Feminism Geography

A field-defining collection of new voices on gender, feminism, and geography.

Geography is a subject which throughout its history has been dominated by men; men have undertaken the heroic explorations which form the mythology of its foundation, men have written most of its texts and, as many feminist geographers have remarked, men's interests have structured what counts as legitimate geographical knowledge. This book offers a sustained examination of the masculinism of contemporary geographical discourses. Drawing on the work of feminist theories about the intersection of power, knowledge and subjectivity, different aspects of the discipline's masculinism are discussed in a series of essays which bring influential approaches in recent geography together with feminist accounts of the space of the everyday, the notion of a sense of place and views of landscape. In the final chapter, the spatial imagery of a variety of feminists is examined in order to argue that the geographical imagination implicit in feminist discussions of the politics of location is one example of a geography which does not deny difference in the name of a universal masculinity.

In this innovative reader, Pamela Moss and Karen Falconer Al-Hindi present a unique, reflective approach to what feminist geography is and who feminist geographers are. Their carefully crafted textbook invigorates feminist debates about space, place, and knowledges with a fine balance among teaching chapters, reprints, and original essays. Offering an anthology that actually questions the very purpose of an anthology, the editors create and then negotiate a tension between reinforcing and destabilizing scholarly authority. They challenge the idea that there is one set of works that acts as the vision, interpretation, voice, and feel of feminist geography while both reproducing key previously published works and including fresh essays from a number of feminist geographers in a single volume. The first chapter frames feminism, geography, and knowledge as a m lange of ideas, principles, and practices. Each of the three major sections of the volume begins with an introductory essay that places individual contributions into the overarching argument about the construction of feminist geography. Each introduction is then followed by a combination of reprints and original essays that contribute both to understanding how feminist geographical knowledge is constructed differently in different places and to showing what feminist geographers do wherever they are. The final chapter extends the anti-anthology arguments and raises questions that feminisms in geographies have yet to address. Students and scholars will find both the approach and the discussion essential for a full and nuanced understanding of feminist geography. Contributions by: Sybille Bauriedl, Kath Browne, Joos Droogleever Fortuijn, Kim England, Karen Falconer Al-Hindi, Anne-Fran oise Gilbert, Melissa R. Gilbert, Ellen Hansen, Susan Hanson, Audrey Kobayashi, Clare Madge, Michele Masucci, Janice Monk, Pamela Moss, Ann M. Oberhauser, Linda Peake, Geraldine Pratt, Parvati Raghuram, Bernadette Stiell, Amy Trauger, Dina Vaiou, The Sangtin Writers: Anupamlata, Ramsheela, Reshma Ansari, Vibha Bajpayee, Shashi Vaish, Shashibala, Surbala, Richa Singh, and Richa Nagar

In recent years, the study of human geography has been reshaped by the work of feminist geographers, and as a result a considerable number of universities now include feminist geography and gender issues in their courses. This text provides an introduction to contemporary debates in feminist geography. These explorations in diversity and difference make up feminist geography in the 1990s. Feminist Geographies introduces key analytical concepts, examines the history of the subdiscipline, explores feminist geographers' methodologies and considers the various ways in which feminist geographers have worked with some of geography's key concepts; notably space, place, landscape and environment. The text also goes on to outline areas of future debates within the subject.

Feminist Spaces introduces students and academic researchers to major themes and empirical studies in feminist geography. It examines new areas of feminist research including: embodiment, sexuality, masculinity, intersectional analysis, and environment and development. In addition to considering gender as a primary subject, this book provides a comprehensive overview of feminist geography by highlighting contemporary research conducted from a feminist framework which goes beyond the theme of gender to include issues such as social justice, activism, (dis)ability, and critical pedagogy. Through case studies, this book challenges the construction of dichotomies that tend to oversimplify categories such as developed and developing, urban and rural, and the Global North and South, without accounting for the fluid and intersecting aspects of gender, space, and place. The chapters weave theoretical and empirical material together to meet the needs of students new to feminism, as well as those with a feminist background but new to geography, through attention to basic geographical concepts in the opening chapter. The text encourages readers to think of feminist geography as addressing not only gender, but a set of methodological and theoretical perspectives applied to a range of topics and issues. A number of interactive exercises, activities, and ‘boxes’ or case studies, illustrate concepts and supplement the text. These prompts encourage students to explore and analyze their own positionality, as well as motivate them to change and impact their surroundings. Feminist Spaces emphasizes activism and critical engagement with diverse communities to recognize this tradition in the field of feminism, as well as within the discipline of geography. Combining theory and practice as a central theme, this text will serve graduate level students as an introduction to the field of feminist geography, and will be of interest to students in related fields such as environmental studies, development, and women’s and gender studies.

Two of the key theoretical shifts over the past two decades of critical work have been the 'visual turn' and the 'material turn'. This book argues that these hitherto distinct fields should be understood as in continual dialogue and co-constitution and focuses on reconceptualising the visual as an embodied, material, and often politically-charged realm. This edited volume elaborates this conceptual argument through a series of contemporary case studies, drawn from the disciplines of Architecture, Sociology, Media Studies, Geography and Cultural Studies. The case studies included are paired around four themes: consumption, translation, practice and ethics. As well as exploring the bringing together of visuality and materiality studies, the contributors raise questions of social identity and social critique, and also focus on the ethics of material visualities.

This innovative collection explores the concept of space as it relates to feminist studies. Utilizing a range of theoretical perspectives, a distinguished group of international scholars crosses over the 'thresholds' of difference, methodology, and representation that challenge feminist geography.

Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years, geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as feminist recognition of the differences between women, their diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist and postmodern debates. Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly written introduction to the wide field of issues that have been addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation, although the links between different spatial scales are also emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between the public and private spheres and their association with men and women respectively has been a crucial part of the social construction of gendered differences and its establishment, maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the possibilities of doing feminist research. It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology.