Lorraine Dowler

A Feminist Geopolitics

Recent debates centring on a nascent feminist geopolitics indite the historical reasoning of geopolitical arguments as masculinist. These discussions have taken place in a variety of settings from informal conversations at meetings of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) to more institutional investigations, such as a recent survey conducted by the Political Geography Speciality Group (see Staeheli, in this issue). An unavoidable point of entry to these debates is the continued relative absence of women in the sub-disciplineÐ particularly noticeable given the changing gender balance of other parts of geography. Feminist and other marginal voices have made great impacts on geography and related disciplines in recent years, but their impact on political geography has been much slighter. Although political geography has turned to an interest in the everyday and mundane exercise of power, it has tended to articulate this in terms of the `cultural turn’ rather than an acknowledgement of the feminist insistence that t̀he personal is political’ . Nor has there been much attention given to from where political geography emanates. Political geographers have decentred the seat of power and engaged in critiques of the orientalism of global geopolitical discourse but, if anything, political geography has become more eurocentric in terms of the focus of empirical research. It would appear that Richard Ashley’s call in 1987 for a a geopolitics of geopolitical spaceo is still keenly required of the intellectual spaces of political geography. However, 14 years later we still ® nd little interaction between political and feminist geography (with the exception of the emergence of some interesting collaborations between political, cultural and feminist geographers such as the Politics and Identity in Place and Space Group (PIPS) at Penn State and a few published discussions such as Dalby, 1994; Kofman and Peake, 1990; McDowell and Sharp, 1997; Staeheli, 1996). And yet many feminist and post-colonial geographers are producing work that is primarily concerned with the politicisation of the world around us, whether the politicisation of leisure, the body or knowledge about peoples and places around the world. This has required a reconceptualisation of the politicalÐ something which political geographers would

'And They Think I'm Just a Nice Old Lady' Women and War in Belfast, Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT This article examines the spatial construction of gender roles in a time of war. During a period of armed conflict both women and men are perceived as beings who exemplify gender-specific virtues. The relationship of gender and identity in this case is a paradoxical one: war-usually a catalyst of change-can often become an agent of conservatism as regards gender identities. This conservatism can be seen in the wartime spatial relegation of women to the private/domestic realm. When a society is in armed conflict there is a predisposition to perceive men as violent and action-oriented and women as compassionate and supportive to the male warrior. These gender tropes do not denote the actions of women and men in a time of war, but function instead to re-create and secure womens position as non-combatants and that of men as warriors. Thus, women have historically been marginalized in the consciousness of those who have researched the events of war. This article is largely based on interviews I condu...

Don't Let the Bastards See you Sweat: Masculinity, Public and Private Space, and the Volunteer Firehouse

In this paper we examine the ways that traditional definitions of masculinity are challenged within the domestic space of the volunteer firehouse. Our aim is to blur the dichotomies of public–private, masculine–feminine, heroic–weak, and moral–immoral. By examining practices associated with being a volunteer firefighter we present deeper and expanded notions of what it means to be a man in this context. Volunteer firefighters create a private space within the firehouse that offers escape from the public demands of masculinity. It is within this space that they can receive and give comfort and experience bonding, friendship, and a deep sense of belonging by embracing emotions normally off limits to men, including self-disclosure, familiarity, and affection. Although acknowledging the masculine hegemony that constructs mens involvement in firefighting and the firehouse, we also highlight the emotional work done by men as they engage in their public and private firefighting roles.

Till Death do us Part: Masculinity, Friendship, and Nationalism in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Inherent to the conflict in Northern Ireland has been the spatial segregation of men from women, whereby men go to prison and women are left to support and take care of their families. As a result of this segregation, a power relationship has been established that informs mens relationships both with women and with other men. While in prison, Irish men developed highly charged political friendships which reinforced the exclusion of women from the body politic. The eradication of women from the political discourses of the prison has been reincarnated years later in the spaces of Nationalist clubs. The private spaces of Long Kesh gave birth to a third space which is constructed from the traditional characteristics of both the private and the public spheres. This third space, unlike the impenetrable walls of the prison, represents an opening up of space whereby men no longer had to mirror the unrealistic image of the superhero. Instead this space represented a homeplace where these men could simply be themselves.

