The borders of justice

This book aims to explore some of the complexities of justice that emerge from its "social embeddedness". Three years ago, as part of a collective research program on social justice undertaken by the Calcutta Research Group, we had planned to deliberate on what we had conceptualized as the "other spheres of justice". As we began our discussions around a set of presentations, some of which later found their places in this volume, we realized that what we were terming "other spheres" were actually borders of various conceptions, ideas, and forms of justice. "Others" anticipate the "this," "the existing," "the Main," and so on, whose others are then anticipated in turn. In this sense, justice is always conceptualized as achieving the just on the borders, and thus, justice is achieved when the situation at the margin, anticipating the other, has been addressed, Justice and marginalities or marginal situations remain integrally connected, and precisely this connection shows how central and strategic situations constructed as marginal and borderline are in the field of contentious power.