Delivering Spatial Justice to Wildlife: Merleau-Ponty and the Politics of Inhabitation

Spatial justice recognises that spatial meanings contribute to the production of legal meanings and therefore play a role in shaping how the law delivers (in)justice. This article explores how wildlife can and should be treated as a beneficiary of spatial justice, that is, recognised as a co-producer of the real and legal meaning of property, and therefore included in any discussions regarding the management or use of property. We can enact such a change by reflecting on how the law encounters wildlife and challenging the anthropocentric and spatial presuppositions that inform these encounters. I demonstrate how phenomenology can fulfil this critical role. Building on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological account of bodies and their own spatiality, this article develops a politics of spatial inhabitation that can articulate and recognise nonhumans as co-productive agents in the production, interpretation, and enforcement of property.