Who is answering the call? Volunteer firefighting as serious leisure

Abstract This study explores the meaning of the serious leisure experience for volunteer firefighters. The 70,000 volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania are the basis of this study. Volunteer firefighting contrasts with other serious leisure pursuits examined to date in two ways. First, individuals are involved in a highly visible, emotionally charged public service involving life and death situations. Second, volunteer firefighters are simultaneously volunteers, amateurs, and professionals. Within this nexus, being a volunteer is marked by both obligation and ambiguity, creating dynamic tensions that must constantly be negotiated. Giving freely of their time to perform “double duty” beyond their roles as employees, family and community members, society thinks of them as professionals and holds them to professional standards. In reality they are unpaid, voluntary amateurs. The resulting haziness concerning the value of volunteer firefighters as social capital has significant implications for future recruitment and retention numbers.

Challenging ‘The Penn State Way’: a feminist response to institutional violence in higher education

The aim of this Viewpoint is to suggest a feminist intervention into the Sandusky scandal at Penn State University as a radical alternative to rethinking institutional violence at places of higher learning. Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State assistant football coach, was found guilty on 45 charges related to child sexual abuse. The horrific nature of the crimes shocked the community, but the unanswered questions surrounding the involvement of Penn States most prominent administrators in a cover-up have implications for the pervasiveness of institutional violence within higher education. We contend if places of higher learning strive to be the embodiment of intellectual transformation, a feminist ethics of care and responsibility is necessary to negate the day-to-day feelings of fear and vulnerability that institutional violence supports.

The impact of ethnic tourism on gender roles: A comparison between the Bai and the Mosuo of Yunnan province, PRC

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine how ethnic tourism is impacting host women in two destinations in Yunnan. To accomplish this, the paper compares the perceived impacts of ethnic tourism on women from a matriarchal and a patriarchal host community. The findings reveal that tourism income had a greater effect on women from a patriarchal community and that both groups of women reported several other non-economic impacts. Implications for future research are discussed.

Waging Hospitality: Feminist Geopolitics and Tourism in West Belfast Northern Ireland

Many areas of Belfast were considered no-go areas, places where the police had lost jurisdiction, whilst the media designated these neighbourhoods as terrorist enclaves. The urban scars that remain after the signing of the peace agreement, have transformed these marginalised areas into places of hospitality for tourists curious about the past conflict. This paper highlights the interdependent relationship between hospitality and the development of a post-war confidence for a community that had long been stigmatised as a violent enclave. For the purpose of this paper I bring together a feminist geopolitical analysis, with its attention to daily life, with more recent feminist theories of hospitality, observant to issues of inclusiveness. A feminist analysis of this type not only reflects the complicated gender politics of West Belfast, but also exposes a “politics of hospitality” that helps reframe our understandings of security.

No man's land: ‘gender and the geopolitics of mobility in west Belfast, northern Ireland

It is the intent of this article to deconstruct the practices of border crossers, whereby the political identities of women have been relegated to the domestic/private sphere rendering them political innocents. However in West Belfast, womens designation to the home is what facilitated their ability to not only to transcend the borders of West Belfast but also to transgress womens confinement to the home. By contrast, taxi drivers are perceived as unrespectable wild men, cowboys and societal misfits who have been tainted by their border crossings. Interestingly, these groups would never be considered political subjects, as would an IRA volunteer, or resistance protester. However by way of their everyday practices of shopping and driving a taxi, these individuals are not only destabilising the boundary lines of West Belfast but also those of the nation. To this end, the sociospatial practices of these border crossers, which constitutes the expansion and restriction of public and private space, raises the possibilities of a new form of geopolitics determined between gender, politics and mobility.

'Wee women no more': female partners of republican political prisoners in Belfast

Studies of the female partners of politically motivated prisoners have generally studied women via a caring paradigm. Less well observed are those women who privately transgressed and challenged masculine-centred renditions or political imprisonment. This lacuna in the research dedicated to such women has been constructed around stereotypical depictions of them as a barely visible support network. We argue that the relatively indiscernible appearance of women who challenged such typecasting is attached to a persistent process of gender blindness within which women remain peripheral to wider narratives of collectivity and ideological presentation. We chart how some women actively involved themselves in creating their own identity as active agents, especially when the effects of conflict entered the private sphere.