‘Stay Safe, Stay Home’: Spatial Justice in the Pandemic City

Legalities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-43
Author(s):  
Alison Young

How does spatial justice take place within cities? To understand spatial justice within a city under lockdown, this article considers both the ‘corporeal emplacements’ within spaces identified by Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos (2015) and the ‘material geographies’ ( Soja 2010 ) essential to understanding spatial justice in everyday life in contemporary cities. Several of the material localities arising during the ‘stay home’ orders of the State of Emergency in Victoria are considered; namely, first, the shared spaces of the street visited by individuals on their permitted forays from home; second, the domestic space of the home; third, the spaces occupied by or allocated to those who lack stable housing; and, finally, hotel rooms, used during the pandemic to house people experiencing homelessness, returned travellers in quarantine, and evacuated detainees. Close examination of such places reveals fault lines of social stratification, linguistic and representational boundary lines regulating their governance, and the stakes of seeking to achieve spatial justice in the pandemic city.

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bojan Žikić ◽  
Mladen Stajić ◽  
Marko Pišev

The situation caused by the appearance of Covid-19 can be viewed as a critical event: typologically, it is an unprecedented event, which requires and shapes new forms of historical action hitherto unknown in the given context. Critical events serve as strong value and emotional landmarks in the cultural cognition of each social environment, and form the basis for a meaningful determination towards other events. Using material collected primarily from the online versions of electronic and printed media, we consider how the reality they presented is shaped through the news through the statements of politicians and medical doctors in Serbia. We trace how the narrative transformation of socio-cultural reality took place from the time before the of Covid-19 outbreak in our country to the time immediately after the lifting of the state of emergency declared due to that infection. The premise of all that is being done to tackle the infection is not a purpose in itself, but aims to enable a return to the life we were accustomed to before the outbreak of the epidemic. Covid-19 destabilizes our everyday life – a life that consists of work or study, use of free time, socializing etc. Such everyday life is a reference point of "normalcy". Socio-cultural normalcy refers to all that is understood as a normal and undisturbed course of everyday life. The appearance of Covid-19 gave rise to the notion of the "new normal", that is, a course of everyday life that is similar to normal, ordinary life, but with adherence to measures aimed at preventing the spread of infection by the authorities. In the paper we deal with the period that begins just before the outbreak of Covid-19 in our country, and ends with the period after the lifting of the state of emergency, to show the discursively produced picture of social reality in which the concept of the "new normal" serves as a cultural cognitive tool for understanding a situation in which one has to live with Covid-19 in order to one day be able to return to the way of life that existed before it.


2021 ◽  
pp. 216769682110295
Author(s):  
Teodora Vuletić ◽  
Natalija Ignjatović ◽  
Biljana Stanković ◽  
Ana Ivanov

Although emerging adults are generally more physically resilient to the severe effects of COVID-19, they might be vulnerable to the psychological stressors brought about by the crisis. Using semi-structured interviews, this qualitative research aimed to explore the experiences, well-being, coping strategies and future expectations of 15 emerging adults in Serbia during the state of emergency caused by the global pandemic. As a result of thematic analysis, six main themes emerged, focusing on: 1) disruptions in everyday life and functioning; 2) the pandemic as a health crisis; 3) public reaction to the pandemic as a source of tension and frustration; 4) crisis as an opportunity; 5) coping strategies; 6) imagining the post-pandemic future. The present study points to the resilience and resourcefulness of emerging adults in the local context and emphasizes the heterogeneity of this age group and the vulnerability sources of those who might need additional support.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-59
Author(s):  
Flora Hergon

This article focuses on the massive house searches and house arrests that occurred during the state of emergency in France between 2015 and 2017. It draws from critical studies on counterterrorism as well as sociology of the intimate to analyze the aftermath of these measures on the Muslim households that experienced these procedures without being sentenced afterward. It examines how house arrests and searches redefine the respondents’ relationships to their domestic space and local environment as these places become spaces of fear, surveillance, discipline, and self-control. The analysis reveals a set of embodied and discursive strategies to prove an innocence that implies a reappropriation of state categories around social integration and the promotion of an acceptable and non-suspect religiosity.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 34-45
Author(s):  
Funda Çoban

