Rights, politics and strategy: A response to Seeking Spatial Justice

摘要

Throughout Edward Soja's Seeking Spatial Justice the presiding ethos is one of what, on several occasions, the author defines as a 'strategic optimism'. There are good reasons for such a focus on strategy. For, despite the apparent centrality accorded to 'justice' as an organizing motif within the book, Soja is not much interested in any kind of philosophical unpacking of this term. Instead, the emphasis is very much on the contemporary resonance of the word itself as what is variously described as 'a mobilizing force', a 'stirring demand' (p. 7), 'a powerful rallying cry' or 'a mobilizing concept' (p. 21).