Embodied experiences in international volunteering: power-body relations and performative ontologies

In this paper we debate the interpretation of embodied experience on international volunteering placements. Drawing on six in-depth interviews with volunteers recently returned from Northern Thailand, we document the affects and emotions that play a key role in the formation of volunteer–host relations. We then present two interpretations of the data, conceptualising power-body relations in two different ways: from power’s affective and emotional literacy, to the body’s autonomous capacities. With these two interpretations at hand we then consider the performative nature of academic labour and make the case, following the work of feminist geographers J.K. Gibson-Graham, for a research praxis that does not set limits on subjectivity but rather excavates – and writes into being – the possible. We therefore argue for a conceptualisation and interpretation of embodied experience in volunteering as a site of potential transformation and transcendence of the inequalities that otherwise set the conditions of the volunteer–host encounter.     

‘Lady Austin’s Camp Boys’: Constituting the Queer Subject in 1930s London

In December 1932, police raided a private ballroom in Holland Park Avenue. They found almost sixty men dancing, many in female clothing and make–up. An ongoing encounter between the police and working–class queer social worlds drew the ballroom into a public domain within which masculine sexualities were contested, produced and consumed. The ensuing trial gripped metropolitan opinion, becoming the most notorious and widely reported ‘pansy case’ of the 1930s. This paper explores the complex nexus of spaces and practices that cohered in the case as a site at which the queer subject was definitionally produced. During the trial both legal authorities and newspapers and the defendants sought to produce a stable contradistinction between queer and normal, though the meanings they invested in that difference diverged radically. Yet focusing upon the intersecting sites through which this queer subject was constituted – the city, the body and the police/policed interface – suggests the unsettling ambiguities undermining the stability of that difference. Throughout the case, the difference between queer and normal often seemed anything but self–evident, and the arrested men appeared an electric threat to the metropolitan cultural landscape.     

Memory Mapping: Affect,Place, and Testimony in El Lugar Más Pequeño (2011)

This article examines the Salvadoran documentary El Lugar Más Pequeño (The Tiniest Place, 2011) and argues that the film gives new insight into the complicated spaces and practices of memory post-transition and post-conflict through a process I call ‘memory mapping,’ which I define as the aesthetic process of representing the affective, polyvocal, layered relationship between past, present, and place as experienced by individuals and the communities in which they live. Engaging primarily with affect and memory theory, I contend that the film maps post-conflict memory in two specific ways: first, through testimony, and second, through an exploration of the relationship between memory and place. Ultimately, I argue that memory mapping sheds new light on how the aftermath of conflict – the physical, but also the emotional ruination caused by violence – is negotiated in the everyday of human life.     

‘Broad but not deep’: regional food hubs and rural development in the United States

Abstract

As organizations that aggregate, market, and distribute locally and regionally sourced food within wholesale, retail, and institutional markets, regional food hubs (RFHs) are increasingly promoted in the United States as rural development tools. Connections between RFHs and rural development, however, remain mostly untested and unclear. Motivated by prolonged declines in rural, agricultural communities and limited investigation to date, this paper adopts the capability approach to comprehensively test for the first time the rural development rhetoric surrounding RFHs. In-depth interviews in a rural, poor setting contribute empirical, noneconomic evidence to assess if, how, how much, and for whom RFHs advance rural opportunities and improve upon highly localized food systems. Though not to the purported degree, RFHs facilitate rural development, and do so in previously unexplored though substantial ways. Contrary to what proponents might anticipate, the study simultaneously highlights negative outcomes and areas that – albeit key to rural development narratives – remain unchanged. Grounding assumptions, highlighting alternative spaces of impact, and uncovering barriers with a novel evaluative approach, this paper draws on community voices to fill gaps between theory and reality and offer insights for those hoping to harness the transformative capacities of food.     

