Keadilan Sosial Feminis: Interupsi terhadap Universalisme, Abstraksi dan Imparsialitas

This paper is a theoretical study of the concept of justice from philosophical theories which tend to exclude feminist perspectives. Since the era of Ancient Greek philosophy, the question of justice has been a core concern of social theory. Justice is a concept at the core of moral and political theory. Furthermore, the understanding of justice is very important because it determines how political, social, and economic practices occur in a society. Accordingly, the discussion of justice must start with concrete problems of injustice. But ironically, injustices due to gender discrimination tend to be omitted from the analyses of mainstream justice theories, even though in a society, sex and gender categories intertwine with one’s status, power, opportunity, and position in their society. This paper emphasizes the principles of interactive universalism to ensure justice is inseparable from the ethics of care. This paper finds that the feminist social justice approach is a proper approach to respond to the current situation.

Energy Communities for Just Energy Transitions on a Local Scale: Initial Lessons from the Lightness Project

New energy communities that produce, store, trade and distribute renewable energy guided by innovative digital platforms are currently emerging in many EU member states. Expectations about these communities and their contribution to a ‘just engagement’ of citizens in energy transition are high. However, detailed monitoring of the degree to which these expectations have been realised thus far is often lacking. An innovative way to measure the just engagement of end-users as one of these expectations is based on criteria from environmental justice theories that have developed in recent years. This paper describes the initiation of seven pilot communities in five countries around a specific digital platform, and their assessment with a tailored environmental, justice-based framework. Based on the assessment—part of the ongoing Horizon 2020 project, ‘Lightness’—several challenges to just engagement are identified that are relevant for the project and beyond.

The Abuse of Ownership: A Social Justice Perspective

Given that property rights are politically sensitive, and that the right of ownership is the most extensive property right, this article undertakes a political analysis of the so-called abuse of ownership doctrine as a private law limitation to the right of ownership. The notion of the abuse of rights as is defined and described by the Serbian academic, Professor Vodinelić, is explained, and examined with respect to how it fits into four different social justice theories. This analysis shows that the doctrine of abuse of rights would change in structure, and in the way it is applied, depending on the underlying value system which is adopted in a society.

The relational navigator: a pedagogical reframing of widening educational participation for care-experienced young people

Young people in state care not only lose support, usually at 18 years of age, but also experience unequal participation in post-secondary education. This has raised concern about the importance of widening participation (WP) for care-experienced young people (CEYP). However, CEYP are often institutionally stigmatised and this could be worsened by WP interventions that are framed by deficit discourses. Weaving together social pedagogies and social justice theories, the article aims to reframe WP away from deficit discourses through recognition of the systemic, structural and cultural inequalities that most CEYP must navigate to access formal education. We introduce the concept of the relational navigator, in which a pedagogical relationship enables the navigator to ‘pilot’ through complex systems and transitional processes in collaboration with, and through ‘walking alongside’, the CEYP with respect to their lived contexts and experiences. This article draws from the reflections of WP navigators situated in two small-scale WP projects, one in an English museum and the other in an Australian university. Our analysis of the reflections of the WP project navigators is offered as a preliminary exploration of the potential the relational navigator as a way to shift deficit discourses and work towards a reframing of WP through a social pedagogical perspective.

The Capability and Social Justice Theories: Developing a Second-Generation Model for Enhancing Epistemological Access in Flood-Prone Schools in Kenya

