Holder, Jane and McGillivray, Donald (2020) Recognising an ecological ethic of care in the law of everyday shared spaces. Social and Legal Studies, 29 (3). pp. 379-400. ISSN 0964-6639

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Abstract

Law plays a vital role in the life and loss of open shared spaces, used and enjoyed on an everyday basis by local people. In this article, we adopt an analytical framework based on an ethic of care to critique the registration of land as a ‘town or village green’, using the example of an inquiry into the greens status of an ancient woodland. Analysing written and oral witness statements in this inquiry makes clear the centrality of such places in many people’s lives, giving rise to community-based, and forward-looking, interests. However, the legal focus upon quantitative assessments of individuals’ use of land in the recent past means that the prospective consequences of losing such valued areas are currently poorly acknowledged, and accounted for, in the registration process. This leads to the question whether an ethic of care towards everyday shared spaces may be better recognised via more deliberative plan-making regimes.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Everyday shared spaces, local greens, knowledge claims, ethic of care, feminist theories, deliberative theories, witness statements.
Schools and Departments:	School of Law, Politics and Sociology > Law
Research Centres and Groups:	Sussex Sustainability Research Programme
Depositing User:	Donald McGillivray
Date Deposited:	31 May 2019 13:17
Last Modified:	13 Aug 2020 13:45
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/84044

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