Challenging Hegemonies through Connecting Places,People and Ideas: Jan Monk's contribution to international gender geography (with particular reference to Spain)

The main goal of the paper is to study Jan Monk's contribution to the development of international gender geography, in particular in Spain. Our aim is also to explain the experiences and numerous connections among places, people and ideas that she has been weaving to foster international scholarship and, in this way, how she has challenged hegemonic approaches in feminist geography. Jan Monk comes originally from the Southern hemisphere and therefore she is well aware of the extent to which ‘Northern’ (or Anglo-American) ways of seeing the world define concepts, theories and ideas in geography (and also in feminist geography). Being an ‘insider’ and an ‘outsider’ as well as her sensibility to the important of place has permeated Jan's contribution to international gender geography.     

Absolute chronology of fluvial events in the Upper Dnieper River system and its palaeogeographic implications

A set of 121 radiocarbon and OSL dates has been compiled from the Upper Dnieper River and tributary valleys, Western European Russia. Each date was attributed according to geomorphic/sedimentological events and classes of fluvial activity. Summed probability density functions for each class were used to establish phases of increasing and reducing fluvial activity. The oldest detected reduction of fluvial activity was probably due to glacial damming at LGM. Within the Holocene three palaeohydrological epochs of millennial-scale were found: (1) high activity at 12,000–8,000 cal BP marked by large river palaeochannels; (2) low activity at 8,000–3,000 cal BP marked by formation of zonal-type soils on -floodplains; short episodes of high floods occurred between 6,500—4,400 cal BP; (3) contrasting hydrological oscillations since 3,000 cal BP with periods of high floods between 3,000–2,300 (2,000) and 900–100 cal BP separated by long interval of low floods 2,300 (2,000)-900 cal BP when floodplains were not inundated — zonal-type soils were developing and permanent settlements existed on floodplains. In the last millennium, four centennial-scale intervals were found: high flooding intervals are mid-11–mid-15^th century and mid-17–mid-20^th century. Intervals of flood activity similar to the present-day were: mid-15–mid-17^th century and since mid-19^th century till present. In the context of palaeohydrological changes, discussed are selected palaeogeographic issues such as: position of the glacial boundary at LGM, role of changing amounts of river runoff in the Black Sea level changes, floodplain occupation by Early Medieval population.     

Developing geographies of intersectionality with Relief Maps: reflections from youth research in Manresa,Catalonia

The conceptualisation of intersectionality has been one of the most important contributions to feminism, as it allows for theorisation about multiple and intersecting oppressions. This contributes to a more complex and dynamic understanding of social relations and power structures, and it acknowledges the differences between categories, but it has no methodological direction. I try to take this debate a step forward, by developing what I have called Relief Maps: a new way of collecting, analysing and displaying intersectional data. I consider Relief Maps to be a sound tool for studying the Geographies of Intersectionality, as they show the relationship between three dimensions: power structures (the social), lived experience (the psychological) and places (the geographical). By showing some examples of them, I demonstrate how Relief Maps make empirical work on intersectionality possible and how they are able to take into account both privilege and oppression without using categories in a fixed and rigid way. Taking the spatial dimension as a central part of the analysis, they show how the relationship between power structures varies depending on places and also illustrate how subject formations are done and undone through everyday spaces. Relief Maps aim to take the potentialities of intersectionality and minimise its limitations: they intend to disrupt homogeneous categories while pointing towards the material consequences of oppression. Finally, Relief Maps also provide some insights on intersectionality itself, as they help to think about how power structures relate to each other and the role that experience and place play in these processes.     

