4th International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional 1-3 July 2013 at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands

Session Summary Session Title Geographies of Sexuality: Bodies, Spatial Encounters, and Emotions III

Session Abstract From the 1990s, geographers have been engaging more and more with sexuality and space. Seeing sexuality as an essential, fluid foundation of society and human behaviour, geographers have been critically questioning the socio- spatial configurations of, most importantly, sexual citizenship, queerness, sex work, public sex, , sexual violence, eroticism and pornography, residence of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders (LGBT), and sexual antagonism by LGBT who are conceived of as sexual dissidents by heteronormative belief systems (cf. Browne 2007; Oswin 2008; Hubbard 2011). Apart from analyses stressing the complexities and fluidities of geographies of sexualities, this session explicitly invites scholars from across all disciplines to critically reflect on the encounters between sexed bodies, sexed space and sexed emotions. An emotional/affective approach is, in line with Davidson (2005), particularly pivotal to be or get critical in understanding how social relations within the emerging context of sexuality are spatially performed from the level of the individual body and body -between- body to group levels and overall society. As for sexuality, emotions are also related to the conceptual level. Sex and sexualities are closely linked with norms and values, with virtue and/or vice, and therefore create a diversity of feelings (cf.Fincher and Jacobs 1998) . Particularly when it comes to non-heteronormative sexualities, emotions such as guilt, shame and the fear of negative evaluation seem to have a dialectic relationship with (re)production of and oppression by norms and in this way influence one’s behaviour and use of space, leading to including/excluding discourses, conformism, feelings of acceptance/oppression, etc.

Keywords

Presentations # Title Author Name 1 The Female Street Artist: Navigating Space and Gender in the Emma Arnold Streets of Montréal 2 Bypassing the Margin: Emotion Circulation and Gay Muslim Ferdiansyah Thajib Subjectivities in Indonesia 3 Discussion led by Phil Hubbard 4 Discussion led by Phil Hubbard

Session Convenors and Chair Session Convenor Name Affiliation Martin Zebracki Wageningen University Valerie De Craene KU Leuven Session Chair names Affiliation Martin Zebracki Wageningen University Valerie De Craene KU Leuven

Session presentation details Presentation 1

Title The Female Street Artist: Navigating Space and Gender in the Streets of Montréal Abstract Graffiti and street art have been historically male dominated pursuits. Yet, there is an increasing number of women entering the world of street art and gaining recognition for their work. This research explores the motivations, themes, challenges, and practices of several female street artists working in Montréal, including: Star Child Stela, Miss Me, and textile graffiti collectives Maille à Part and Les Ville Laines. This research suggests that some artists use street art as a way of empowering women artistically in a male dominated subculture (e.g. Star Child Stela) while others use it as a way of empowering women sexually in public space (e.g. Miss Me). The work of Miss Me in particular may serve to subvert the male gaze through her erotic and sexually suggestive images of female characters. This is especially interesting when contrasted with popular male street artists such as whatisadam who uses similarly erotic imagery or Futur Lasor Now (FLN) whose futuristic “lasor babes” are humourously armed with weapons significantly more substantial than their clothing. This research further explores the female dominated realm of textile graffiti, associated with third- wave feminism and the reclamation of public urban space by women. Street art may be considered an empowering art form, allowing creative outlets for artists free from censorship. The female street artist may be further empowered through legitimisation of their work in a male dominated subculture, through the ways they attempt to subvert the male gaze, and the manners in which they feminise and reclaim typically male, patriarchal urban space. This research is part of the Geographies of Street Art project which uses visual and psychogeographic methodologies to explore street art: http://i- ae.org/streetart. Author name Author affiliation Emma Arnold Department of and Human , University of Oslo, Norway

Presentation 2

Title Bypassing the Margin: Emotion Circulation and Gay Muslim Subjectivities in Indonesia Abstract Political homophobia in the public sphere has added new violent dimensions to the debates of Islam and homosexuality that have long been taken for granted as part of contradictory and irreconcilable facets of life in Indonesian Muslim culture. Meanwhile, stories of Muslim gay men inhabiting the cleavages between sexuality and piety continue to emerge along different life- courses and mental processes. This research focuses on men living the incommensurability of being both Gay and Muslim in Indonesia, as they performatively engage with both spaces of trancendental religious well-being and social norms of Indonesian Muslim culture by ways of emotion display and regulation. The paper will trace the possibilities and limitations in the deployment of emotion within the production of ‘archipelagic’ gay subjectivities (Boellstroff, 2005) against the backdrop of a mainstream sensibilities that constantly assigned non-normative subjects into the irreconcilable gap of desire and religion. As a part of a larger project that investigate the role of emotion in the making of Gay Muslim subjectivities and community in Indonesia, this presentation particularly focus on the following sets of question (1) How do emotional encounters with institutionalized homophobia in everyday settings help transforming proximity and boundaries between isolated and distributed places of Gay Muslim subjectivities into viable network of affiliations? (2) How does its circulation as shared-feelings and collective sentiments align non-normative subjects into, to twist Benedict Anderson’s term, ‘felt communities? Author name Author affiliation Ferdiansyah Thajib Institut fur Ethnologie, Freie Universitat Berlin, Germany

Presentation 3/4

Title Discussion led by Phil Hubbard

Short biographical notes of presenters Emma Arnold PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology and , University of Oslo, Norway Maria Rodó-de-Zárate PhD Student, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain Phil Hubbard Professor of Urban Studies, University of Kent, UK