PUBLI : Anaïk Pian et Anne-Cécile Hoyez, « Balancing local justice and spatial justice : Mobile outreach and refused asylum seekers », Population, Space and Place, Wiley, 2021.

https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​p​s​p.2500

This article sheds light on the dyna­mics of mobile outreach prac­tices, and is based on a field study of the ambu­la­tory acti­vi­ties of Méde­cins du Monde around Stras­bourg, France. Mobile teams act in a tempo­ra­lity of urgency and in the spatia­lity of the street. Roaming the city at regular inter­vals, they provide heal­th­care and social services to a target popu­la­tion that lives in the space of the street and is thus alie­nated from the general social and heal­th­care systems. Like other French cities, Stras­bourg has seen an increase in asylum seekers as well as in migrants who have been refused asylum. Here, we examine the combi­na­tion of the socio­lo­gical notion of local justice and the geogra­phical notion of spatial justice in the light of these chan­ging popu­la­tions. This doubled-pronged approach allows us to more fully explore the inter­lo­cking social and spatial issues involved in the inevi­tably diffi­cult choices and hard deci­sions inherent in mobile outreach.