Canada and the political geographies of rights |
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Authors: | NICHOLAS BLOMLEY GERALDINE PRATT |
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Institution: | Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5A IS6 (e-mail:;Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, 1984 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z3 (e-mail: |
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Abstract: | For some observers, liberal rights are politically disempowering, while for others they can provide a basis for mobilization, resistance and the formation of counter-publics. Yet neither of these claims says much about the geography of rights, which provides the focus for our discussion. Rights are geographical in several senses: rights are often about access to space or place; in liberal societies, geographies of private and public shape access to rights; space naturalizes social relations; the politics of scale open up new debates about and strategies for attaining rights within and beyond Canada; and places are both defined and called upon in struggles over rights. In an exploration of two Canadian case studies - gentrification in Vancouver and the status of Filipina domestic workers - we examine the ways in which the geography of rights proves consequential to dominant and oppositional rights claiming. We briefly lay out the meaning and significance of rights, before a discussion of their political significance in the Canadian context. |
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Keywords: | rights space Canada gentrification domestic workers |
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