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THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES THEMES OF SOCIAL JUSTICE IN RELATION TO GLOBAL REFUGEES and the asylum-migration nexus by drawing upon a participatory action research (PAR) project recently completed in the United Kingdom (U.K.). The research sought to explore and address the needs of newly arrived children and families to the education system in a city in England. In the article, we affirm that a holistic conception of justice is of crucial importance to understanding and promoting social integration within the complex dynamics of the asylum-migration nexus as they affect urban environments. Moreover, we suggest that PAR as a research methodology can address a more holistic model of social justice and avoid some of the potential inequalities in the researcher/participant relationship. Patterns of problematic and positive aspects of the experience of newly arrived families are analyzed in terms of three interlinking models of social justice.
What Do We Understand by Social Justice?
Three forms of social justice are neatly summarized by Cribb and Gewirtz (2003), drawing upon but extending models developed by Nancy Fraser and Iris Marion Young:
* Distributive justice, which includes concerns about what Fraser calls economic justice and is defined as the absence of exploitation, economic marginalization, and deprivation;
* Cultural justice, defined (by Fraser) as the absence of cultural domination, non-recognition, and disrespect;
* Associational justice, defined as the absence of "patterns of association amongst individuals and amongst groups which prevent some people from participating fully in decisions which affect the conditions within which they live and act" (Power and Gewirt/, 2001: 41, quoted in Cribb and Gewirtz, 2003: 19).
From a community development perspective, social justice:
is about building active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about changing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives...[and] enabling people to claim their human rights, meet their needs, and have greater control over the decision-making processes which affect their lives (see www.sccd.org.uk/).
This community development perspective encompasses associational justice. Its references to enabling people to meet their needs also highlight the importance of distributive justice. Analysis of the social and critical theory literature throws up approaches to social justice that coalesce around philosophical analysis and empirical enquiry, equalities...