Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space

Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space

Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space Diversity Gender, Teaching Teaching with Gender How can educators (teachers, professors, trainers) address issues of gender, women, gender roles, feminism and gender equality? The ATHENA thematic net- work brings together specialists in women’s and gender studies, feminist research, women’s rights, gender equality and diversity. In the book series ‘Teaching with Gender’ the partners in this network have collected articles on a wide range of teaching practices in the field of gender. The books in this series address challenges and possibilities of teaching about women and gender in a wide range of educational contexts. The authors discuss the pedagogical, theoretical and political dimensions of learning and teaching on women and gender. The books in this series contain teaching material, reflections on feminist pedagogies and practical discussions about the development of gender-sensitive curricula in specific fields. All books address the crucial aspects of education in Europe today: increasing international mobility, the growing importance of interdisciplinarity and the many practices of life-long learning and training that take place outside the traditional programmes of higher education. These books will be indispensable tools for educators who take seriously the challenge of teaching with gender. (For titles see inside cover.) Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space This is a collective volume presenting a theoretical framework and diverse educational tools that can be used to incorporate gender and sexuality into Spatial Disciplines and the concepts of space and urbanity into Women’s and Gender Studies. The book was conceived in recognition of the fact that the concepts of space, place and urbanity have a rather minor presence within European Women’s and Gender Studies. Likewise, the concepts of gender and sexuality(ies) Anastasia-Sasa Lada Edited by are poorly covered within the “spatial” disciplines and university departments. This Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space “double” absence is the raison d’être of this volume and underlies our proposals for developing effective educational and teaching tools in this field. An Intersectional Approach between Gender Studies and Spatial Disciplines The study of multilayered, complex and contradictory situations in contemporary European cities, where gender/sexuality intersects with other axes of difference A book series by ATHENA and power, is crucial to the development of a multicultural teaching ethos and will facilitate students’ understanding of these contemporary issues both inside and outside the classroom. Edited by Anastasia-Sasa Lada The books are printed and also published online. Contact athena@uu.nl or go to www.athena3.org or www.erg.su.se/genusstudier to find out how to download or to order books from this series. ISBN 91-87792-44-3 Edited by Anastasia-Sasa Lada Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space Teaching with Gender. European Women’s Studies in International and Interdisciplinary Classrooms. A book series by ATHENA Series editors: Annika Olsson, Andrea Peto and Berteke Waaldijk Editorial board: Barbara Bagilhole, Gunilla Bjeren, Rosi Braidotti, Anna Cabó, Sara Goodman, Daniela Gronold, Aino-Maija Hiltunen, Nina Lykke, Linda Lund Pedersen, Elzbieta H. Oleksy, Anastasia-Sasa Lada, Susanna Pavlou, Kirsi Saarikangas, Adelina Sánchez and Svetlana Slapsak Editorial assistant: Noémi Kakucs Titles in the Series: 1. Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space. An Intersectional Approach between Gender Studies and Spatial Disciplines 2. Teaching Gender in Social Work 3. Teaching Subjectivity. Travelling Selves for Feminist Pedagogy 4. Teaching with the Third Wave. New Feminists’ Explorations of Teaching and Institutional Contexts 5. Teaching Visual Culture in an Interdisciplinary Classroom. Feminist (Re) Interpretations of the Field 6. Teaching Empires. Gender and Transnational Citizenship in Europe 7. Teaching Intersectionality. Putting Gender at the Centre 8. Teaching with Memories. European Women’s Histories in International and Interdisciplinary Classrooms (Previously published by ATHENA and the Women’s Studies Center at NUI Galway). Published by ATHENA3 Advanced Thematic Network in Women’s Studies in Europe, the Graduate Gender Programme at Utrecht University and the Centre for Gender Studies, Stockholm University “This book has been published with the support of the Socrates/Erasmus programme for Thematic Network Projects of the European Commission through grant 227623-CP-I-2006-I- NL-ERASMUS-TNPP”” ZuidamUithof Drukkerijen, Utrecht 2009 CONTENTS Introduction 5 Anastasia–Sasa Lada PART I: CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF GENDER AND SPACE WITHIN FEMINIST RESEARCH Playing with (in)difference? 