Agamben's concept, zone of indistinction, defines politically constructed, ambiguous time-space settings that are built by the sovereign, declaring the state of emergency, transforming the subjects into homo sacer. In this sense, a zone of indistinction is the space reproducing dominance and hierarchy. However, Agamben's analysis developed around this concept skips the reality of resistance zones which can be constructed by micro agents suspending the quasi-objective time-and-space settings organized in everyday-life practices. From this point of critical view, the article proposes a new concept, counter-zones of indistinction, which follows Agamben's analytical agenda from the side of non-dominant power relations. Thus, the article explains counter-zones of indistinction while it also analyzes the differences among counter-public spaces, heterotopias to make clear the conceptual boundaries. Hence, the article aims to contribute to Agamben's well-known study on the zone of indistinction.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 799-836
Author(s):  
Jovana Čikić ◽  
Ana Bilinović-Rajačić

Increased risks are inspiring context for family practices' analysis as they can impact changes in practices, thus changing family functioning and relations. The aim of the paper is to identify features of the main family practices (reproduction of everyday life, partnership, parenthood) during pandemic and state of emergency in Serbian society. It is assumed that these conditions led to practices' changes. The issue is analysed based on data collected on a sample of 265 female respondents using a combined research plan. The results showed that the state of emergency and the pandemic of COVID-19 virus induced changes in main family practices. The most common were changes in the reproduction of everyday life (especially, groceries shopping), while pre-pandemic partnership practices were the most resistant to change. Traditional and egalitarian practices showed greater resilience to change, while masculine practices are usually newly established. There is continuity in the use of "female" resources in family practices, but with a shift from this pattern towards more frequent engagement of "male" resources, due to changes in the professional roles during the state of emergency.


2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Mary L. Mullen

This article considers the politics and aesthetics of the colonial Bildungsroman by reading George Moore's often-overlooked novel A Drama in Muslin (1886). It argues that the colonial Bildungsroman does not simply register difference from the metropolitan novel of development or express tension between the core and periphery, as Jed Esty suggests, but rather can imagine a heterogeneous historical time that does not find its end in the nation-state. A Drama in Muslin combines naturalist and realist modes, and moves between Ireland and England to construct a form of untimely development that emphasises political processes (dissent, negotiation) rather than political forms (the state, the nation). Ultimately, the messy, discordant history represented in the novel shows the political potential of anachronism as it celebrates the untimeliness of everyday life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 4-32
Author(s):  
Le Hoang Anh Thu

This paper explores the charitable work of Buddhist women who work as petty traders in Hồ Chí Minh City. By focusing on the social interaction between givers and recipients, it examines the traders’ class identity, their perception of social stratification, and their relationship with the state. Charitable work reveals the petty traders’ negotiations with the state and with other social groups to define their moral and social status in Vietnam’s society. These negotiations contribute to their self-identification as a moral social class and to their perception of trade as ethical labor.


Author(s):  
Anastasiya Тikhonova

In the article the author mentions some modern publications on this issue in the era of Alexander I and Nicholas I in connection with the description of the travelling theme in the context of everyday life history. As an example of the Russian Province, the article considers Smolensk Governorate which was located at the crossroads of routes from Europe to the center of Russia through Baltic, Belarusian and Ukrainian Provinces. On the basis of the materials of the State Archive of the Smolensk region (GASO) from the funds of the Chancellery of Smolensk Governor, the Smolensk Oblast Duma, metric books of Roman Catholic Church in Smolensk and published memoirs (Eugene Hess’ diary and E. Montulé’s notes) the author of the article reconstructs foreign hotel owners’ biographies (S.I. Chapa, D.K. Nolchini, V.I. Gaber), masters of carriage business (D.I. Graf, K.B. Weber), a city coachman, the owner of a coffee house (H. Podrut). All these people were united by their origin (they came from European countries) and their involvement (due to their professional activities) in servicing travelers who found themselves in the Russian Province. Life circumstances and development of their own business forced them to settle far away from their homeland; most of them became citizens of the empire, having connected themselves with Russia forever. In the article it is underlined that foreigners’ involvement in «tourist business» of the considered epoch testifies not only to the benefit of their business activity, but also to the importance of the psychological factor – the very possibility of meeting with compatriots and representatives of other European countries.


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