TY - JOUR PY - 2001// TI - Canada and the political geographies of rights JO - Canadian geographer A1 - Blomley, Nicholas A1 - Pratt, Geraldine SP - 151 EP - 166 VL - 45 IS - 1 N2 - 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.

LA - SN - 0008-3658 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2001.tb01180.x ID - ref1 ER -