LAW 7703 — Spatial Justice, Legal Ethnography, and the Lawscape
2 semester hoursGraduateLecture
Examines the intersections of law, space, and society through the lenses of spatial justice and legal ethnography. Explores foundational and contemporary theories addressing how legal frameworks interact with spatial arrangements, social institutions, and power dynamics. Topics include the socio-spatial dialectic, the "lawscape," intersectionality, reparative spatial futures, and participatory and ethnographic research methods. Incorporates site-based inquiry and socio-legal research practices that connect theoretical frameworks to lived environments. Offers students an opportunity to critically analyze spatial inequities in areas such as housing, environmental justice, and urban governance and to consider how legal systems both shape and respond to spatial injustice. Uses written presentations, oral presentations, and visual forms of analysis to explore the relationship between law and spatial experience.