Social Justice and Neoliberalism - by Adrian Smith & Alison Stenning & Katie Willis Hardcover

Book Synopsis

The continuing expansion of neoliberalism into ever more spaces and spheres of life has profound implications for social justice. Despite the number of policies designed to target 'social exclusion', people in many communities continue to be marginalized by economic restructuring.

Social Justice and Neoliberalism explores the connections between neoliberalism, social justice and exclusion. The authors raise critical questions about the extent to which neoliberal programmes are able to deliver social justice in different locations around the world. The book offers grounded, theoretically oriented, empirically rich analysis that critiques neoliberalism while understanding its material impacts. It also stresses the need to extend analyses beyond the dominant spheres of capitalism to look at the ways in which communities resist and remake the economic and social order, through contestation and protest but also in their everyday lives.

Global in scope, this book brings together writers who examine these themes in the global South, the former 'communist' East and the West, using the experience of marginal peoples, places and communities to challenge our conceptions of capitalism and its geographies.

Review Quotes

"As the economic pundits acknowledge (finally!) the failures of the neoliberal order, Social Justice and Neoliberalism offers new research into its devastating impacts on everyday lives. In fine-grained and wide-ranging analyses, the authors demonstrate how neoliberalism was domesticated, spatialized, diversified, co-constituted, resisted and recoded by people and organizations in place. This meticulously researched collection not only indicts neoliberal ideology but points beyond it to possibilities for ethical markets and more just economic relations." --J.K. Gibson-Graham

"Social justice and neoliberalism is a refreshing alternative to the "global steamroller" view of the free-market revolution. Punchy and prescient, this superb collection of essays does a great job of putting neoliberalism in its place-both theoretically and politically." --Jamie Peck, University of British Columbia

"This excellent book focuses on the everyday spaces of neoliberalism. Richly theorised case studies from eight very different countries examine how processes associated with marketisation are differentially experienced and contested. Not only does this book provide new evidence of the relationship between neoliberalism and economic marginalisation, it also identifies the importance of new identities and forms of governance, and explores the implications for social justice. It is an impressive contribution to the literature on neoliberalism that should be read by critical scholars and all those interested in the changing lives of real people." --Wendy Larner, University of Bristol

About the Author

Adrian Smith is Professor of Human Geography and Head of the Department of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Reconstructing the Regional Economy (1998), Theorising Transition (1998) and Work, Employment and Transition (2002). He has been an editor of Regional Studies and will be an editor of European Urban and Regional Studies from 2009.

Alison Stenning is Reader in Economic and Social Geography in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University. Her work has been published in a number of sociology and geography journals.

Katie Willis is Reader in Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her main publications include Theories and Practices of Development (2005); Gender and Migration (2000), Challenges and Change in Middle America (2002) and State/Nation/Transnation (2004). She is editor of Geoforum and International Development Planning Review.
Adrian Smith is Professor of Human Geography and Head of the Department of Geography at Queen Mary, University of London. He is the author of Reconstructing the Regional Economy (1998), Theorising Transition (1998) and Work, Employment and Transition (2002). He has been an editor of Regional Studies and will be an editor of European Urban and Regional Studies from 2009.

Alison Stenning is Reader in Economic and Social Geography in the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies at Newcastle University. Her work has been published in a number of sociology and geography journals.

Katie Willis is Reader in Development Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her main publications include Theories and Practices of Development (2005); Gender and Migration (2000), Challenges and Change in Middle America (2002) and State/Nation/Transnation (2004). She is editor of Geoforum and International Development Planning Review.