The word \u2018space\u2019 brings up the picture of the solar system and the black canvas filled with stars, moons and planets at the first instance. This \u2018outer space\u2019, where the blank canvass or the \u2018nothingness\u2019 in between those stars and planets and the nothingness that things occupy, is usually the first image that one thinks of when the word \u2018space\u2019 comes up. The Oxford English Dictionary<\/em> describes space\u00a0as \u2018A continuous area or expanse which is free, available, or unoccupied\u2019.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Other everyday uses of space can be heard of when we talk about public spaces, private spaces, the virtual space, all alluding to the idea that space is something that is just \u2018out there\u2019. Space becomes this, a way of association, hence public, private, virtual, are deemed as kinds of spaces. But this way of thinking looks at space as something without a life, character and concept of its own.<\/p>\n But why does the word \u2018space\u2019 need to have a character of its own? Are associating adjectives like public, private, virtual not enough to describe a kind of space? Is space just an empty vastness, the tabula rasa, the container waiting to be occupied and filled? Or is it part of social life, of the way we perceive, think about and interact with in our everyday life.<\/p>\n If ideas themselves are part of our inherent subjectivity, that why should not the idea of space be spared of such scrutiny? Is there something \u2018natural\u2019 about space, can it merely just \u2018be\u2019 or is it something that differs based on how space is perceived and thought about in everyday life?<\/p>\n A case for spatial detectives<\/strong><\/p>\n These are all questions that the \u2018spatial detectives\u2019 wrestle with. The metaphor \u2018spatial detectives\u2019 coined by Bennet and Layard in their article \u201cLegal Geography: Becoming Spatial Detectives\u201d is a term used for researchers that search \u2018spatialities in legal practice\u2019 and enquire into law\u2019s effects and traces embedded within \u2018places\u2019. A spatial detective, in other words, is a critical researcher. One who sees the physical, social and abstract dimensions around which life happens as an important piece of the puzzle and asks how law as an abstract way of organizing our external world creates, defines and imposes spaces, both physical and symbolic, in everyday life.<\/p>\n Then \u2018space\u2019 here becomes part of a different enquiry, one that questions the commonly understood perception of \u2018space\u2019 as an area or expanse which is free, available or unoccupied. If from the perspective of social life, it should be subject to differing perceptions, ideas and interactions, then \u2018space\u2019 is not simply out there. Space is socially constructed through the eyes of different social actors and interacted with through those that encounter it in their everyday social life. It is dynamic and relational to those that behold it with their perspectives and ideas of how the world should be. For our writer of the message on the bus stop, it is a space for effective communication, for the reader, it might mean something insignificant depending on what it means to them. And even the Bus stop itself, has it\u2019s own purpose within it\u2019s space that is different to that of both the reader and the writer.<\/p>\n A spatial detective thus must question every spatial assumption within a social context, since space, like social life, could also be constructed. But constructed to what end? Is it relative to someone? Or some ideology? Some perception of life and reality?<\/p>\n The case of the history of international law<\/strong><\/p>\n The orthodox history of international law, in many ways,is \u00a0built upon how the world was perceived by a select few, who defined, marked, and appropriated spaces around them. Territories, as physically bounded jurisdictional boundaries, were \u2018made\/produced\u2019, defined in a way assumed as natural to all. And those that lived in those places had no say on how they related themselves and organized themselves with those physical surroundings. That there were other ways to relate to those lands than a specific definition derived from the natural law that Fransisco de Vitoria presented as an argument to legitimize \u2018humane\u2019 colonization.<\/p>\n Hence, in order to understand the world as seen by the presumptions of international law, we must de-construct our understanding of the presumptions of the international law. That there is only one way to see the world, as a system of nation states bounded within their physical boundaries. But that perhaps the very idea that there is only one way to view the world itself ignores other voices and perceptions of how to view the world. And that behind such a claim, is a far more complex way in which those that impose their own reality operate to exercise control over the spaces of others. Ways of social organization such as networks and making \u2018places\u2019 that are also central to the way in which other manners of social organization, such as territories, are produced and reproduced relative to the source of the production; the empire. And these different ways of social organization correlate and interact with each other in producing, affirming and appropriating spaces of others through violence.<\/p>\n The case of the history of international law is perhaps one of the most interesting cases for a spatial detective. Because behind the presumed reality of international law\u2019s territorially bounded nation states, is a far more complex way in which the world was and is still being made. And the message at the bus stop corner of Westgate Avenue Road, \u2018Do not believe what your eyes are showing you<\/em>\u2019, should be taken to heart when looking at the making and operation of international law in everyday life.<\/p>\n References:![\"private\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/files\/2016\/03\/private-300x200.jpg\")
![\"Disabled](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/countercurrents\/files\/2016\/03\/disabled-parking-300x200.jpg\")
\n<\/strong>Francisco de Vitoria, \u2018On the American Indians<\/em>\u2019 , vol 1539 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1991)
\nBennett L and Layard A, \u2018Legal Geography: Becoming Spatial Detectives\u2019 (2015) 9(7) Geography Compass 406<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"