Geography/ Women’S Studies 335 Feminist Geography Fall 2006

Geography/ Women’s Studies 335 Feminist Geography Fall 2006

Wednesday 9-12 Libby Lounge, Geog 104 Susan Hanson

We’ll focus on themes in feminist geography and geographical themes in the feminist literature. In addition to coming to grips with the literature, each student will write a term paper on a topic of special interest.

In the first 12 seminars discussion will center on the following topics:

• Power, discourse, and subjectivity • Feminists reading Foucault • Space, place, and gender • Situated knowledge • Themes in feminist geography • Representing others • Politics

Discussion each week will focus on a set of readings, which everyone will have read carefully. One or two students will lead the discussion for each article; this involves providing a brief summary of the argument and a critical assessment of it as well as some questions for discussion. We’ll have space on Blackboard for posting your notes on articles before class. We’ll try to vary the discussion protocol so class doesn’t get too boring.

In the final weeks of the semester, we’ll focus on student papers, which will include a mock AAG session (presentations of your papers). One week before your presentation you will need to distribute your paper to the class; each of you will also act as discussant for another student’s paper. You’ll receive feedback from your presentation, from your discussant, and from me and then have the chance to revise your paper accordingly.

Evaluation will be based on class participation, your oral presentation, and the term paper.

1 My official office hours are Mon & Tues 2-3:30, but I’m happy to meet with you at other times as well. Office location is JAC 212; office phone 793-7323; home 508-320-4317 (before 8:30 pm please!), e-mail [email protected].

Books and readings—the following books should be available at the Clark U bookstore. We’ll read all of Foucault and Pratt and most of Massey. • M. Foucault. 1990. The History of Sexuality vol.1 N.Y.: Vintage Books. • G. Pratt. 2004. Working Feminism. Temple University Press. • D. Massey. 1994. Space, Place, and Gender. Univ of Minnesota Press

First meeting (8/30): Course overview; why focus on gender and geography? What’s feminist geography, anyway?

Week 1 (9/6): Power, discourse, and subjectivity

M. Foucault. 1990. The History of Sexuality vol.1 N.Y.: Vintage Books.

Week 2 (9/13): Feminists (and others) reading Foucault

Nancy Hartsock. 1990. Foucault on power: A theory for women? In Feminism/Postmodernism, Linda Nicholson (ed). NY: Routledge.

Gerry Pratt. 2004. Working Feminism. Ch 1, 2.

Linda McDowell. 1995. “Body work: heterosexual gender performances in city workplaces” in David Bell and Gill Valentine (eds) Mapping Desire N.Y.: Routledge. (pp 75-95).

Melissa Wright. 2004. From protests to politics: Sex work, women’s worth, and Ciudad Juarez modernity. Annals of the AAG 94(2): 369-386.

Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Mische. 1998. What is agency? American Journal of Sociology 103(4): 962-1023. [These authors are not feminists reading Foucault, but the topic fits here.]

2 Week 3 (9/20): Space, place, and gender

Doreen Massey. 1994. Space, place, and gender. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press. pp 115-249.

Geraldine Pratt. 1998. Geographic metaphors in feminist theory. In Making Worlds: Gender, Metaphor, Materiality S. Aitken, A Brigham, S Marston, D Waterstone (eds). Tucson: University of Arizona Press (pp 13-30).

Gillian Rose, 1993. Feminism and Geography: the limits of geographical knowledge. Ch 7, A politics of paradoxical space (pp 137-160).

Caroline Desbiens, 1999. Feminism ‘in’ geography. Elsewhere, beyond, and the politics of paradoxical space. Gender, Place, and Culture 6: 179-85.

S. Benhabib. 1999. Sexual difference and collective identities: The new global constellation. Signs 24 (2): 35-61.

Week 4 (9/27): Space, place, and gender

Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper. 2000. Beyond “identity”. Theory and Society 29: 1-47.

