Social justice and geographical location in career guidance

Within contemporary Western society, the dominance of neoliberal discourses privileges the role of market forces, and conceptualises the individual as a rational agent making free choices about their career pathways. From this perspective, globalisation can be understood as a natural outcome of free-market economics, with citizens operating within this global framework, freed from the constraints of space. However, the spatial turn in the social sciences has questioned such a boundaryless view of space. Drawing on Soja’s (2010) notions of spatial justice and the socio-spatial dialectic, this chapter demonstrates how social space and geographical space exist in complex relation. As a result, neoliberal approaches to spatial and social justice which promote individual mobility as a solution to spatial inequality are challenged. Instead, it is suggested that a more critical approach is adopted, and the possibility for a critical-recognitive approach to spatial justice in careers practice is explored.