30 August 2011

Assemblages of Justice: The ‘Ghost Ships’ of Graythorp

Abstract:

I investigate the issue of dismantling the so-called ‘ghost’ ships in Graythorp, Hartlepool, as an episode of relational forging of space and contestation between constructs of social and environmental justice. I offer a Deleuzoguattarian-inspired cartography, tracing constructions of justice, injustice and nature with regard to both Hartlepool and the wider issue of ship dismantling. I explore tensions and commonalities between expressed concerns, as actants discursively seek to reconfigure relational space in the name of social and/or environmental justice. Amongst the generative flux of complex, dynamic forces and relations which become folded together, the complexity of spatial planning decision making emerges as an oscillation between relations of presence and absence, which planners attempt to mediate in constructing some singular form of ‘just’ decision. Yet this is but one choice among many: of social justice? Of environmental justice? To which actants? Across which spaces?

Keywords:
Deleuze; spatial planning; ghost ships; social justice; environmental justice; proximity principle; presence; absence

Published in: International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Volume 33, Issue 3, pages 640–661, September 2009
Article first published online: 2 September 2009
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.2009.00861.x

Author: Jean Hillier

Author Affiliation: Newcastle University, UK

Corresponding Author: Jean Hillier (j.s.hillier@ncl.ac.uk), GURU, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, Claremont Tower, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

© 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Source: Wiley Online Library. Accessed on 30 August 2011 

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