Territory and Ethnicity Affecting a City - Essay Example

Social Justice: Territory and Ethni Affecting a Social Justice: Territory and Ethni Affecting a Geography brings the problem of social justice in the new plane of territorial justice. This term was introduced into scientific literature in 1968 by the English geographer Bleddyn Davies. The task of geographers is to achieve a fair territorial distribution in fair way. Among the main principles of territorial justice is the principle of universality: the scope of human rights should not depend on his the geographical residence: all citizens have an equal right to live anywhere in the country and occupy any position in society. Welfare of whole society should be determined by the worst areas and poorer social group. Areas that contribute more to the economy of the entire country could expect to receive higher proportion of national wealth than others, as, indeed, the territories, where people are obligated to work in a difficult environment. It is obvious that following the principles of social justice in its territorial manifestation of all the people living in different parts of the country should have an equal right to fulfill their urgent needs: education, health and so on regardless of the price value of these kinds of services. For example, postal rates throughout the country are the same, although it is obvious that the postage is much higher especially in remote, rural areas. In huge variety of researches geography is united with social justice with the Marxist ideas (Gregory et al., 2011). Social justice in geography was determined with socio-structural inequality, influenced by ethnic accessory (Gleeson, 2002). In multi-ethnic countries the ethnic relations are influences with social and ethno-territorial economic differences in conditions and living standards of people of different nationalities. Social benefits such as wealth, prestige, power, are often distributed according to ethnicity. Thus, Don Mitchell does not think this justice is necessary as well as possible. In his work rural life is characterized as system based on privacy, not on the intelligence of the inhabitants, it is circled on homogeneity (Mitchell, 2012). David Harvey developed the idea of territorial justice to the "actual allocation of resources". Harvey is considered to be a Marxist and therefore focuses on the economic component of inequality - so most of the funding is spent on the development of the urban area (Harvey, 2010, Knox, 2014). The notion of social justice in the matter of geography is closely linked with the concept of ethnicity. The problem is not in the equality of the various segments of the population, but in opportunity for self-realization and prospects (Vincent, 2003) at the same time as justice requires for universal rights in the questions of rights and obligations. Focusing on this issue D.Smith argued that justice requires certain equality in distribution of resources (Smith, 1979). Thus, for example rural schools and then people with such education face a number of barriers and stereotypes. The idea of a balance of equity and efficiency was also discussed by many researches. What ways are there for solving this issue today? In developed countries with strong social policies, aimed at supporting the poors, the share of which is always higher in the less developed areas, inter-regional income inequality is reduced. An example France, Sweden and other countries of continental Europe can be noted. However, in developed countries of the Anglo-Saxon world (US, UK) spatial mitigation of regional differences in income of the population does not occur, because the priority of the social cohesion in these countries is less important, and the extent of redistribution and social cohesion are not so great. The emphasis is on self-mobility of the population: people move from depressed areas where they would be able to find work and more opportunities to earn. Inequality in living standards and income of different regions appears due to economic skills of the population, natural features and geographical position. Territorial differences in the level of economic development and quality of life exist not only between countries but within each of them, even if we talk about the smallest ones. The coincidence of economic regional disparities with political, religious, ethnic differences is a threat to the territorial integrity of the country. Annotated bibliography 1. Don Mitchell (2012). Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. Guilford Press. Mitchell combines historical and geographical issues to examine the social justice concept, regulated with different aspects of the city and rural lives. He provides with deep analyses of the problem on the example of the United States, with its labor demonstrations, contemporary protests and the question of homeless in the streets of the cities. He presents a theory about the relationship of justice and the politics of urbanization. 2. David Harvey (2010). Social Justice and the City. University of Georgia Press. Harvey has studied closely the interaction between politics and sociology in the geographical concept. He describes and analyzes zones of employment, living and poverty, building links between social justice and free territory. His work is considered to be a revolution in geographic thought: he demonstrates the global and fundamental problems of urban geographies. 3. Derek Gregory, Ron Johnston, Geraldine Pratt, Michael Watts, Sarah Whatmore (2011). The Dictionary of Human Geography. John Wiley & Sons. This work contained clear definitions of the key terms and theories referring to the debates in geography. It is looking and the humanity and the sociology not only talking about development of scientific point of view, but also broadens them. 4. Paul Knox, Steven Pinch (2014).Urban Social Geography: An Introduction. Routledge. Knox and Pinch carefully analyze historical backgrounds of the urban social geography and its development till nowadays, rising the common principles of social structures and motifs movements due to cultural and ethnical question of human`s resettlement. 5. Carol Vincent (2003). Social Justice, Education and Identity. Routledge. Carol Vincent has chosen social justice in education as the key point of her research. She examines the distributive justice, appearing due to ethnicity, class, social capital and so on. She draws the facts with empirical evidence balancing it with rich theoretical analyses of educational process from beginning to the graduating from university. 6. Bleddyn Davies (1968). Social needs and resources in local services: a study of variations in standards of provision of personal social services between local authority areas. Joseph. Deep research of the needs varying, depending on the environmental and geografical factores, influencing on the quality of living, personal social services, determined by custure and social structure, which contains gaps in service resources of local authority areas. 7. Brendan Gleeson, Nicholas Low (2002). Justice, Society and Nature: An Exploration of Political Ecology. Routledge. Gleeson and Low discover the principles of influence of the social and politic justice on the ecology and global society, returning to the base of justice concept of the philosophy and its connection with environmental life, exploring human`s activity in the social and economic systems of justice regulation with the ethics and territory issues. 8. David Marshall Smith (1979) Human Geography: a Welfare Approach. Arnold. Smith states that human geography is closely linked to the issue of social justice. He studied several theories of social justice, examining the source of human`s rights and needs. He presents the research of principles of justice for the market-led society, studying the elements of egalitarianism and socialism in American South, Eastern Europe and South Africa, showing that social justice is a complex of influencing factors. Read More