Space Place And Gendered Identities

In the last two decades, historians have increasingly sought to understand how environments, ‘built’ and otherwise, architectural surroundings, landscapes, and conceptual ‘places’ and ‘spaces’ have affected the nature and scope of political power, cultural production and social experience . The essays in this collection expand upon this already rich field of inquiry by combining an analytical approach sensitive to questions of gender with an exploration of ideas of political space. The volume demonstrates how the gendered and political meanings of space—be that space domestic or public, rural or urban, real or imagined, or a combination of all these and more—are fashioned through the movement of historical actors through space and time. Whether in delineating the gendered and politicized space of the pulpit; the sickroom; the Irish farmyard; the London suffrage atelier; the domestic space created by the wireless; the lesbian ‘scene’ of rural Canada; the eighteenth-century ladies' ‘closet’; or the public space within the ‘public history’ of historic houses, the volume demonstrates how the meanings of these spaces are not fixed, but are challenged and reformulated. This book was originally published as a special issue of women’s History Review.

This new book brings together Doreen Massey's key writings on threeareas central to a range of disciplines. In addition, the authorreflects on the development of these ideas and outlines her currentposition on these important issues. The book is organized around the three themes of space, placeand gender. It traces the development of ideas about the socialnature of space and place and the relation of both to issues ofgender and debates within feminism. It is debates in these areaswhich have been crucial in bringing geography to the centre ofsocial sciences thinking in recent years, and this book includeswritings that have been fundamental to that process. Beginning withthe economy and social structures of production, it develops awider notion of spatiality as the product of intersecting socialrelations. In turn this has lead to conceptions of 'place' asessentially open and hybrid, always provisional and contested.These themes intersect with much current thinking about identitywithin both feminism and cultural studies. Each of the themes is preceded by a section which reflects onthe development of ideas and sets out the context of theirproduction. The introduction assesses the current state of play andargues for the close relationship of new thinking on each of thesethemes. This book will be of interest to students in geography,social theory, women's studies and cultural studies.

With Home/Bodies, editor Wendy Schissel brings together a diverse range of voices which explore the concepts of home, gender, and identity. Home/Bodies includes contributions by several new-generation feminist scholars and researchers, along with established teachers, researchers, and activists in the academy and the community.

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.

How does gendered organizational life impact on individuals' identities in their everyday working lives? This question is explored with theoretical insights from disciplines including Sociology, Geography, History and Gender Studies interwoven with a major new empirical study of doctors and nurses working in the British National Health Service.

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.

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.

In hundreds of businesses, secretaries -- usually women -- do clerical work in "open floor" settings while managers -- usually men -- work and make decisions behind closed doors. According to Daphne Spain, this arrangement is but one example of the ways in which physical segregation has reinforced women's inequality. In this important new book, Spain shows how the physical and symbolic barriers that separate women and men in the office, at home, and at school block women's access to the socially valued knowledge that enhances status. Spain looks at first at how nonindustrial societies have separated or integrated men and women. Focusing then on one major advanced industrial society, the United States, Spain examines changes in spatial arrangements that have taken place since the mid-nineteenth century and considers the ways in which women's status is associated with those changes. As divisions within the middle-class home have diminished, for example, women have gained the right to vote and control property. At colleges and universities, the progressive integration of the sexes has given women students greater access to resources and thus more career options. In the workplace, however, the traditional patterns of segregation still predominate. Illustrated with floor plans and apt pictures of homes, schools, and work sites, and replete with historical examples, Gendered Spaces exposes the previously invisible spaces in which daily gender segregation has occurred -- and still occurs.