Canada and the political geographies of rights

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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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APA

Blomley, N., & Pratt, G. (2001). Canada and the political geographies of rights. Canadian Geographer, 45(1), 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2001.tb01180.x

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