Geographic Perspectives on Law and Society

Law is a mechanism through which societies order social life, regulate behaviour and resolve disputes. Law influences and sometimes determines spatial and environmental relations and, dialectically, they transform law. Throughout the past twenty-five years, geographers have studied this interplay. This course is an introduction to the approaches geographers have used and to some of the substantive issues which they have encountered. More particularly it outlines approaches such as impact analysis, political economic analysis, and socio-cultural analysis and it encourages discussion on topics such as the spacing of urbanism through tools such as zoning and social, cultural and environmental regulation through mechanisms such as protection of property generally, the interplay of property and environmental protection, resource management law, trespass law and restriction of the use of public space and, health law and the geography of health.

Past Instructor for Geography 3415: G. J. Levine, Ph.D.,LL.B. Barrister and Solicitor