Legal geographies in the making: Urban inequality, neighbourhood networks, and pandemic territorialities

Abstract

In March of 2020, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) escalated into a global health emergency. In Madrid, public institutions were overwhelmed by this crisis, and mutual aid networks were deployed in multiple neighbourhoods to assist thousands of families—approximately 15,000 households—with food and care in the absence of actions taken by the Madrid City Council. Drawing on a mixed methodology that combines discourse analysis and statistical data from social actors and multi-level institutions, this study aims to highlight the patterns of socio-spatial inequalities in Madrid in light of the urban impact of pandemic regulations and the role of public institutions in re-territorialising its already existing inequalities through legal zoning. In particular, this study examines the relationship between the territorial irruption of COVID-19-related collective action initiatives and the re-spatialisation of social inequalities in Madrid. In line with this objective, two additional questions are addressed. The study highlights the value of a legal geography theoretical framework in examining how law works as a political technology over territory and also shows how social organisations and networks have claimed legal regulations as bottom-up social change processes, challenging the dynamics in the political production of law. The aim of this work is twofold: on the one hand, we wonder to what extent the solidarity networks could be related to urban territorialities and the spatialisation of social inequalities in Madrid. On the other hand, we aim to show how a legal geography perspective could be useful in examining how law is used over territory as a political technology and as a surveillance tool and, conversely, how from social movements representing social networks in pandemic, many regulations are demanded and vindicated as bottom-up social change processes that mean a contention of former dynamics in the political production of law.