Thirdspace

Both So Long a Letter and Year of the Elephant were written in the aftermath of the struggle for liberation from colonial rule, articulating the visibility of women in traditional, patriarchal African-Muslim contexts at a time when personal and socio/political exposés by women writers were quite uncommon.These first generation novellas, situated within the former French colonies Senegal and Morocco respectively, are articulations of agency which move both within and across borders and boundaries. Due to their personal circumstances, both narrators find themselves in a personal space in where they are insiders as well as outsiders within their African Muslim nations. Since they state that their commitment to their Islamic faith encompasses a critical interrogation of traditional and religious practices within their own societies, I will draw on the term " dihliz " , an Arabo Persian term, (Moosa 2006:7) which suggests a liminal, threshold space. During their periods of " iddat " , their seclusion enables the narrators to explore the prosaic and the sacred, the personal and the political from this space of " dihliz " , and also promotes a sensitive perception of their historical and personal contexts from multiple perspectives, thereby re-positioning and reconstructing their identities as Muslim women.

In the wake of recent academic interest in co-production, engaged research and trans-disciplinarity, this article reviews some developments and directions in participatory action research (PAR), mainly within human geography. It examines one response to poststructuralist critiques that PAR either elides power relations or conversely can be equated to tyranny, namely a proposal to view PAR as a form of governance. Spatialising PAR then draws attention to the reach and relational workings of power. Counter-topography is discussed as a conceptualisation by which PAR can jump scales to inform theory. Prefiguring the social justice imperative with which it is invested, the potential of practicing PAR as an ethics of care is explored. Consideration is given to how PAR's imperative for social change shapes the researcher's responsibilities vis-à-vis representation, political strategy and emotional engagement. Tensions between PAR's social change imperative, the needs of research partners and the institutional constrains of academia is a through-going theme. I conclude that PAR has much to offer research in human geography and, in turn, that work in human geography has provided PAR with space-relational strategies of engaging with power which do not preclude emancipatory action.

Media Space and Gender Construction is a study with the aim of enhancing the relation between gender and geography. Media Space is a metamorphic space of views, ideas, images, and texts. The advent of media space and cyber space has brought new metaphorical spaces for interaction which do not exist in a strictly real sense, but have an impact upon spatiality.

In this paper, I engage with feminist autoethnography as a way of gaining insight into the cultural phenomenon of being a ‘fat’ woman. Feminist autoethnography is an in-depth and engaged approach, opening up colonised spaces and discourses. The process highlights the being with and exposing vulnerable fluid 'selves' – challenging notions of a self, which is a neatly contained and managed 'identity'. The critical process of feminist autoethnography interweaves with the literature in feminist research, feminisms, autoethnography, critical fat studies, and intersectionality. A key to this exploration is the reflexive process of researching the experiences of being a ‘fat’ woman’ and whether I (and my discourse) “resists the social and institutional norms that often dictate research” and “promote women's voices and unique experiences" (Averett, Soper, 2011, p. 371-372).

This study examines the role of social space in the social beings‘ lives. It argues that, shaped by the human experience, space is itself a shaping force that reflects itself on the human being, having the power of controlling and governing their presence on earth. This argument is further investigated to encompass the spatial structure of contemporary social scene. The condition of the urban subject who is supposed to practice his/her life inside this spatial structure is therefore surveyed in characters‘ relationship with their space in Elizabeth Gaskell‘s North and South and David Lodge‘s Nice Work, a postmodern rewriting of the canonical novel. The spatial structures of both novels are determinant of the characters‘ identity formation. The spatial shift the characters of both novels face is crucial to the whole of the thesis, since in the characters‘ move across different spaces, there are clues as to how these two novels reflecting different societies present different answers to the spatial question. These different answers are sought through the concepts of Thirdspace and mobility, which provide an alternative space, opened up within the urban space, which is inclusive and celebrative of differences. This alternative understanding of space also enables the hybrid identity to form amidst the cityscape of our times, which the characters of the postmodern text employ in their identity formation.

The article analyzes gender verification of sportswomen as one of the surveillance practices present in sports. The main questions are: (1) Whose bodies are under surveillance? (2) What are the latent functions of the surveillance practices? (3) How are these practices perceived inside and outside the sport? The article is based on the author’s research - individual in-depth interviews with sportswomen, coaches and sports activists and representatives of feminist organizations. Its purpose is to draw attention to the issues of gender and sport, which are marginalized in the frame of surveillance studies.

