Finding Order in Calgary's Cash Corner: Using Legal Pluralism to Craft Legal Remedies for Conflicts Involving Marginalized Persons in Public Spaces

Binners, book and magazine sellers, day labourers protestors, and sex workers are fixtures in our Canadian urban jungle that the law seeks to regulate. Legal responses to the existence of marginalized persons in public spaces have aimed at excluding them from public space. Much of the work employing legal pluralism as a lens through which we view our urban landscape focuses on the effect of the law on marginalized communities. The courts are increasingly being asked by marginalized communities to mediate conflicts arising in public spaces. This article analyzes this effect on marginalized communities and suggests that, in finding remedies, the courts should take guidance from ethnographic research using a legal pluralism lens.