Dangerous spaces: threatening sites for social justice

Abstract

There is nothing natural about space as it is understood here. Spacing is an act that constructs relationships, intervals, separations and thus boundaries. The earth has no territories other than those imagined and enforced through acts of territorialisation. A city has its private spaces closed to open access and open spaces that are inscribed with what can or cannot be done. As individuals pass by, stop and talk, or do such mundane things such as meet for coffee, interactional spaces are constructed and de-constructed. There are lines of legitimate connection and passage just as there are lines that cannot be crossed, or can only be crossed under certain conditions. In this special edition, each paper, in its different way, focuses on the spaces that emerge as off-limits, margins, edges, no-places; or on what happens when boundaries become indeterminate, shifting or shifty.