Spaces of safety and more-than-safety in women’s refuges in England

Many women escaping domestic violence spend time in women’s refuges (shelters) whilst they deal with practical and emotional issues in a safe space. Such spaces are therefore an important place for women’s recovery and empowerment after abuse, but are also complex spaces of displacement. In the UK, there is a wide range of refuge providers, and different models of accommodation and support provision in refuges. Differences, such as those between refuges providing self-contained flats and those with communal facilities and communal activities, can provide very different experiences for the women and their children who live there. In addition, there have been shifts in the policy context of refuges, and increasingly individualistic models of service provision. This article explores women’s refuges as spaces of safety, and of more-than-safety, drawing on interviews with women in the Midlands, South Coast and London, and on participatory creative groupwork with women in the Midlands and South Coast. Refuge spaces require, but also enable, contact and encounter between women; and communal living and group processes can enable interaction and collaboration between women. The article draws on women’s words and images to exemplify these experiences, concluding that the safe spaces of women’s refuges can enable processes of more-than-safety. These collective processes begin to counteract the isolation of abuse and to help prepare women for their lives after the refuge.     

Gender Binary and the Limits of Poststructuralist Method

In contemporary gender history, the story about the making of the gender category is inseparable from the concept of ‘gender binary’. It at once signifies a research agenda and constitutes a persistent problem pervading feminist analysis itself. On the one hand, it points to the massive historical record of persistent inequality between the sexes. On the other hand, the concept of ‘gender binary’ undergirds gender history's analytics, which empowers historians to pursue, expose and deconstruct the binary organisation of gendered – woman/man – identities as well as social relations and discursive formations that produce them. In both capacities, the concept carries a rich repertoire of connotations, which informs and influences the gender category: those of radical distinction, opposition, mutually exclusive and exhaustive differentiation, hierarchy, domination, oppression – in all their myriad historical forms. As a result, it captures the entanglement of gender – in theory, an open‐ended category – in binary, that is, negatively and positively determined connotations of feminine and masculine and, consequently, in a particular, historical form of heterosexual subjectivity, the one structured like a binary system. The entanglement of gender history's foundational category – gender – in the binary systems of assigning difference has had many critics. What has been left unexamined however and what gives this article its focus is the poverty of gender as a binary device to analyse those gendered identities that constitute heterosexual relations but do not fit the binary matrix. The goal in this article is to enable the conditions for the continuous development – not abandonment – of the gender category and our theoretical framework. To do that, I explore how the gender category became a binary category, tightly identified with connotations of asymmetry and hierarchy, by undertaking a deconstructive rereading of a foundational work by one of the discipline's most influential poststructuralist theorists – Joan Scott. I conclude by arguing that in order to address the problem of gendered, heterosexual identities that do not fit the binary matrix we need to revisit the concept of dichotomy and differentiate it from binary connotations of difference found in heteronormative gender systems.     

Rethinking the place of emotions in the field through social laboratories

The insights of feminist science and technology studies (STS) into the constructed and situated nature of knowledge have proved crucial to informing feminist geography. Since the rise of emotional geographies, feminist methodologies no longer simply reflect on questions of positionality, partiality, and power relations, but also on the role of emotions in the field. In this article, we argue that a feminist STS perspective has much to offer when thinking about the way emotions are engineered, controlled, and negotiated in research processes. Our engagement with what we call ‘social laboratories’ – i.e., spaces in everyday life where (experimental) research is conducted with human beings – advances debates in feminist geography, as these laboratories crystallize the emotional entanglements feminists encounter in the field. Looking at economic experiments in Ghana and fertility clinics in Mexico, we discuss the difficulties of doing feminist fieldwork in these experimental research spaces. We argue that the constant negotiation of emotions and ethics is crucial to access, assess, and do fieldwork in research settings that do not adhere to feminist ideals, but nevertheless have gendered effects on women's and men's lives. Rethinking ‘the place of emotions in research’ (Bondi 2005, in Emotional Geographies, edited by Joyce Davidson, Liz Bondi, and Mick Smith, 231–246, Aldershot: Ashgate) through social laboratories forges instructive links across feminist/emotional geographies and social studies of science.     

