Dr. Menna Agha defines spatial justice as a “term that implicates issues of justice and issues of spatialies together.” She explains in her lecture that as an architect she has many responsibilities, such as, build, and design houses but also learn the racialization that materializes with buildings too. The first area that is sacrificed is the group of people that is most marginalized. In addition, access to affordable housing for rendered minority groups becomes unavailable. One of the ways that spatial injustice becomes evident is through imposing architecture that is not native, in other words, modern architecture. These types of buildings are created with mass production in mind and do not consider the culture of the people being displaced. The space and square footage of the original homes are decreased and therefore homes are just viewed as a biological necessity, a space to eat, sleep, and clean oneself rather than a place to host cultural events or gather with others. Spatial injustice also reflects on gender disparities, since, public spaces were created for men to speak, but if the men have to leave their villages to go work in other towns that leaves just the women and women should not occupy those public spaces.

I chose to respond in connection to the lecture to this post written by THE BORDERING IDENTITY OF A NORTHEAST AFRO-ARABIAN
Iman Jamal Nagy. Iman shares his experience

“Often grappling with my identity, coming from a niche that most Africans and Arabs alike are unfamiliar with, I constantly struggle with answering the question, “what are you?” - Am I Ethiopian, am I Yemeni, am I neither, am I both?”

These notions are reinforced by Western colonialism – and especially by the imposition of Western borders. These borders simultaneously reinforce political agendas resultative of Western political involvement while denying indigenous ideological spaces as valid or reflective of reality. Most of these physical and non-indigenous ideological borders in both regions did not exist prior to the colonization of Africa and the Middle East.

The relationship between these regions can’t be reduced and defined per the Western understanding of space-time;

– Yemen exists in Ethiopia and Ethiopia exists in Yemen –

as it has for thousands of years. My African identity does not end with a body of water.

Here the author expresses the confusion and blurred lines between culture and the consequences of displacement caused by Western political ideologies. It becomes more than just architectural plans and designs that are not native to the territories and as in the case of Iman a conflict to find his true identity.