Feminist geography
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The geography of women
The geography of women examines the effects geography has on gender inequality and is theoretically influenced by welfare geography and liberal feminism. Feminist geographers emphasize the various gendered constraints put in place by distance and spatial separation (for instance, spatial considerations can play a role in confining women to certain locations or social spheres). In their book Companion to Feminist Geography, Seager and Johnson argue that gender is only a narrow-minded approach to understanding the oppression of women throughout the decades of colonial history.[2] As such, understanding the geography of women requires a critical approach to questions of the dimensions of age, class, ethnicity, orientation and other socio-economic factors.[2] An early objection to the concept of geography of women, however, claimed that gender roles were mainly explained through gender inequality. However, Foord and Gregson argue that the idea of gender roles emerges from a static social theory that narrows the focus to women and portrays women as victims, which gives a narrow reading of distance. Instead, they claim that the concept of the geography of women is able to display how spatial constraint and separation enter into the construction of women's positions.[3] In 2004, theorist Edward Said critiqued the idea of geographical spaces in such a context where actions on gendered practices of representation are fabricated through dominant ideological beliefs.[4] In response, feminist geographers argue that misrepresentations of gender roles and taken-for-granted feminist movements reveal that the challenges of the colonial present lie within the confinement of women to limited spatial opportunities. Therefore, feminist geographies are built on the principle that gender should be applied and developed in terms of space.[5]
Socialist feminist geography
Socialist feminist geography, theoretically influenced by
Socialist feminist geographers first worked primarily at the urban scale: Anglo-American feminist geographers focused on the social and spatial separation of suburban homes from paid employment. This was seen as vital to the day-to-day and generational development and maintenance of traditional gender relations in capitalist societies.[7]
Socialist feminist geographers also analyze the ways in which the effects of geographical differences on gender relations not only reflect, but also partly determine local economic changes. Judith Butler's concept of "citationality"[8] explores the lack of agency surrounding the facilitation of the presence of women within the discipline of geography. Subsequently, feminist geographers conclude that whenever performative measures are taken to diminish women's rights in geographical space, surrounding conventions adapt to make it seem as the norm.[8] For instance, Susan Hanson and Geraldine Pratt's book "Gender, Work, and Space"[9] reveals how geographical elements, such as the configuration of workplaces, the distribution of resources, and the design of urban and rural environments, contribute to shaping and reinforcing gender disparities within the realm of work.
Feminist geographies of difference
Feminist geographies of difference is an approach to feminist geography that concentrates on the construction of gendered identities and differences among women. It examines gender and constructions of nature through cultural, post-structural,
Since the late 1980s, many feminist geographers have moved on to three new research areas: categories of gender between men and women, the formation of gender relations and identities, and the differences between relativism and situational knowledge.
Firstly, feminist geographers have contested and expanded the categories of genders between men and women. Through this, they have also begun to investigate differences in the constructions of gender relations across race, ethnicity, age, religion, sexuality and nationality, paying particular attention to women who are positioned along multiple axes of difference.
Secondly, to gain a better understanding of how gender relations and identities are formed and assumed, feminist geographers have drawn upon a broader extent of social theory and culture. Building upon this theoretical platform, feminist geographers are more able to discuss and debate the influence that post-structuralist and psychoanalytic theories have on multiple identifications.[10]
Lastly, the difference between
Critical human geography
Critical human geography is defined as "a diverse and rapidly changing set of ideas and practices within human geography linked by a shared commitment to emancipatory politics within and beyond the discipline, to the promotion of progressive social change and to the development of a broad range of critical theories and their application in geographical research and political practice."[6]
Critical human geography emerged from the field of Anglophonic geography in the mid-1990s, and it presents a broad alliance of progressive approaches to the discipline. Critical human geographers focus on key publications that mark different eras of critical human geography, drawing upon
Critical human geography is understood as being multiple, dynamic, and contested.[11]
Rather than a specific sub-discipline of
Many feminist geographers study the same subjects as other geographers, but focus specifically on gender divisions.[12] This has developed into concerns with wider issues of gender, family, sexuality, race, and class. Examples of areas of focus include:
- Geographic differences in gender relations and gender equality
- The geography of women (e.g. spatial constraints and welfare geography)
- The construction of places
- Geographies of sexuality (queer theory)
- Geographies of disability
- Children's geographies
Feminist geographers are also deeply impacted by and respondent to contemporary globalization and neoliberal discourses that are manifested transnationally and translocally.[2]
Feminist geography also critiques
"'
Cartesian dualismunderlines our thinking in a myriad of ways, not least in the divergence of the social sciences from the natural sciences, and in a geography which is based on the separation of people from their environments. Thus while geography is unusual in its spanning of the natural and social sciences and in focusing on the interrelations between people and their environments, it is still assumed that the two are distinct and one acts on the other. Geography, like all of the social sciences, has been built upon a particular conception of mind and body which sees them as separate, apart and acting on each other (Johnston, 1989, cited in Longhurst, 1997, p. 492)' Thus, too, feminist work has sought to transform approaches to the study of landscape by relating it to the way that it is represented ('appreciated' so to speak), in ways that are analogous to the heterosexual male gaze directed towards the female body (Nash 1996). Both of these concerns (and others)- about the body as a contested site and for the Cartesian distinction between mind and body - have been challenged inpoststructuralistfeminist geographies."