I explore how my subjectivity makes possible my reading of a “feminist” image in a subway car. I am struck by its potential for thinking about sexism, capitalism, subjectivity, space, and desire. I am stuck because I wonder if my reading is bound by the tasks/desires of a graduate student. After offering a surface, conventional reading of the image, I use exemplary methods to read the implications it has for feminist theory and use feminist non-representational geography to map how the spaces of graduate school and subway collided, allowing certain thoughts to stick to my reading. I wonder if discourses of anti-capitalist resistance make possible and sustain social relations that continue to oppress women and whether writing about (academic) images/texts is an act of significance or fictitious social capital. Engaging a reflective stance, I interrupt my reading to better understand the impact of graduate studies on reading cultural images/texts.

This study examines Malayalam Cinema as perpetuators of cultural and intersectional othering through the portrayal of people living in the high ranges of Kerala, comprising of Idukki and Malabar regions, as unrefined and uncivilized. In the light of characterizations in the movies Varathan(2018) directed by Amal Neerad, Jallikattu(2019) directed by Lijo Jose Pellisserry, Kettiyolaanu Ente Malakha(2019) by Nissam Basheer and Loudspeaker(2009) by Jayaraj the paper seeks the politics inherent in the repeated portrayal of the high ranges as uncouth and inferior. It also argues that the concept of othering is well suited for understanding the power-relations as well as the binary positions created by movies intentionally or unintentionally. Homogenization of masses is what that happens in such a situation where particular is generalized. The study also delves into the hidden layers of cultural stereotyping and addresses the need to reconstitute the idea of the high range as the ‘other’.

Traditionally spaces (both public and private) have been dominated by invisible power structures. Private spaces (home) have been negated by associating them with political conservatism, intellectual apathy and aesthetic traditionalism. Work performed outside has been allocated a value, whilst the domestic/inside labour remained unwaged. The divisions of space (private / public), labour (waged / domestic) and gender (male / female) became binary synonyms. Although distinction between these different forms cannot be easily collapsed, these spatial frames are not rigid but porous.1 These territories, their margins, cracks and junctions could be infiltrated through occupation and (emotional / aesthetic / maintenance) labour. Addendum: The paper by David Seamon has been since published as a chapter ‘Phenomenology and Uncanny Homecomings: Homeworld, Alienworld, and Being-at-Home in Alan Ball’s HBO Television Series, Six Feet Under’, in RESISTING THE PLACE OF BELONGING, edited by Daniel Boscaljon, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013. https://www.academia.edu/1153800/Edmund_Husserls_Homeworld_and_Alienworld_in_Alan_Ball_s_HBO_Television_Series_SIX_FEET_UNDER_2013_

Notions of comfort, safety and familiarity are all themes commonly associated with the idea of home, concepts that can be challenged by migration and mobility. A sense of belonging is critical to the experiences of home, yet recent catastrophes and conflicts have led to an increase in people seeking asylum, resulting in challenges to both the meaningfulness of belonging and a sense of home. ​ Belonging and the Transient Home (2016) was a recent practice-based research project, exploring notions of the Australian domestic experience in relation to migration, asylum seekers and diasporic communities. Central to the project was how artistic processes can contribute to a sense of belonging in a new society and challenge assumption about our social relationship to home and how​ ​ we​ ​ may​ ​ experience​ ​ the​ ​ domestic​ ​ in​ ​ Australia.

Art maintains a certain anxiety about the home __ Whenever I mentioned that I was writing an essay on art and negotiating domesticity, I was given a rather lukewarm response and examples of artists such as Louise Bourgeois, possibly Rachel Whiteread, but mostly of anyone using traditional craft methods. This essay is not about such practices neither about art engaged with issues commonly associated with home (namely memory, displacement, alienation or family relationships). It is about negotiating myths such as modernist perception of private/public and about moving on from these binary discussions. It focuses on female artists, not because such negotiations belong to the sphere of feminine, or because they did feature strongly on the past feminist agendas, but rather due to the fact that these artists have moved onto new/different perspectives on art/society/politics using the platform of the domestic.

This paper examines the representation of urban spaces in E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) and Ahdaf Soueif’s The Map of Love (1999). In particular, it investigates how colonialism – as a cultural activity – produces traces of its hegemony and how these traces transform and fashion the colonial and post-colonial urban spaces in the two novels. Through examining how A Passage to India and The Map of Love present the utilisation of space, this paper explores the ways colonialist superpowers have left traces of their presences which are marked in all of the spaces they subjugate and dominate. Interestingly, space and its concomitant socio-political divisions/hierarchies are viewed, by and large, through the responses and perspectives of the women characters in both novels, represented by Forster’s Adela Quested and Mrs Moore and Soueif’s Anna Winterbourne. The paper will also show how employing Edward Soja’s term of Thirdspace can illuminate the significance of the courtroom e...

