Sexualised Productions of Space

Abstract

This themed section consists of articles that explore the intricate and complicated relationship between sexuality and space. The underlying premise is that space is never a homogenous, unified, neutral and a-priori entity that precedes subjects but emerges as the outcome of an ongoing production process which involves actors and material components. Heteropatriarchal understandings of space based on masculinist premises have largely ignored women and queer subjects who may subvert or alter normative spatial practices. The latter challenge established spatial typologies and their gendered associations, such as the house with women and the war zone with men. Furthermore, the practices of marginalized subjects point to alternative understandings of space based on fluid and porous boundaries between such dualities as materiality/representation, inside/outside and private/public. The contributors to this themed section analyze non-normative spatial practices by drawing from feminist and queer theories, postcolonial studies, architectural theory and geography. They focus on specific cases from a broad geographical span ranging from South Asia to Europe. Despite their different contextual foci, the following authors speak to each other by engaging in scholarship that resists disembodiment and by addressing the materiality of space as an arena of continuous production in relation to sexed bodies and sexualized identities. They all focus on strategies that counter hegemonic spatial practices and engage with the crucial question of how to think space differently.