30 years of gender and space 11 Jos Boys Crossing methods, crossing epistemologies: how to make the research of the city perfectly queer 33 Giorgos Marnelakis PART II: TEACHING GENDER WITHIN THE “SPATIAL” DISCIPLINES Teaching and research on gender in Spanish geography 53 Maria Dolors Garcia–Ramon and Anna Ortiz Bringing in feminist pedagogy through student-led fieldtrips: a report form the Netherlands 79 Bettina van Hoven, Wike Been, Joos Droogleever Fortuijn, Virginie Mamadouh Encouraging gender analysis in research practice 93 Deborah Thien A ‘prototype’ MA module on gender/sexuality, diversity and urban space 121 Anastasia–Sasa Lada List of authors 152 Introduction Anastasia–Sasa Lada “Teaching Gender, Diversity and Urban Space: An Intersectional approach between Gender Studies and Spatial Disciplines” is a collective volume which originated under the umbrella of ATHENA 2 and 3. It comes from the activities of one particular working group 1B “Gender, diversity and ur- ban space.” The aim of this book is to present the theoretical framework and the development of diverse educational tools that deal with the introduction of gender and sexuality in Spatial Disciplines and with the concepts of space and urbanity in Women’s and Gender Studies. The initiative to set up this separate discernible activity with regard to “gender, diversity and urban space” stemmed from the recognition that the concepts of space, place and urbanity have a rather minor presence within European Women’s and Gender Studies. Simultaneously, there has been a rather “poor” development, if any, of the concepts of gender and sexuality(ies) within the “spatial” disciplines and in university departments. This concerns mainly architecture and urban/city planning and to a lesser degree geography which has done better, thanks to the hard work and long-term efforts of feminist geographers.1 This “double” absence formulated the core questions of our activity and underlies the hypothesis behind our proposals for the development of educational and teaching tools to cope with it. This volume brings together writers from within the working group and also invited feminist researchers with extensive experience of introducing gender issues within the spatial disciplines, such as architecture, geography and city/urban planning. Since the beginning of 80’s most of us have initiated a number of new courses and research with a feminist perspective, in our own departments and disciplines. Consequently, the selected articles can be read as an attempt at formulating an adequate body of knowledge and experience/ involvement that addresses a number of crucial issues which are related to the introduction of the concept of gender in teaching and research within the “spatial” disciplines, over the last thirty years or more. 1 See L. Nelson & J. Seager Eds., A Companion to Feminist Geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) for an excellent recent review 5 These issues might be addressed by the following questions: – How have the concepts of gender and space been conceptualized so far within the feminist thought? – How have the different modes of conceptualization about gender and space within feminism affected teaching? – What types of theoretical and methodological problem are con fronted by the introduction of gender in the “spatial” disciplines and where do these come from? – How do we deal with the diversity and/or the empowerment of the students in the classroom? The collection is organized in the form of an introduction and two sections. The articles in the first section are mainly theoretical and we can say that they work as a frame for the articles that compose the second section. Part two consists namely of articles that exemplify the development of teaching and research activities which introduce the concept of gender, mainly within the “Spatial” disciplines. Part I In her article “Playing with (in)difference? 30 years of gender and space” Jos Boys explores how feminist understandings of gender and space have been articulated and re-articulated over the last 30 years. This is, filtered through the specific context of her lived experience of London and the UK during this time. On the basis of experience of an earlier period she takes the opportunity to “talk back” to some contemporary feminist work, usually now called the third wave feminism. Speaking from a background in architectural education and community-based practice, she explores some different modes of concep- tualizing gender and space within feminism, so as to address the limitations of a linear generational model of feminism for practitioners working in the inter- sections between feminism and their own discipline. For teaching and learning in particular, such an understanding offers many opportunities to ‘re-view’ the

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