This paper draws from a larger doctoral study, conducted between 2013 and 2016 in five flood-prone schools of the Budalang’i division of western Kenya. The mixed-methods study was based on empirical data drawn from twenty-three in-depth interviews from parents, senior school managers, and Sub County Education officers. Fifteen of these interviews were with males and eight with females. A questionnaire was completed by a total of 191 Standard Eight pupils, 49.2% boys and 50.8% girls across the five schools. Focus group discussions (FGDs) consisting of ten pupils from each of the five schools were also conducted. The study investigated the extent to which flood-prone schools can generate equitable epistemological access (EEA) and how they are committed to delivering a socially just educational experience. The research was embedded in the 'critical realism framework' as the overarching philosophy, premised on Sen's capability approach and Nancy Fraser's social justice framework. The two theories offer competing predications that: 1) the development of individual capabilities improves lives 2) the development of individuals should be based on a socially just approach. Findings suggested that to develop individual capabilities, schools need to embark on a socially just approach, especially to learners who are subjected to deprivation. The paper models a capabilities and social justice approach, as a substantial contribution to our understanding of the extent to which flood-prone schools of Kenya may improve individual capability development. Apart from its implications for policy, we suggest that the model should be implemented in schools to determine its efficacy.

Capabilities and Linguistic Justice

Language conditions our socio-political world in fundamental ways. How public institutions deal with linguistic diversity, and how they distribute linguistic benefits, has an important impact on an individuals’ life. This article studies the value of language in multilingual environments by evaluating the debate on linguistic justice through the capabilities approach. It studies the value of language to assess what principles of justice are required to secure individual freedom. First, we explore the value of language within the framework proposed by the capabilities approach. Second, we assess the role of language in enabling the development of certain capabilities. As a first attempt to comprehensively address the relationship between linguistic justice and the capabilities approach, it evaluates how linguistic justice theories fare in fostering four capabilities from Martha Nussbaum’s list. We provide a conceptually sound normative assessment of the role played by language within the capabilities framework, and how it translates into policy.

Environmental Economies, Survival Ecologies, and Economic Interests in Pastoral Uganda

This paper presents a departure from the historical cataloguing of scarcity and poverty, as definitive frames of Karamoja sub-region of Uganda; a narrative that purports to portray the duo as natural, permanent and insurmountable features of the sub-region. This study demonstrates that these were both created in and projected onto the sub-region. The study provides evidence to the fact that; 1. Externally-driven pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial undertakings (which are underrated in many analyses on Karamoja) are the building blocks of the protracted conflicts, insecurities and ecological damages that ravaged Karamoja; 2. The sub-region offers more potentials than limitations as studies on Karamoja tend to portray. This research report is an invitation to both inward and outward looking (of Karamoja) for diagnosis and solutions. Inspired by critical realism and environmental justice theories, the study interrogates policies, mentalities, actions and inactions that fostered economic and ecological exploitation of Karamoja; endangering environmental and social ecologies of the sub-region. Attention is paid to how these jeopardised the environment-based economy of the sub-region’s population, while highlighting the human, ecological and economic potentials that need and deserve collective action for social and environmental re-address.

Implementing Digitalisation in an Administrative Justice Context

Administrative agencies have long been sites of technological innovation. Today, government officials worldwide are intensifying digitalization efforts to cut costs and to make bureaucratic operations more efficient. This article examines how digitalization initiatives are implemented in administrative settings, using examples from the United Kingdom (Universal Credit), Canada (Ontario’s Social Assistance Management System), and Australia (Online Compliance Initiative, a.k.a. ‘Robodebt’). It draws on qualitative research, government reports, and administrative justice literature to illustrate the dilemmas common to digital government projects. For example, digitalization both hardens and virtualizes the interface between officials and the public, while obscuring the vast amounts of human labour needed to maintain digital government initiatives. To function well, digital systems require deep integration between government databases and software. Yet, the process of digitalization is often piecemeal, continuous, and reproduces dilemmas that arise whenever new technologies are used to solve institutional problems. Consequently, the promised benefits of ‘digital by default’ initiatives are rarely realized. Digitalization accelerates a shift in relations between people and the state that administrative justice scholars must take seriously. First, scholars must reconsider the internal perspective from which administrative justice theories assess an outcome’s acceptability. Digitalization compels the development of new justice models centred on the values of system users within and outside of administrative institutions. Second, scholars must reassess administrative justice theory’s procedural focus. In digitalized settings, ‘administratively just’ decision-making processes may generate substantively unjust outcomes. These challenges must be addressed if administrative justice theories are to remain relevant in an age of algorithmically-driven decision-making.