“Mongrel City”: Cosmopolitan Neighbourliness in a Delhi Squatter Settlement

Abstract: This paper examines the construction of a “cosmopolitan neighbourliness” which emerges in a Delhi squatter settlement in the context of communal violence. Through interviews with over 80 inhabitants, I suggest that an openness to “others” in the settlement is produced in order to construct a home for oneself in an exclusionary city through a series of relational constructs—between the “cosmopolitan” city and the “parochial” village; between the “murderous” city and the “compassionate” slum; between the exclusionary urban public sphere and the “inclusive” neighbourhood sphere. The squatter settlement is internalised as a microcosm of a “mongrel city”, a place which through its set of oppositional constructs becomes inherently “urban”. “Cosmopolitan neighbourliness”, however, remains fragile and gendered. It is a continuous strategic practice that attempts to bridge across differences of caste and religion through gendered performances that avert and discourage communal violence even when the city becomes murderous.     

Encountering enchantment: stories from the street football court in Singapore

While enchantment has been used productively to think through the geographies of social encounter, extant research – drawing largely from cases in the West – has reinforced a celebratory notion of enchantment, characterized by egalitarianism and serendipity. In this paper we draw ethnographically on encounters between Malay and Chinese users of two street football courts in Singapore, a non-Western context where principles of public interaction converge with but also exceed those in the West. In so doing we aim to advance existing debates by conceptualizing enchantment as it is negotiated and constituted, rather than asking if observed occurrences live up to dominant interpretations. We find that enchantment can be experienced through the construction, perpetuation and negotiation of boundaries; it is also a product of enduring rhythms in space that are produced and developed via the interactions of its users over time. In specifying the different ways in which enchantment is created, negotiated and lived we contribute to signalling the validity of expansive notions of publicness i.e. the different ways in which encounter in public space can be made meaningful and fulfilling.     

On the Contours of Public Space: A Tale of Three Women

This article explores the changing contours of the relationship between gender and the distinction between public and private spaces in western cities. Our account returns to the emergence of a modern understanding of public and private spaces to highlight its class and gender connotations. Then, focusing on middle-class women's experiences of public spaces, we use examples from the mid-nineteenth century and the late-twentieth century to illustrate continuities and changes. We emphasize persistent but evolving exclusions from the category "public," which have been sustained in part by changing delineations of "public space" associated with consumer activities. In developing our argument, we question representations of public spaces invoked in arguments about its decline and argue for a politics sensitive to different experiences of such spaces.     

Controlling space,controlling scale: migratory labour,free speech,and regional development in the American West

Using the Industrial Workers of the World's Denver, Colorado free speech struggle of 1913 as a starting point, this paper explores the relationship between the production of public space and the production of scale in the American West. Drawing on evidence from both union and local newspapers, the paper shows how the struggle to shape and control labor and capital mobility was simultaneously engaged in particular public spaces (and the right to use those spaces) and across vast reaches of the region. The paper shows that these struggles were decisive the determining the nature of regional development in the West.     

Keeping migrants at the margins. Governing through ambiguity and the politics of discretion in the post-2015 EUropean migration and border regime

This article deals with the roles of ambiguity and discretion in the governing of migration and how they contribute to the marginalisation of migrants at the borders of EUrope. Building on ethnographic research and interviews conducted in Sicily, it connects legal-institutional ambiguities of two recent policy interventions in the field of migration governance in Italy – the Security Decree-Law and the Hotspot Approach – to the discretionary practices by public officials tasked with their implementation. By theoretically and empirically tracing the co-constitutive relationship of ambiguity and discretion, the article draws on and contributes to recent inquiries into grey areas of governance, particularly in the field of (critical) border regime studies. Based on two distinct cases, it analyses how ambiguity and discretionary local practices are related both to each other and to the contemporary fragmentary reconfiguration processes of the EUropean Migration and Border Regime, and shows how they intersect to form spatio-juridical grey areas that foster the spatial and social marginalisation of migrants in EUrope.     