Other feminist geographers have interrogated how the discipline of geography itself represents and reproduces the heterosexual male gaze. Feminist geographers such as Katherine McKittrick have asserted that how we see and understand space are fundamentally bound up in how we understand the hegemonic presence of the white male subject in history, geography and in the materiality of everyday space.[15] Building off of Sylvia Wynter's theories of the racialized production of public and private space, McKittrick challenges "social landscapes that presume subaltern populations have no relationship to the production of space" [15] and writes to document black female geographies in order to "allow us to engage with a narrative that locates and draws on black histories and black subjects in order to make visible social lives which are often displaced, rendered ungeographic."[16] McKittrick stakes claim in the co-articulation of race and gender as they articulate space, writing: "I am emphasizing here that racism and sexism are not simply bodily or identity-based; racism and sexism are also spatial acts and illustrate black women's geographic experiences and knowledges as they are made possible through domination."[17] Moreover, many feminist geographers have critiqued human geography for centering masculine knowledge emphasizing "objective" knowledge, arguing instead for the use of situated knowledge which understands both observation and analysis as being rooted in partial objectivity.[18]
Challenges of feminist geography
Linda McDowell and Joanne P. Sharp, both foundational feminist geographers and scholars, describe the struggle of gaining recognition in academia, saying that "[it has been] a long struggle to gain recognition within geography as a discipline that gender relations are a central organizing feature both of the material and symbolic worlds and of the theoretical basis of the discipline."[19] Feminist geographers struggle in academia in a variety of ways. Firstly, ideas that originate from feminist discourse are often seen as commonsense once the wider field accepts them, thereby rendering geography that is explicitly feminist invisible. Furthermore, feminist geography is understood to be the only subfield of geography where gender is explicitly addressed, permitting the wider discipline to disengage from feminist challenges. Finally, within the field, some geographers believe that feminist practice has been fully integrated into the academy, making feminist geography obsolete.
Challenges of feminist geography are also embedded in the subfield itself. The epistemology of feminist geography argues that the positionalities and lived experiences of the geographers are as central to scholarship as what is being researched. In this way, feminist geographers must maintain diverse identities to fully engage with the discipline. Linda Peake and Gill Valentine point out that, while feminist geography has addressed gender issues in more than twenty-five countries across the world, scholarship in the field of feminist geography is primarily conducted by white female scholars from institutions in the Global North.[20] In this way, feminist geography faces not only barriers rooted in the academy but a lack of diversity in its own field.[21]
Feminist geographers draw upon a broad range of social and cultural theory, including
Controversies surrounding feminist geography
In 2018, a leading journal in feminist geography entitled
Notable Feminist Geographers
See also
References
- ^ ISBN 9780816624188.
- ^ a b c d Seager, J., & Nelson, L. (Eds.). (2004). Companion to Feminist Geography. Williston, VT, USA: Blackwell Publishing.
- ISSN 1467-8330.
- ^ Gregory, D. (2004). The colonial present. (pp. 18-19). Victoria: Blackwell Publishing.
- ^ Massey, Doreen (1990). Space, Place, and Gender. University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis.
- ^ a b Longhurt, Robyn (2002). "Geography and gender: a 'critical' time?".
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(help) - ^ MaccKenzie, S.; Rose, D. (1983). Industrial change, the domestic economy and home life.
- ^ a b McKenzie, J. (2001). Perform or Else : From Discipline to Performance. London, GBR: Routledge.
- ISBN 978-0-415-09941-7.
- ^ a b Monk, J. (1982). On not excluding the other half from human geography.
- ^ Warf, Barney (2010). Encyclopedia of Geography Critical Human Geography. University British Columbia-vancouve.
- ^ McDowell, Linda (1993) "Space, place and gender relations" in Progress in Human Geography 17(2)
- ISBN 978-0-7425-3829-0
- ^ Johnston, R.J. & J. D. Sidaway. (2004). Geography and Geographers. London: Arnold, p. 312.
- ^ a b McKittrick, Katherine. Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006. p. 92
- ^ McKittrick, x.
- ^ McKittrick, xviii
- S2CID 145686614.
- ^ McDowell, Linda; Sharp, Joanne (1997). Space, gender, knowledge: Feminist readings.
- S2CID 216641065.
- S2CID 144778791.
- ^ "Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship - Areo". Areo. 2018-10-03. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
- )
- ^ "What the 'Grievance Studies' Hoax Means". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2018-10-09. Retrieved 2018-10-13.
Further reading
- Vera Chouinard and Ali Grant. (1995) 'On being not even anywhere near 'the project': ways of putting ourselves in the picture.' Antipode 27(2): 137-166.
- Domosh, Mona and Seager, Joni. (eds) (2001) Putting Women in Place: Feminist Geographers Make Sense of the World. New York: Guilford Publications.
- McKittrick, Katherine. Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006.
- McDowell, Linda (1992) Doing gender: feminisms, feminists and research methods in human geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 17, 399-416.
- McDowell, Linda; and Sharp, Joanne P. (eds). (1999). A Feminist Glossary of Human Geography. London: Arnold.
- McDowell, Linda. (1999) Gender, Identity and Place: understanding feminist geographies. Cambridge : Polity Press, 1999
- Pratt, Geraldine. (2004) "Working Feminism." Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
- Gillian Rose (1993) Feminism and Geography: The Limits of Geographical Knowledge Univ. of Minnesota Press
- Seager, Joni and Nelson, Lise. (eds) (2004) Companion to Feminist Geography (Blackwell Companions to Geography). Blackwell Publishers, ISBN 1-4051-0186-5
- Valentine, Gill. (2004) Public Space and the Culture of Childhood. London:Ashgate
- Johnston, R.J. & J.D. Sidaway. (2004). Geography and Geographers. London: Arnold. Chapter 8: Feminist geographies.
- Simonsen, Kirsten. (2007). "Practice, spatiality and embodied emotions: an outline of a geography of practice". Human Affairs, 17(2), 168-181.
- Kern, Leslie. (2019). "Feminist City: A Field Guide". Verso Books.
Scientific journals
- Gender, Place and Culture - A Journal of Feminist Geography Routledge ISSN 0966-369X Online ISSN 1360-0524