Gender, Identity and Place (PDF)

Feminist approaches within the social sciences have expanded
enormously since the 1960s. In addition, in recent years,
geographic perspectives have become increasingly significant as
feminist recognition of the differences between women, their
diverse experiences in different parts of the world and the
importance of location in the social construction of knowledge has
placed varied geographies at the centre of contemporary feminist
and postmodern debates.

Gender, Identity and Place is an accessible and clearly
written introduction to the wide field of issues that have been
addressed by geographers and feminist scholars. It combines the
careful definition and discussion of key concepts and theoretical
approaches with a wealth of empirical detail from a wide-ranging
selection of case studies and other empirical research. It is
organized on the basis of spatial scale, examining the
relationships between gender and place from the body to the nation,
although the links between different spatial scales are also
emphasized. The conceptual division and spatial separation between
the public and private spheres and their association with men and
women respectively has been a crucial part of the social
construction of gendered differences and its establishment,
maintenance and reshaping from industrial urbanization to the end
of the millennium is a central linking theme in the eight
substantive chapters. The book concludes with an assessment of the
possibilities of doing feminist research.

It will be essential reading for students in geography, feminist
theory, women's studies, anthropology and sociology.