Contesting the ‘greening’ of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon

The 21st century has witnessed a resurgence of hydropower projects across the globe, with the energy source an integral part of contemporary sustainable energy transitions. Yet, the environmentalist credentials of hydropower remain contested by anti-dam movements. This paper details the cases of the Belo Monte and São Luiz do Tapajós dams in the Brazilian Amazon to explore how the development, submission and acceptance of an Environmental Impact Assessment provides a key site in the contestation of hydroelectric projects. Whilst the provision of this document – and the wider environmental licensing process – represents a key component in the asserted ‘green-ness’ of hydropower, opposition groups extend the scope of analysis to include indirect and cumulative impacts that remain understudied in official assessments. This paper analyses interviews and questionnaires with and documents provided by national and international civil society organisations to trace this process of challenge and critique. It details how civil society actors forward alternative assessments of the impacts of the projects studied, uncovering and illuminating overlooked and understudied externalities of hydropower in the Brazilian Amazon. An analysis of this process not only demonstrates that the ‘green’ credentials of hydropower remain far from assured but also highlights how anti-dam actors advance new ‘sustainabilities’ to discredit the terrain upon which such credentials are set.     

Micro Aggressions and Connections in the Context of National Multiculturalism: Everyday Geographies of Racialisation and Resistance in Contemporary Scotland

This paper is organised around geographies of encounter, power and living together. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews and focus groups in the West and North of Glasgow, I explore the micro connections and aggressions shaping everyday encounters for some (ethnic and cultural) minorities, contributing to debates on the potentials and challenges of multicultural living. The research contributes to this work by offering a detailed embodied/felt account of belonging and racism in contemporary Glasgow, challenging dominant narratives that construct Scottishness as having “no problem with racism”. As worrying shifts around immigration and multiculturalism continue on a broader political level, including in Scotland, I use the conceptual frame of micro connection, to detail how people actively resist being racialised and othered, and attempt to transform public spaces in Glasgow by “quietly” carving out and inhabiting alternative spaces of belonging.     

Princely longing for Europe: Constantine II Brâncoveanu's Mogoşoaia Palace (1702) and the creation of a European identity

Trapped among the Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires, the reign of Constantin II Brancoveanu, Prince of Wallachia, was a constant balancing act between the West and the East. To further his political and cultural ambitions, Constantin initiated and supported an artistic movement, known today as the Brancovenesc style, of which his residence, the Mogosoaia Palace, stands as a prime example. The architecture and ornamentation of the palace makes use of elements from both Eastern – Byzantine and Ottoman – and Western – Renaissance and Baroque – European artistic traditions, merging them into an organic whole. The aim of this article is to explore the artistic strategies employed throughout the palace by arguing that they explicitly, as well as implicitly, construct an inclusive European identity. Starting from the premise that the palace acted as a place of cultural encounter between the East and West, the analysis will focus on how the decoration implies a space of transition through subjects such as metamorphosis and the double-headed eagle. Also, the importance given to spaces such as the entrance foyer and loggia suggests their role as critical spaces evoking the ambiguous concept of the parergon, which in turn challenges the emerging Enlightenment idea of the West as properEurope and the East as not quite Europe.     

EMBEDDEDNESS AND THE (RE)MAKING OF RETAIL SPACE IN THE REALM OF MULTICHANNEL RETAILING: THE CASE OF MIGROS SANAL MARKET IN TURKEY