This paper examines the discursive responses that participants in a network of feminist blogs developed to handle trolling in their community. Internet communities develop strategies to deal with trolls in their networks. In particular, participants provide instructions and guidance to support each other to deal with trolls and harassment, and engage in intra-community discussion about the significance or insignificance of trolls. My paper explores the practices that feminist bloggers engage in to resist silencing practices, and the ways in which the silencing of female voices does not work in these contexts. I argue that trolling and discursive responses to trolls are collectively developed and enforced. Using a case study from my research into Australian feminist blogging networks, I argue that these networks have developed particular collective responses to trolls.

This paper analyzes gender verification of sportswomen as one of the surveillance practices present in today’s sports. Caster Semenya’s case is the starting point for a discussion about gender verification, eligibility criteria and the presence of intersexual athletes. The article’s main purpose is to show the role of surveillance in enforcing the boundary between sex and gender. It refers to concepts of surveillant scopophilia, soft biometrics, and the ‘othered’, (un)natural body and heteronormative body. The paper is based on the author’s individual in-depth interviews with sportswomen, coaches and sports activists, and representatives of feminist organizations. This selection of respondents reveals how surveillance practices relating to sex verification are perceived both within and outside sport.

This article examines the practice of the Danish K-pop (Korean pop) cover dance crew CODE9 as an example of the rapid cultural exchange on the Internet that reshapes the diffusion of dance styles and ideas. CODE9 demonstrates K-pop as a “migratory dance practice,” forming a transnational dancing community with modern technology at its center. By adapting and embodying K-pop, CODE9 creates a “Thirdspace” in between reality and fantasy, between being oneself and being a Korean idol. With CODE9, K-pop moves in and out of Denmark, through the practice of watching, learning, performing, and then circulating dance online. Link: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/platform-share-content/summary-pdf/41C952340CC3F146B475779255B14C03/e3027d6cc48e7b8b713b3d9d2ae5d3da9a36f8bf/cambridge-core-share-from-seoul-to-copenhagen-migrating-k-pop-cover-dance-and-performing-diasporic-y.pdf

A selection of the papers from this symposium has been extensively edited and published in Jiat-Hwee Chang and Imran bin Tajudeen eds., South East Asia's Modern Architecture: Questions of Translation, Epistemology and Power (Singapore: NUS Press, 2019). https://www.academia.edu/38187116/Historiographical_Questions_in_Southeast_Asias_Modern_Architecture 1st SEAARC (Southeast Asia Architecture Research Collaborative) Symposium Questions in Southeast Asia’s Architecture / Southeast Asia’s Architecture in Question Dates: 8-10 January 2015 (Thursday to Saturday) Venue: Department of Architecture, SDE, National University of Singapore Convenors: Chang Jiat Hwee, Imran bin Tajudeen and Lee Kah Wee Book includes Call for Papers, programme and abstracts

We ex􏰍amine the evolution of 􏰊the character Xander Harris over the duration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and how his character􏰋's depiction of masculinity itself is an interrogation of the rhetorics and discourses of masculinity. 􏰊Xander is a male character who struggles with being a man in a world where being 􏰔the man􏰕 is not an option. 􏰊Xander Harris presents us with a depiction of masculinity that must manage how cultural conceptions of masculinity and femininity are linked to discourses of power and individuality.

Travel writing, in today's time is a marginalized genre if not a neglected one. The paper attempts to look at travelling from various perspectives. In case of postcolonial and postmodern travel writers it can be seen that travel writing is no more an act of mere 'rhetoric or aesthetics.' The travel writing genre can be seen as one that includes geography, history, economics, culture and a privileging as masculine. Seth's From Heaven Lake and Ghosh's "Dancing in Cambodia" besides being travel accounts acquire socioeconomic and historical-political dynamics in a spatial sense that is Foucauldian. The paper attempts to look at the twin aspects of these texts where a traveller becomes a historian. Seth and Ghosh are able to write in a "third space," as theorised by Homi K. Bhabha and developed by Edward Soja, juxtaposing the images of the past and present; contrasting the attempts of destruction (political forces) and preservation (social forces) and conveying the conflict of cultures in the place of visit. Both can be seen as attempts to historically construct what has been obliterated by the totalitarian manoeuvres. These travel writings create a world mixing their individual journeys with the contemporary political scenario which make their works "heterotopias," of hybrid experience rather than conveying a single image of their utopia or feared dystopia.

