The Legal Geographies of Contracts: A Method on Formation, Substance and Enforcement

Abstract

The legal technology of the contract has infiltrated modern society throughout public and private realms of law: from imaginaries and practices of citizenship, to commercial and governmental practicality. Contracts, in one form or another, underpin societal interactions across time and space as they are embedded within, and construct, networks of connections that not only regulate behaviours through immediate rights and obligations, but also reflect and produce broader social, political and economic regimes of power. Contracts also make, and unmake, places through regulation of access or exclusion, control and use in accordance with private agreements. Yet express scrutiny of contracts in geographical inquiry is scarce: geographers lack an established, contract-focused methodology. This paper proposes a blueprint for an analytical research method that focuses on three elements of contractual relationships: formation, substance and enforcement. It will argue that concentrating analysis on these aspects of contractual relationships can generate understanding of how contracts reflect and shape power dynamics across society. This analytical framework aims to encourage and facilitate collaboration between scholars and practitioners to develop knowledge that can expose and address spatial injustice.