Ex-Ante Analysis of the Regional Impacts of the Common Agricultural Policy: A Rural–Urban Recursive Dynamic CGE Model Approach

A recursive dynamic regional Computable General Equilibrium model is developed to assess the economic impacts of two Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) scenarios in six NUTS-3 (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) (NUTS-1: major socio-economic regions, NUTS-2: basic regions for the application of regional policies, NUTS-3: small regions for specific diagnoses) regions of the European Union (EU). The main goal of the analysis is to assess the scenario effects (change in production, prices, income, employment) in the rural and urban parts of these regions as well as on the different sectors. The two scenarios analysed are related to a 30% reduction in Pillar 1 (market measures and direct support to farmers) support and the introduction of an EU-wide flat rate level of Pillar 1 support complemented by a 45% increase in Pillar 2 (Rural Development Policy) funds. Results show that the overall gross domestic product effects are not significant, due to the relatively low importance of both the agricultural sector and CAP spending in the regional economies. However, impacts on the agricultural sector are quite important and differ according to the nature of the policy shock. Also, the structural characteristics of each case study influence the rural–urban and sectoral spillovers, including impacts on region-specific agricultural activity.     

Interspatial gender asymmetries in early Soviet Siberia

The article addresses gendered power asymmetries within indigenous communities of early Soviet Siberia and their shifts during the transitional period between the Russian Empire and the totalitarian Soviet state. The concept of entangled relational spaces is the main analytical tool of this article. Seeking to overcome identity-based essentialisms, the article deconstructs gender identity and demonstrates how it can be articulated and interpreted in different relational spaces. It extends the argument that oppressions are produced by various social categories (intersectionality) by adding that a single social category may beget various forms of oppression and that heterogeneous gender asymmetries are produced and manifested across different relational spaces. Evidence deriving from predominantly indigenous sources authored by women enabled the discussion of gendered power asymmetries in economic, legal, and political spaces produced by corresponding relations. Economic and demographic crises, which the indigenous peoples of Siberia endured in the 1910s–1920s, reduced gendered power asymmetries in economic spaces making women less dependent on men. On women's initiative the shifts then spread to legal spaces and, with the support of the Bolshevik government, affected political spaces. These shifts were closely connected to the early Soviet attempts at dialog with indigenous people, decolonizing Siberia and liberating indigenous women, and gave way to instrumental policies.     

Intersectionality and transnational mobility between Brazil and Spain in travesti prostitution networks

The aim of this article is to highlight the ways in which Brazilian travestis negotiate and strategise transnational mobility in order to work as prostitutes in Spain. Brazilian travestis working illegally in Spain are subject to gendered, sexualised and racial marginalisation. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted between April and September 2008 with 10 Brazilians acting as providers of sexual services in Spain. The interviews were systematised by means of content analysis, which allowed the preparation of a map of meanings around the spatial and lived experiences of travestis. We argue that travestis identities are constructed at the intersection of gender, sexuality, class and race. This fluid intersectionality allows the group to simultaneously manage their positions of both privilege and oppression.     

Indonesian domestic workers and the (un)making of transnational livelihoods and provisional futures

Doreen Massey (2005. For Space. London: Sage.) argued that space and time should not be reduced to a bounded locality of the ‘here and now’ and instead proposed re-imagining ‘space as simultaneity of stories-so-far’. We build on her argument to suggest that an appreciation of migrant aspirations and future trajectories require us to go beyond simultaneous ‘stories-so-far’ but also consider ‘stories-to-come’ which may build upon, divert from, or even unmake the ‘stories-so-far’. We apply these ideas to our study (based on a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews) of the transnational journeys traced by Indonesian domestic workers employed in Singaporean middle-class homes. We argue that socially and culturally specific notions of risk can work to propel and sustain migration into retrogressive occupations like domestic work, as well as disrupt dominant narratives around migrants as strategic actors, necessarily in control of their trajectories and driven by their migration plans. The calculus of risk-taking and aspiration on which transnational livelihoods are predicated is one that takes into account both situatedness in and connectedness across different places (in short simultaneous ‘stories-so-far’). At the same time, future ‘stories-to-come’ may entail both subtle shifts and constant (re)negotiations that propel individual life stories unto different pathways.