Space, Place, and Gender

1994
Author:

Doreen Massey

A leading feminist geographer puts forth new ways of thinking about space and place.

Massey, a leading feminist geographer, develops a notion of spatiality as the product of intersecting social relations. She traces the development of ideas about the social structure of space and place, and relates these concepts to issues of gender and various debates within feminism. A great companion book to Gillian Rose’s Feminism and Geography (Minnesota 1993).

“This book presents a collection of Massey’s writings that have appeared over the last two decades. The volume is, however, more than a sum of its parts, in that Massey uses commentaries throughout the book to delineate an intellectual trajectory in Anglo geography that connects the concerns of economic geography with critiques and extensions by feminist and postcolonial writers. . . . . . Massey builds a multifaceted argument of the richness of geographical analysis and its centrality for contemporary social theory debates.” Professional Geographer

In these days of global acceleration on the one hand and intensifying local nationalisms on the other, how should we be thinking about space and place? This new book brings together Doreen Massey's key writings on this debate. In it she argues that we have seen some problematical readings of both terms in recent years, and she proposes an alternative approach more adequate to the issues facing the social sciences today.
Massey has organized these debates around the three themes of space, place, and gender. She traces the development of ideas about the social structure of space and place, and the relation of both to issues of gender and certain debates within feminism. Beginning with the economy and social structures of production, Massey develops a wider notion of spatiality as the product of intersecting social relations. On this basis she proposes an approach to "places" that is essentially open and hybrid while always provisional and contested. The themes intersect with much current thinking about identity within feminism and cultural studies.
The chapters range from studies of the concepts of place employed in debates on uneven regional development and inner-city problems to arguments about the relationship between the conceptualization of space/place and the social construction of gender relations.


Related Backlist
Feminism and Geography
Gillian Rose
Examines how masculinism has historically shaped the discipline of geography. (1993)
ISBN 0-8166-2417-8, cloth, $44.95x CUSAP
ISBN 0-8166-2418-6, paper, $17.95 CUSAP

Doreen Massey is professor of geography at the Open University in the United Kingdom. She is the author of five books, including Spatial Divisions of Labour (1984) and, with David Weild and Paul Quintas, High-Tech Fantasies (1991).

“This book presents a collection of Massey’s writings that have appeared over the last two decades. The volume is, however, more than a sum of its parts, in that Massey uses commentaries throughout the book to delineate an intellectual trajectory in Anglo geography that connects the concerns of economic geography with critiques and extensions by feminist and postcolonial writers. . . . . . Massey builds a multifaceted argument of the richness of geographical analysis and its centrality for contemporary social theory debates.” Professional Geographer

“In a compilation of essays spanning over fifteen years, Space, Place and Gender, Doreen Massey explores the intricate and profound connection of space and place with gender and the construction of gender relations. Spaces and places are gendered, she argues, at once reflecting and affecting how gender is understood.” Harvard Design Magazine