Amy Freeman. 2004. Re-locating Moroccan women’s identities in a transnational world: The ‘woman question’ in question. Gender, Place, and Culture 11 (1): 17- 41.

Bell hooks, 1995. Black women: shaping feminist theory. In Words of Fire, Beverly Guy-Sheftall (ed). NY: The New Press.

Kate Boyer. 2004. “Miss Remington” goes to work: Gender, space, and technology at the dawn of the information age. The Professional Geographer 56 (2): 201-212.

Audre Lorde, 1979. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.

France Winddance Twine. 1996. Brown skinned white girls: Class, culture, and the construction of white identity in suburban communities. Gender, Place, and Culture 3 (2): 203-224.

Leila Harris. 2006. Irrigation, gender, and social geographies of the changing waterscapes of southeastern Anatolia. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 24: 187-213.

Week 5 (10/4): Situated Knowledge

Donna Haraway. 1991. “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective” in her Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. N.Y.: Routledge. (pp 183-201).

Gillian Rose. 1997. Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities, and other tactics. Progress in Human Geography 21 (3): 305-320.

Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. 1993. “Opening” in her The Realm of the Diamond Queen. Princeton: Princeton Univ Press (pp 3-37; 303-305).

Richa Nagar in consultation with Farah Ali and Sangatin women’s collective. 2003. Collaboration across borders: Moving beyond positionality. Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 24 (3): 356-372.

Sylvia Walby 2001. Against epistemological chasms: The science question in feminism revisited. Signs 26 (2): 485-540. (with commentaries from others)

Week 6 (10/11): Themes in feminist geography—environment

Joni Seager. 2003. Rachel Carson died of breast cancer: The coming of age of feminist environmentalism. Signs 28 (3): 945-972.

Jody Emel. 1995. Are you man enough, big and bad enough? Ecofeminism and wolf eradication in the USA, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13: 707-734.

Dianne Rocheleau. 1995. Trees as tools, trees as text: Struggles over resources in Zambrana-Chacuey, Dominican Republic. Antipode 27 (4): 407-428.

Juanita Sundberg. 2004. Identities in the making: Conservation, gender and race in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatamala. Gender, Place, and Culture 11 (1): 43-66.

Laura Pulido, 2000. Rethinking environmental racism: White privilege and urban development, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90 (1): 12-40.

4 Week 7 (10/18): Themes in feminist geography—economy

Susan Hanson and Geraldine Pratt. 1995. Gender, Work, and Space. Ch 4-6.

Melissa Gilbert, 1998. “Race,” space, and power: The survival strategies of working poor women. Annals of the AAG 88: 595-621.

Marianna Pavlovskaya. 2004. Other transitions: Multiple economies of Moscow households in the 1990s. Annals of the AAG 94 (2): 329-351.

Linda McDowell. 2005. Men and the boys: Bankers, burger makers, and barmen. In Spaces of Masculinities, Bettina van Hoven and Kathrin Horschelmann (eds). NY: Routledge.

Jennifer Mandel. 2004. Mobility matters: livelihood strategies in Porto Novo, Benin. Gender, Place, and Culture 11 (2): 257-287.

Gerry Pratt. 2004. Working Feminism. Ch 3.

Week 8 (10/25): Themes in feminist geography—Globalization

Carla Freeman. 2001. Is local: global as feminine: masculine? Rethinking the gender of globalization. Signs 26 (4): 1007-1037.

Richa Nagar, Victoria Lawson, Linda McDowell, and Susan Hanson. 2002. Locating globalization: Feminist (re)readings of the subjects and spaces of globalization. Economic Geography

Rupal Oza. 2001. Showcasing India: Gender, geography, and globalization. Signs 26 (4): 1067-1095.

Gerry Pratt. 2004. Working Feminism. Ch 4, 5, 6, 7.

Week 9 (11/1): Themes in feminist geography—Mixing methods

Dianne Rocheleau. 1995. Maps, numbers, text, and context: Mixing methods in feminist political ecology. Professional Geographer 47 (4):458-466. [one of 5 pieces in this issue on “Should women count?”]

