Full Description
This timely exploration of social geography reveals how inequality and justice unfold across interconnected scales around the globe. Through embodied, relational encounters, the book unpacks how everyday spaces shape who we are and what we might become. Grounded in care and hope, it invites readers to imagine fairer futures and remain committed to meaningful, long-term change.
The text offers a dynamic, case-driven and sometimes image-driven exploration of pressing social issues in our increasingly unequal, post-pandemic world. Designed for student engagement, the book provides real-world case studies that span the globe, critical concepts, and thought-provoking questions to help readers analyse injustice, build conceptual "toolkits," and imagine routes toward meaningful social change. Rather than offering easy answers, this book equips readers with flexible, practical frameworks—encouraging selective, critical thinking to better understand and communicate complex social problems. Ideal for classroom use and independent study, it empowers students to connect theory with action and to think like geographers committed to justice. The book also includes Engagement Questions, encouraging readers to reflect on the subject of the chapter and the wider topics within the field of social geography.
This book is essential reading for students of social and political geography, and allied fields of urban, health and wellbeing, and political geographies.
Contents
Part 1: Foundations of the Textbook and a Relational Social Geography 1. Introduction: Social Geographies in our Contemporary Times: Themes of the Social, Inequality and Social Justice, Crosscutting Threads: Relationality and Encounter, The Structure of the Book, Moving Forward: Pedagogic Approach, The Geographies of this Book. 2. Everyday Spaces of Difference, Identity and Inequality: Geographies of Difference, Production and Social Reproduction, Identity and Intersectionality, From Difference to Inequality: Distributional and Recognitional Understandings Distributional Inequality Recognitional Inequality, From Inequality to Inequity: Spatial Expressions, Conclusions. 3. The State, Citizenship and Rights: Introduction, The State and Governance, Citizenship and the Evolution of Rights, Geographies of Rights, Civil Rights Emerge Amid Contested Geographies of Citizenship, Tracing the Spaces of Exception in 'Ordinary' Everyday Lived Citizenship, Conclusion. 4. Geographies of State Support and Welfare: Social Justice Theories of State Support, Defining the Welfare State, The Welfare State Across the World, A Welfare State Divided and 'Reformed', Localising and Materialising Encounters with the Welfare State: Street-level Bureaucracy and Contact Zones, The Post-welfare State Alongside the Pandemic Expansion, Conclusions. 5. Geographies of Care and Voluntarism: Geographies of Care, Care and Social Infrastructure, The Voluntary Sector, Philanthropy, Conclusions. Part 2: The Social Geographies of Spaces of Encounter 6. Geographies of Youth and Intersectionality: The Social Construction of Youth, Intersectionality and (Stigmatised) Youth, Contemporary Geographies of Youth and the Spaces of Encounter, The Street and Neighbourhood, The Home, Spaces of 'Youth': Education, Leisure and Social Media, Conclusions. 7. Social Geographies of Race: Race and Social Geography: Definitions, Segregation and Early Interventions, Race and Social Geography Today: Social and Spatial Constructions, Race and Social Geography: Emerging Topics in the 2020s, Case Study: Immigration in the UK since 2000, Conclusions. 8. Poverty and Marginality: Social Geography and Poverty, Stigmatisation, Invisibility and Marginalisation, Marginality and the Racialised American Ghetto, Marginality, Waste and Excess, Case Study of the Poor, Racialised and Marginalised: Photo Essay of Homeless Service Hubs in Los Angeles, Precarity and the Perpetual Hustle, Conclusions. 9. Disability and Caregiving: Disability and the Social Geographies of Care, Disability and the Historical Geography of Care, Challenging Social and Spatial Exclusion of Disabled People, Caregivers in/by the Community, A Geography of Carers, Conclusions. 10. Mental Health and Addiction: Introduction, Mental Health and Social Geography, The Social Geographies of Stigmatising Mental Ill-health, A Societal View on Managing Stigmatising Mental Ill-health, In-between Encounters: The Social Geographies of Addiction, Conclusions: Mundane Mental Health During and After the Pandemic. 11. The Housing Crisis: Homelessness, Gentrification and Generation Rent: Home, Housing and Security, The Housing Crisis and Housing Precarity, The Decline of Public (Social) Housing, Housing Crisis in Action: Platform Economies and Mega-events, Signs and Outcomes of a Housing Crisis: The State and the 1%, Signs and Outcomes of the Housing Crisis: Gentrification, Signs and Outcomes of a Housing Crisis: Homelessness, 'Generation Rent' and Wealth Inequality, Conclusions. 12. Gender and Sexuality: Introduction, Gender Inequality: Politics and Work Gender, Care and Domestic Responsibilities Gender and Sexual Minority Based Violence, Hegemonic and Contested Geographies of Masculinity, Gendered and Sexed Geographies Beyond Binaries, Conclusions. Part 3: Geographies of Hope for Social Justice 13. Geographies of Alternative Spaces, Resilience and Slow/Quiet Activism: Social Encounters with Quiet Activism, The Commons, Counterpublics, Safe Spaces and Counter-places, Resilience, Abolition Geographies, Conclusions and Shifting Encounters with Activism and Social Justice. 14. Geographies of Resistance and Direct Action: Introduction, Public Space, Protest and Occupation, Unpacking Public Space and Protest, Case Study: Resistance and The Emergence of the Disabled People's Movement, Moving Beyond Parochial Accounts of Public Space and Protest, Going Too Far? The Case of Social Unrest, Spaces for Activists and Hope, Conclusions. 15. Conclusions: Towards a More Hopeful Framing?
