Gill Valentine

Theorizing and Researching Intersectionality: A Challenge for Feminist Geography*

Abstract This article focuses on the concept of intersectionality, which is being used within the wider social sciences by feminists to theorize the relationship between different social categories: gender, race, sexuality, and so forth. Although research within the field of feminist geography has explored particular interconnections such as those between gender and race, the theoretical concept of intersectionality as debated in the wider social sciences has not been addressed. This article attempts to respond to that omission. It begins by tracing the emergence of debates about the interconnections between gender and other identities. It goes on to reflect on attempts to map geometries of oppressions. The emphasis then moves from theorizing intersectionality to questioning how it can be researched in practice by presenting a case study to illustrate intersectionality as lived experience. The conclusion demonstrates the contribution that feminist geography can make to advance the theorization of intersectionality through its appreciation of the significance of space in processes of subject formation. It calls for feminist geography to pay more attention to questions of power and social inequalities.

(Hetero)Sexing Space: Lesbian Perceptions and Experiences of Everyday Spaces:

Heterosexuality is the dominant sexuality in modern Western culture, However, it is not defined merely by sexual acts in private space but is a process of power relations which operates in most everyday environments. In this paper, therefore, the author explores how lesbians perceive and experience everyday spaces. It is argued that lesbians can feel ‘out of place’ in environments such as the workplace or hotels, because these spaces are organised and appropriated by heterosexuals and so express and reproduce asymmetrical sociosexual relations. Consideration is also given to the way heterosexual hegemony is reproduced and expressed in space through antigay discrimination and violence. In the conclusion, the author explores the way in which fear of disclosure and antigay abuse inhibit the expression of lesbian and gay sexualities in everyday spaces and so feed the spatial supremacy of heterosexuality.

Angels and Devils: Moral Landscapes of Childhood

What it means to be a child varies over space and time. Historically, the dominant Western construction of childhood has oscillated between representing children as the bearers of original sin—devils—or as innocent—angels, in the United Kingdom in the 19th and for much of the 20th century it was this latter imagining of childhood that took hold. But the murder of toddler Jamie Bulger by two 10-year-old boys in 1993 has been pivotal in reengaging a demonised conceptualisation of what it means to be a child. The author begins by considering some of the contested meanings of childhood and then goes on to explore the contemporary ‘othering’ of children and some of the spatial restrictions being imposed on young people by adults in an attempt to (re)draw boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Spatiality and the New Social Studies of Childhood

The past two decades have seen rapid changes in the ways in which sociologists think about children, and a growing cross-fertilisation of ideas between researchers in a variety of social science disciplines. This paper builds upon these developments by exploring what three inter-related ways of thinking about spatiality might contribute to the new social studies of childhood. Specifically, we identify the importance of progressive understandings of place in overcoming the split between global and local approaches to childhood; we discuss the ways in which childrens identities are constituted in and through particular spaces; and we examine the ways in which our understandings of childhood can shape the meaning of spaces and places. These ideas are illustrated by reference to our current research on childrens use of the internet as well as a range of wider studies.

All hyped up and no place to go

Abstract In this paper we think about the performance of sexual identities in space, and try to explore the notions of transgression and parody implicit in recent queer theory, particularly in the work of Judith Butler. To do this, we take a long hard look at two current dissident sexual identities—the hypermasculine ‘gay skinhead’ and the hyperfeminine ‘lipstick lesbian’. We describe their evolution as sexual‐outlaw styles of the 1990s, and assess the effects of their performance in spaces which are, we argue, actively constructed as heterosexual. Although we are ultimately unsure and unable to agree about what kinds of trouble these identities cause, and for whom, and where, we want to share our unease, our questions, our own troubles.

A safe place to grow up? Parenting, perceptions of children's safety and the rural idyll

Abstract This paper explores how an imagining of the countryside as an idealised place in which to grow up is constructed, mobilised and contested by rural parents in their accounts of their childrens lives. It begins by considering how parents mobilise popular understandings of the rural idyll in their accounts of the opportunities for children in the village of Wheldale. It then goes on to explore how parents simultaneously challenge this imagining of the rural in their accounts of their childrens safety, contradicting popular constructions of the rural as a safe, harmonious place, and contesting assumptions about the idyllic nature of rural childhood. Finally the paper considers how in order to justify their claims about the relative safety of the village as a place to grow up, in the face of their own descriptions of the dangers it may hold, parents further mobilise another ingredient of the ‘rural idyll’ — community. The paper concludes by considering the importance of recognising that places, like people, can have multiple meanings and identities.

Eating in: home, consumption and identity

Food is perhaps one of the most mundane and taken for granted parts of our everyday life, yet the ways we think about shopping, cooking and eating are actually intensively reflexive. This paper uses the example of food to explore questions of identity in relation to the specific cultural location of ‘the home’. Using case study examples the paper illustrates some of the complex ways in which identities, throughout the lifecourse, are produced, articulated and contested through food consumption and the spatial dynamics of cooking and eating. In doing so the paper demonstrates that households, rather than being single units of food consumption, can be sites of multiple and sometimes contradictory consumption practices and that it is necessary to understand how patterns of eating are negotiated and contested within households in order to understand how the home functions as a ‘consumption site’.

Cyberkids? Exploring Children’s Identities and Social Networks in On‐line and Off‐line Worlds

In the first rush of academic and popular commentaries on cyberspace, a stark opposition has been drawn between off-line and on-line worlds—the “real” and “virtual.” Such understandings of the relationship between these spaces are now increasingly subject to critique, yet relatively little is known about how people actually employ information and communication technologies (ICT) within the context of their everyday lives. In this article, by drawing on research with children aged 11 – 16, we provide primary empirical material demonstrating how on-line spaces are used, encountered, and interpreted within the context of young people’s off-line everyday lives. In doing so we consider both how children’s “real” worlds are incorporated into their “virtual” worlds and how their “virtual” worlds are incorporated into their “real” worlds. In other words, we demonstrate how the real and the virtual are mutually constituted. We also reflect on some of the forms of “private” and “public” spaces constituted by children’s activities on and around the screen.

Queer country: Rural lesbian and gay lives

Abstract Studies of rural life and lifestyles have yet to seriously address issues of sexuality. This paper outlines some of the experiences of lesbians and gay men who live in the countryside. It begins by tracing the history of the relationship between homosexuality and rurality in fiction and film, paying particular attention to the role of rural utopias in the lesbian and gay imagination. The paper then goes on to consider the structural difficulties experienced by those gay men and women who are born and raised in rural areas, and the lifestyles of those who choose to move to country locations in an attempt to create alternative communes. The paper ends with discussion of the ethics researching ‘rural others’.

Exploring children and young people’s narratives of identity

Abstract In this paper I begin by considering the way that children are located in narratives of identity not of their own making. Specifically, I argue that in twentieth century Britain, children have been defined in opposition to adults. This compartmentalisation of childhood as a separate category from adulthood is reinforced by the contemporary process of familialisation. I then go on to consider the way that children are also increasingly being located within narratives of individualisation, being confronted with many of the same choices as adults while also facing similar risks of marginalisation through their choices. Using the example of adult-child relationships at school break time, I examine how as a result of this process of individualisation the category child/youth is dissolving into adulthood and erasing relationships between childhood and adulthood based purely on hierarchy and deference. In producing their own narrative of the self, I argue that young people increasingly have to learn to negotiate this ambiguity if they are to position themselves correctly within adult and peer cultures. In particular, it is within the context of peer group culture that young people have to learn how to articulate their individuality while at the same time conforming with peer group identities which are highly embodied and are predicated on adult notions of heterosexualised gender identities.