Sophia Maalsen

Destroying the Joint and Dying of Shame? A Geography of Revitalised Feminism in Social Media and Beyond

Has feminist geography really lost all relevance? This paper examines what the revitalisation of interest in feminist thought and practice, especially in Australia, means for geography. We illuminate the trajectory of the feminist revitalisation in new media and beyond through developing a spatial analysis influenced by Rose and Fincher. Notions of paradoxical space and issue publics inform this reading of two pivotal moments in the feminist revitalisation: first, the creation of Destroy the Joint, a campaign launched and maintained in Facebook and Twitter spaces; and second, the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillards speech against sexism and misogyny in Parliament in October 2012. Both these moments, coming from political and public spaces, received worldwide interest, and we critically examine the context and ramifications of these instances while situating the institutional processes surrounding them within the growing feminist revitalisation. In so doing, we argue that these Australian-based cases indicate a growing feminist movement that is open and multiply focused, connecting personal politics to public campaigning, and achieving material impacts. We conclude that developing a feminist geography of new media is a challenging task, as these spaces circumvent and renegotiate traditional spatial dimensions – including scale and place – through their dynamic networks. It is, nevertheless, a task worth doing.

Learning about Feminism in Digital Spaces: online methodologies and participatory mapping

ABSTRACT Collaborative online research offers opportunities and constraints for geographers. This article critically appraises a collaborative research process that we used to illuminate spatial and political dynamics of feminism contained within the online group ‘Destroy the Joint’ (DTJ). A mostly Australian initiative of over 74 000 Facebook members, DTJ aims to end sexism and misogyny in multiple ways. It operates as a meeting place, discussion forum, and umbrella organisation for numerous micro-campaigns that change in response to broader social, cultural and political contexts, and occur in online and offline spaces. We formed a collaborative research agreement with the moderators of DTJ to reflect on its work, asking participants to put themselves on a map and complete a survey. Participatory GIS and survey-based research operated in the real and the more-than-real spaces that contain paradoxical possibilities. We use the term more-than-real to highlight the excesses of digital spaces: the affect that social media generates, and is generated by, characterises the more-than-real, where extremes in productive and corrosive relations can permeate. Survey results showed diverse appreciations of DTJs multiple activist tactics (across seemingly ‘superficial’ and ‘meaningful’ interventions), and creative ideas for future campaigns. Mapping revealed both dispersed networks and urban activist concentrations. Nevertheless, after an initial peak of interest and enthusiasm for reflecting on DTJ, the reporting back of research findings to DTJ followers did not garner significant interest. This article tracks that collaborative research trajectory. Intentions to build a hybrid research collective were not realised because of how the more-than-real affords possibilities and limitations. The politics of ‘giving-back’ within the more-than-real are critically engaged with in this appraisal of an experimental online collaboration.

‘We Don’t want it to be like that for her again’: gendered leadership and online feminism in Australian politics and planning

ABSTRACT Learning from women leaders in Australia has gained attention as a national political issue since the election of Julia Gillard as our first female Prime Minister in 2010. In parallel with her period in office, a growth in feminist action and practice has been evident, in institutions and interventions such as ‘Destroy the Joint’, a group that agitates for an end to sexism and misogyny in multiple spaces. This article examines shifts in gendered leadership and activism, in online and offline spaces, especially with respect to learning from women’s experiences in leadership, and we consider the implications of gendered politicking on planning issues. Drawing on empirical quantitative and qualitative data from an online survey of nearly 900 Destroy the Joint participants, this article looks at some impacts of national female leadership on Australian governance and what people believe should happen to achieve gender equality, in planning and political representation contexts. We argue that discourses of power and gender produced a challenging governance context for Gillard that undermined her leadership achievements but that this sexism also helped inspire growing and active feminist spaces that seek gender equality.

Digging up Unearthed down-under: a hybrid geography of a musical space that essentialises gender and place

Hybrid geographies are well developed in studies of human–nature relations and environmental humanities, but less so in geographies of music and gender. In this article, we use hybrid geographies to frame our critical engagement with Australias triple js Unearthed, a publically funded website and radio station that presents new music. Hybrid approaches enable us to understand gendered power relations in music by deconstructing the ways power differences are built on cultural, social, spatial and technological relations. Engaging netnographic and mixed-method approaches we critique Unearthed as a democratic music cyberspace. We identify the limited constructions of gender and geographic location, some of which are unique to this online presence, while others are shared with broader musical spaces. We argue that the interactions between technology, artists, fans and the online spaces, as mediated by Unearthed, situate emerging artists in relation to gender, geography and genre, and thus constrain possibilities for a more democratic musical space. Unearthed manifests as a musical space where rurality is exoticised while urban origins are diminished, and hegemonic masculinities remain dominant. We suggest that the potential of Unearthed can be realised if gender and geographic hegemonies are recognised and otherness is de-essentialised.

‘Generation Share’: digitalized geographies of shared housing

Abstract Traditional housing careers are being re-configured. Home ownership is declining and a parallel increase in renting has lead some commentators to suggest that this is creating a generation of renters. I argue that there is a further significant housing shift that deserves our attention – share housing. Share housing in the twenty-first century is different as evidence shows that people are sharing for longer and across widening age demographics; and that access to and experience of share housing is increasingly mediated by the digital. However, scant attention has been paid to share housing beyond its stereotype as transitional housing for young people between the family home and individual home ownership. Here I provoke geographers to take seriously, ‘Generation Share’ and the digitalised geographies of shared housing.

Record collections as musical archives: gender, record collecting, and whose music is heard

In this article the authors extend the concept of the museum and its collecting practices to record collections, and position record collections as musical archives that are representative of our popular music heritage. They recognize the role of material culture and museums in fostering social memory while also noting the absence of second-wave feminism in museum representation. Research on the archival turn in feminism suggests some intersections between material culture literature and some feminist thought and practices, but such overlap requires further examination. The authors suggest that masculine dominance of record collecting has implications for representing whose music heritage and tastes are being preserved. The literature on collecting has traditionally defined masculine actors as collectors while positioning feminine actors as consumers. This article looks at record collecting in detail and argues that a feminist critique of archiving in record collecting provides valuable insights into gender and power relations. Ethnographic research of record collectors conducted in 2006 and 2010–2013 shows that women do collect, but their collecting practices are overlooked due to the type of objects or genres being collected, and where they do exhibit the same qualities of masculine collectors, they are seen as anomalies and often downplay the value of their collections. Furthermore, gender bias is perpetuated when personal collections become the basis of musical canons and are institutionalized through reissue labels or museum collections. This maintains the masculine hegemony seen in music cultures more generally and has implications for creating and building an inclusive musical heritage.

Reissuing Alternative Music Heritages: The Materiality of the Niche Reissued Record and Challenging What Music Matters

Increasing value is being placed on popular music as cultural heritage. This article addresses this interest through the overlooked practice of reissue, which acts to curate and preserve musical heritage, presenting it in a way that emphasizes music’s materiality. I will first look at the rise of popular music as heritage before looking at specific reissue labels—Sing Sing Records and Smithsonian Folkways—that demonstrate the multiplicities of music considered worth salvaging and the motivations for doing so. The reissue process is addressed, including its role in packaging music in ways that signify and inform the listener of its cultural significance. It is argued that reissue labels rescue underground music that is not encompassed by the two major label reissues of rock classics or the music recognized by official heritage bodies, and therefore creates an alternative discourse to mainstream music heritage.