The purpose of this article is to investigate the value of the concept of embeddedness for economic geographers. Alongside the case study of the multichannel grocery retailing brand Migros in Turkey, the spatial impacts – in relational and physical terms – of digitalization and the integration of an online shop into the profile of a supermarket chain are investigated. In applying the concept of embeddedness the article seeks to understand these complex, diverse and uneven processes of (retail) restructurings that affect different dimensions and dynamics of networks, societies and spaces. In my case study I identify two dimensions of embeddedness processes: (1) embedding the online shop in the firm's routines and practices, whereby processes of transfer of knowledge and technology dominate; and (2) embedding online shopping in the customer's routines and practices, whereby processes of adaption to consumer culture dominate. These dimensions are reflexive and as such mirror ongoing negotiation processes between the two stakeholders. On one hand multichannel retailing thus not only alters where but also how people shop, and can result in new retail spaces like pick‐up stores. On the other hand it can be shown, that the “locations”, where online shopping of Migros is available, reproduce spatial variations of socio‐economic factors, such as income distribution or population density. As such, the concept of embeddedness is useful for economic geographers – also in the realm of e‐commerce – to unravel the interconnections of societal, organizational and spatial patterns as well as their variations across space. The study is based on qualitative interviews.     

‘Stepbrothers from the Middle East’: negotiations of racial identity among Jewish-Israeli immigrants in Toronto

This paper explores the complex negotiations of racial identity experienced on migration. Working from a series of 48 interviews with racially diverse Israeli immigrants to Toronto, and drawing on literature on the assimilated Canadian-born Jewish population, I contrast the racial histories of Canadian and Israeli Jews – groups whose identities have historically crossed intersections of race, ethnicity and religion. By exploring the participants’ accounts of being differently whitened and blackened in Israel and Toronto, and their own interpretations of and responses to these processes, I expose the spatial contingencies of racial hierarchies, meanings and identifications. I also introduce the under-studied Mizrahi/Sephardi Jewish community – who are demographically prevalent in Israel yet largely unknown in North America, and are subject to complex racial and ethno-cultural tensions in both spaces – into discussions of Canadian Jewishness.     

Popular culture,post-truth and emotional framings of world politics

ABSTRACT

With the election of US President Donald Trump, the separation between high and low politics and the line between fiction and reality has become fundamentally blurred. Yet popular culture offers an important vector through which we might make sense of this political turmoil. The purpose of this essay is two-fold: conceptually, I examine how television provides opportunities for the insight into the visual and emotional registers of the post-truth era. I illustrate this empirically by examining two popular television series – Homeland and The Good Fight. I argue that the power of popular culture is derived from its visuality as the intersection of image and sound, through which emotional registers related to anxiety and outrage can be elicited and visually narrated. Even more so, the visual nature of popular culture has a strong affective component that shapes how we experience representations of reality and reveals the power and political significance of popular culture.     

Experiencing virtual places: insights on the geographies of sim racing

Virtual spaces have emerged as everyday life spaces in contemporary societies. Very quickly, they have gained a cultural role in the daily life of their users, as these new territories gain their own communities, ideologies, and spatializations. However, little is known about how place is experienced in these different realms. This study seeks to understand place experience in virtual spaces, taking the sim racing virtual spaces as a case study and endeavoring to build a bridge between theory and empirics. This study uses ethnographic methods, which included a year-long participant observation period and a set of 20 in-depth interviews with users, in order to understand their narratives of the virtual geographies of two sim racing videogames: Gran Turismo and rFactor. The results of the study show that spirit of place, place ballets, and sense of place exist just as well among users of virtual spaces—despite the particularities of these new territories and their remaining tensions.     

Pickets,Protests and Purses in the American Civil Rights Movement

At first glance, perhaps nothing seems more mundane and apolitical than a purse. But purses have always been much more than a fashion accessory. This article analyses how southern Black women – both the legendary and the lesser known – in the ‘classical’ phase of the Civil Rights Movement used purses to appear as respectable ladies' when their dress and comportment were under close surveillance. Yet they simultaneously used their purses as private, female-controlled spaces that aided them in achieving a wide variety of social, economic and political objectives. In fact, many southern Black women used their purses to hide critical items needed to prepare themselves and protect their bodies as they voted, sat-in, rode on public transportation and integrated schools. Using oral histories, memoirs, newspaper and magazine stories and photographs, this article argues that Black southern female activists used purses primarily as ‘toolkits’. In the process, it reveals that Black southern women's participation in the armed self-defence movement is far more significant than scholars have appreciated.