1st Edition
Feminist Spaces Gender and Geography in a Global Context
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.
List of Figures
List of Boxes
About the authors
Acknowledgments
1 Engaging Feminist Spaces: Introduction and Overview
Ann M. Oberhauser, Jennifer L. Fluri, Risa Whitson, and Sharlene Mollett
2 The Body, Performance, and Space
Jennifer L. Fluri
3 Spaces of Culture and Identity Production: Home, Consumption, and the Media
Risa Whitson
4 Gendering the Right to the City
Risa Whitson
5 Gendered Work and Economic Livelihoods
Ann M. Oberhauser
6 Feminist Political Geography and Geopolitics
Jennifer L. Fluri
7 Environmental Struggles are Feminist Struggles: Feminist Political Ecology as Development Critique
Sharlene Mollett
8 Feminist Spaces: Overview and Reflections
Sharlene Mollett, Jennifer L. Fluri, Risa Whitson, and Ann M. Oberhauser
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Ann M. Oberhauser is Professor of Sociology and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Iowa State University, USA.
Jennifer L. Fluri is Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Colorado-Boulder, USA.
Sharlene Mollett is Assistant Professor, Department of Human Geography and Centre for Critical Development Studies, University of Toronto, Canada.
Risa Whitson is Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, Ohio University, USA.
"Artfully weaving theory with rich case studies, and academic concerns with activism, Feminist Spaces offers students a field guide to critical thinking in geography and related social sciences. By paying close attention to the ways in which gendered identities are complexly intertwined with other forms of identity and shaped through a range of power geometries, this book rewrites the agenda for feminist geographies of the 21st century." - Mona Domosh, Professor of Geography, Dartmouth College, US.