Susan Hanson and Geraldine Pratt. 1995. Gender, Work, and Space. NY: Routledge.

______. 2003. Learning about labor: Combining quantitative and qualitative methods. pp 106-118 in Cultural Geography in Practice A Blunt et al (eds) NY: Edward Arnold.

Mei-Po Kwan. 2002. Is GIS for women? Reflections on the critical discourse in the 1990s. Gender, Place, and Culture 9 (3): 271-279. [part of a group of 5 pieces on feminist geography and GIS]

Gerry Pratt. 2004. Working Feminism. Ch 8.

Week 10 (11/8): Representing others

Isabel Dyck and Arlene Tigar McLaren. 2004. Telling it like it is? Constructing accounts of settlement with immigrant refugee women in Canada. Gender, Place, and Culture 11(4): 513-533.

Visweswaren, Kemala. 1994. “Betrayal” (pp 40-59) and “Refusing the subject” (pp 60-72) in her Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Minneapolis: Univ of Minnesota Press.

Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon (eds). 1995. Women Writing Culture. Berkeley: Univ of Calif Press ----Selections:

Judith Newton & Judith Stacey, “Ms.Representations: Reflections on studying academic men”

Catherine Lutz. “The gender of theory”

Aihwa Ong, “Women out of China: Traveling tales and traveling theories in postcolonial feminism”

R.W. Connell. 2002. Long and winding road: An outsider’s view of US masculinity and feminism. In Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory: New Directions. Judith Kegan Gardiner (ed), NY: Columbia University Press.

Richa Nagar. 2000. Mujhe jawab do! (Answer me!): Women’s grass-roots activism and social spaces in Chitrakoot (India). Gender, Place, and Culture 7 (4): 341-362.

Week 11 (11/15): Politics

Richa Nagar. 2002. Footloose researchers, ‘traveling’ theories, and the politics of transnational feminist praxis. Gender, Place, and Culture 9 (2): 179-186. [this is a companion piece to her 2000 GPC paper]

6 Suzanna Danuta Walters. 1996. “From here to queer: Radical feminism, postmodernism, and the lesbian menace (or, why can't a woman be more like a fag?) “ Signs 21: 831-69.

J.P. Jones and Pamela Moss. 1995. “Democracy, identity, and space” Society and Space 13: 253-57.

Chantal Mouffe. 1992. “Feminism, citizenship, and radical democratic politics” in Judith Butler and Joan Scott (eds) Feminists Theorize the Political

Chantal Mouffe. 1995. “Post-Marxism: Democracy and identity” Society and Space 13:259-65.

Doreen Massey. Space, Place, and Gender, ch 11.

Lynn Staeheli. 2004. Mobilizing women, mobilizing gender: Is it mobilizing difference? Gender, Place, and Culture 11 (3): 347-372.

Week 12 (11/22): Thanksgiving week, no class

Week 13 (11/29): Politics

J.K. Gibson-Graham. 1994. “Stuffed if I know! Reflections on postmodern feminist social research. Gender, Place, and Culture 1(2): 205-224.

Audrey Kobayashi and Linda Peake. 1994. “Unnatural discourse: ‘Race’ and gender in geography” Gender, Place, and Culture 1:225-43.

Nancy Fraser. 1989. “Struggle over needs: Outline of a socialist-feminist critical theory of late capitalist political culture” in her Unruly Practices. Minneapolis: Univ of Minnesota Press (pp 161-87).

Deb Martin. 2002. Constructing the neighborhood sphere: Gender and community organizing. Gender, Place, and Culture 9 (4): 333-350.

Melissa Wright. 2005. Paradoxes, protests, and the Mujeres de Negro of Northern Mexico. Gender, Place, and Culture 12 (3): 277-292.

Week 14 (12/6): student papers (we may have to schedule 2 sessions)

December 15: Term papers due