Landscapes, spatial justice and learning communities

Abstract

This paper draws on a study of a community-based adult education initiative, Cumbria Credits, which took place during the period of serious economic decline which hit sections of the farming and the wider community in Cumbria during 2001. It draws on the principles underpinning Edward Soja's notion of ‘spatial justice’ to explore transformations which took place in terms of human activities and relationships which emerged in response to challenging conditions. Human agency created opportunities to envisage new ‘ways of being’ in the community and to pursue new values and aspirations through education and collaboration. In the three examples of practice presented here, the work undertaken was concerned, in different ways, with the ‘fair and equitable distribution in space of socially valued resources and the opportunities to use them’ (Soja, 2008). In all the three contexts, forms of adult education emerged, which were responsive to the particular issues relating to ‘social justice’ and ‘locational discrimination’ experienced by their local communities. Spatial justice is a powerful concept which can serve to illuminate struggles for human rights in different settings and to highlight some of the many unexplored dimensions which must be taken into account in debates around inclusion and exclusion in education.