1. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 1 GEOG 3300 Space, Place & Scale Week 7 Gender, Corporeality, Dis/Ability: Embodied Places Department of Geography Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies York University Fall Term 2011-2012

2. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 2 Embodied Space … “Being is round,” asserts the French phenomenologist Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space (1958; 1964). Bachelard points to the body’s immediacy, the centre of experience, the roundness of the earth, the curved edge of the horizon. Yi-Fu Tuan: “the objects we perceive are commensurate with the size of our body, the acuity and range of our perceptual apparatus, and purpose.” (Topophilia, 1974: 14). We measure the world against ourselves. The body is spatialized, but space too is corporeal. Remember Casey on space and being as being ‘mutually co-constitutive?’ These perspectives (above) are implicitly phenomenological (phenomenology = consciousness + experience + inter/subjectivity). How might embodied space also be socially constructed?

3. … is complex, contested, multiple, and corporeal “Corporeality:” deriving its reality from the body. Like the meaning of place, the meaning of the body has tended to be taken for granted. And yet (like place), ‘body’ may refer to a number of different things: –A biological entity (the physical body) –A person (a social or legal entity) –A group (conceptual: e.g., “body” of work; or women’s bodies; or disabled bodies) Bodies are inherently spatialized: –A body signifies (physical) presence –A body signifies boundaries (self/other; here/there) and suggests rights, possession, power … and violence, transgression, oppression, and resistance too Like space/place, the body is a complex, contradictory, and contested concept Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 3

4. The Socially Constructed Body The body as a discourse (Longhurst; Foucault) Bodies as “primary objects of inscription – surfaces upon which values, morality and social laws are inscribed.” (Longhurst, 1997: 489); bodies as “discursively produced.” Things we perceive as ‘real’ differences – in gender, sexuality, ability – are in fact social constructions imposed on the body. What makes a body more (or less) able? Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, for example? A continuum: between essentialism (that bodies, and differences between bodies, are ‘real’ and ‘natural’) and constructionism (that bodies are wholly representational objects) Feminists too populate this entire continuum. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 4

5. Gendered Bodies: In and Out of Place Male (white, able) body: possessor, territory, outside, public, empire, dominance Female (non-white, dis/abled) body: possessed, passive, domestic, inside, private, submissive, ‘natural’, wild, exotic. “Woman is / man does” claims. Men transcend space (and the body); women as prisoners of place (and their bodies). The abstract body within ‘spatial science’; e g., medical geography (Longhurst’s example: geographers tracking viruses rather than the bodies that carry them): place as disembodied. “the body as geography’s Other” (Longhurst, 493) Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 5

6. Dis/abled Bodies: In and Out of Place Rob Kitchin on the “distinct spatiality” of disability. “spaces are currently organised to keep disabled people `in their place’” At the same time, “spaces are social texts that convey to disabled people that they are `out of place’ Marxist approach challenges notions that a disabled person is inherently “unproductive” (rooted in notion that disability is an individual rather than social challenge) Psychoanalysis: fear of the ‘Other.’ How exclusion is produced and reproduced spatially Accessibility as a template for accommodating: children, elderly, women, ‘Others’ of all varieties. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 6

7. Geographical Impacts Impact on what subjects are considered appropriate for geographical study, and how they should be studied (e.g., studies of embodiment, sexuality, bodily homelessness, violence historically suppressed in favour of “the lean, the clinical, the quantitative, the heroic and the scientific.” ). As a result, geography risk(ed) fixating on “white, bourgeois, able-bodied men.” (Longhurst, 494). Other impacts: ‘naturalizing’ spatial boundaries, mobility, domesticity, safety and security, freedom to explore. “A woman’s place” …? Contemporary research, however, uses these forms of difference to open up new subjects and perspectives Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 7

8. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 8 What can Embodied Geographies Do? They can rupture dualisms Challenge ideas about boundaries (body/world, self/other) Invite inclusion of non-dominant perspectives: female, ‘natural’, eastern, black, poor, disabled (and can facilitate the rewriting of all these concepts; e.g., gender/sex/sexuality) But: they can also entrench the existing dualities if they merely elevate ‘Others’ (e.g., woman = nature = nurturing = good) without challenging this mathematic

9. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 9 What else can they do? Remember Cresswell’s ‘genealogy of place’? Most geographers concerned with embodiment rely on phenomenological (various) or social constructionist insights/perspectives (very various) Inevitably, phenomenological and (especially) social constructionist perspectives challenge and re-write descriptive approaches to place. How? One thing they do is show us that even the ‘descriptive’ is not so straight-forward, that it is informed by values and relations of power and privilege. Reminder: all three approaches have benefits, too (even the descriptive … how?)

10. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 10 Project: Constructing Geographies of Disability

11. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 11 Geographical Approaches to Disability Descriptive Phenomenological or Humanist Social Constructionist Perspective on Body/Place - Body/place are ‘real’, measurable, and quantifiable - Disability issues are physical problems requiring material solutions - the lived body is at the centre of geographical experience/meaning - -disabled people’s experiences of place are unique and individual and particular - (Marxism): the body is a product of relations of class, capital, and production - (feminism, discouse analysis): the body is discursively produced / body as text Methods and Tools -Measurement, assessment, policy, prescription -reliance on experts/professionals - Experiences, narratives, stories - Meaning may be derived through narrative analysis - Social justice - Laying bare power, privilege - Representation - Activism … revolution? Outcomes?

12. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 12 Your Task Three (3) groups of no more than 9 people each Group A: descriptive approach to disability Group B: phenomenological/humanist approach Group C: social constructionist approach You are a team of consultants hired to do an accessibility audit of the TEL Building Each group has one hour to identify five (5) challenges and five (5) resolutions to accessibility issues in the TEL Building. Think carefully about what tools you’ll use in conducting your audit and what kinds of ‘fixes’ you’ll imp0lement

13. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 13 Things to Consider: What is ‘disability’? How do ‘disability’ and ‘place’ intersect? What does it mean for a space to be truly ‘accessible?’ Will you come up with a plan? A story? A manifesto? An intervention? A guerilla action (e.g., an occupation)? A policy? How will you go about testing or implementing your approach? (it is okay to design a study or intervention that might be carried out in greater detail later) What are the challenges, limitations, and advantages of your group’s approach to / perspective(s) on disability and place? How do they encourage you to think differently about place?

14. Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 14 Outcome After an hour, we will regroup and talk about how encountering disability in a particular place changes our experience and understanding of that place. We’ll also consider how this knowledge might be extended. The objective is to link geographical theory and practice Praxis: “a complex activity by which individuals create culture and society, and become critically conscious human beings. Praxis comprises a cycle of action-reflection-action which is central to liberatory education. Characteristics of praxis include self-determination (as opposed to coercion), intentionality (as opposed to reaction), creativity (as opposed to homogeneity), and rationality (as opposed to chance).” (after Paulo Friere, theorist of education)

15. Midterm Exam Midterm exam next week: 27 October 2011 Two hour in-class exam Closed book: no notes or other aids Coverage: first half of the term; emphasis on the core concepts (especially different approaches to space, place & scale: descriptive, phenomenological, social constructionist – including postcolonial, gendered, and class-based (Marxist) perspectives) Yes, the course readings matter and will form the basis for certain questions. Emphasis: thought and analysis, not regurgitation of facts Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 15

16. Midterm Exam Format Worth 20% of your final grade (20 marks) Two parts: Part A: Longer essay question (no choice) asking you to analyse a particular space in the context of Cresswell’s three main approaches to space/place. This question will be worth 10 marks. Part B: 2 shorter answers (choose from 3 or 4) asking more specific questions derived from readings, theoretical perspectives, lectures, etc. Each of these questions will be worth 5 marks, for a total of 10. Answers should be detailed, coherent, and written in complete and legible sentences. Budget your time wisely (suggestion: an hour for Part A; 30 minutes for each answer in Part B) Week 7 20 October 2011 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris 16

17. Week 4 24 January 2008 GEOG 3300 | Space, Place & Scale Copyright © Amy Lavender Harris, 2008 17 Approach Associated Schools Preoccupations with Place Descriptive - Regional Geography (Richard Hartshorne) - Early cultural geographers (Carl Sauer) - Spatial Science (1970s) - ‘ideographic’ - ‘chorology’ - Regions and cultures - Place as a thing: ontologically given - Environmental determinism (although Sauer held that culture transforms nature) - ‘Place’ remains largely undefined Phenomenological Phenomenology (Heidegger, Merleau- Ponty, Bachelard) -Humanistic geographers (Yi-Fu Tuan, Anne Buttimer, David Seamon, Ted Relph, Edward Casey) - experienced, ‘embodied’ or lived place - -’topophilia’ (Tuan) - Home and dwelling - belonging and attachment - ‘authenticity’ Place as primordial or Place as “mutually constituted” by environment and culture -‘romantic’? Naïve? Social Constructionist 1. Postcolonial Approaches (race and culture): Said, Bhabha 2. Feminism and Embodied approaches (gender, corporeality): Gillian Rose, Doreen Massey 3. Marxism (class): David Harvey, Lefebvre - -poststructuraliand postmodern perspectives - Social determinism: places as socially constructed - Spatial ‘turn’ in the cultural and social sciences - Class, gender and race - Transgression and resistance; power and privilege - Postcolonial legacies - ‘ungrounded? Incoherent? - What happens to ontology?