benson, 2014
• Law’s capacity to form and reform the
material world.
• Individual or group based?
Rights and
• Liberal legalism
remedial options
These two ways of capturing the injustices
of Canadian urban life and relations have
both emerged as key discourses in the
struggle for inclusive and just cities.
Together, the two politics offer provocative
tensions around issues of individual and
collective action, legal and political
avenues, universality and particularity, and
expansion and containment.
With the downsizing, downloading, and
downscaling typical of neoliberalism in full
bloom across Canada, we can expect to see
prominent social justice issues emerging
from the streets, lanes, parks, and
structures of Canadian cities.
We need to think about rights and justice as
often deeply located in local politics and as
requiring a re-production of spaces, of civic
geography.