The vantage point of my bachelor thesis, both for the forthcoming theoretical as well as analytical part, are the events surrounding last summer's protest against a demolition of one of Istanbul's last remaining green spaces, sparking a nationwide uprising lasting for almost a month, along with a two week occupation of Gezi Park situated in the city center, also commonly termed as the Gezi Park Protests. In the light of the current large scale urban transformation projects accompanied by an intense neoliberal economic agenda, I am going to delve into the spatial history of Taksim Square to explore how modernity has been absorbed in the urban history of the square for the purpose of being able to decipher its contemporary complexities and entanglements. The birth of the Turkish Republic in 1923 is inevitably linked to the rise of modernity in postcolonial and post-imperial states. Modernity as well as space offer a long history of theorization, lasting for hundreds of years in the realm of social science and the humanities. While much of mainstream social theory acknowledged it as the epitome of western civilization, initiated by the ideas of enlightenment, throughout the last century a number of scholars begun to take a different stance towards the Western narrative of modernity by increasingly criticizing its oppressive as well as dominant role caused by historical experiences of colonialism and imperialism. During the last decades, especially because of the impact of critical, feminist, poststructuralist and postcolonial theory, the epistemological foundation of social theory has been put into question, leading to what has become referred to as the crisis of knowledge formation. Within the context of the ongoing epistemological crisis of social sciences, I would like to explore the theoretical as well as analytical frameworks of two approaches deriving from the critique of the modern project, that is, postcolonial theory and spatial theory. In the course of my bachelor thesis, I am going to illuminate and compare their general approaches, pioneering works and critique of modernity. I am further going to explore how both postcolonialism and spatial theory are interdisciplinarily intertwined and to what extent they are complementing each other. These reflections are aiming at extending the spatial as well as postcolonial framework of the subsequent analysis of Taksim Square's history of spatializations in order to be able to elaborate on the politics of the production of space vis-à-vis Taksim Square's current redevelopment plans.

This article focuses on the role of the stage in complex modes of gender performativity in the work of three Turkish performers: Zeki Mu ̈ren (1931–1996), Bu ̈lent Ersoy (b. 1952), and Seyfi Dursunog ̆lu (b. 1932) a.k.a. Huysuz Virjin [Cranky Virgin]. These three, I suggest, are the pioneers of contemporary Turkish queer performance. Their performances – both on- and off-stage – are validated through a reiterative absence of queerness in their everyday lives and stand in the midst of various negotiations between queers and the secular Islamic nation-state in Turkey. In the works of Mu ̈ren, Ersoy, and Huysuz, the stage is suggestive of a space where queerness can be managed. It is a contested space that does at least allow for the communication of queer ideas to a wider audience. I discuss the works of these three performers as three variations of queerness in Turkey in relation to different eras and different political climates that are directly related to the nation-state’s desire to perform modernity. While explicating complicated modes of gender performativity, I consider the stage as the primary space for a queer body to exist. Through this discussion, I aim to activate debates both within and against the context of secular Islam, on gendered political space, and on those overlooked sexualized spaces in which the nation-state produces powerful yet unstable values to manage queer subjectivity in contemporary Turkey. Keywords: stage; space; queer; gender performativity; contemporary Turkey

This paper contributes to debates on the empirical and conceptual potentials of anti-essentializing notions such as ‘thirdspace’ with the aim to open new epistemological and political grounds. Based on the findings of ethnographic research, I critically examine two spatial strategies (the deliberate creation of an ethnic neighbourhood, and the securing of a community centre) that Latin American immigrants in Toronto, Canada, developed to appropriate urban space and lay claims to equal rights. The case of Latin Americans' struggle for belonging in Toronto serves to reflect on how and why new immigrant groups today (re)construct collective identity spatially. I argue that immigrants strategically essentialize their identities in and through place in order to make themselves visible and their voices heard. Ethnic places represent sites of resistance and creation where immigrants construct their own subjectivities while also redefining dominant notions of inclusion and citizenship. Although locally grounded, these new immigrant identities remain fluid and engage with multiple forms of exclusion [The] situation is simply sad; the [Latin American] community … is one of the most orphan communities … in [Toronto] … [We] don't even have a place where to dig our own grave basically. If there is need to get together … a meeting … there is no place. We have to be looking for a basement … for a recreational centre to give us a room … If there is a social or cultural event, we do not have a place where … we can present what we have … [It] is sad and it is a reality. (Cesar Palacio, city councillor candidate to Toronto's 2003 municipal elections, interview, 2 May 2003, translated from Spanish)Dans le but d'ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives épistémologiques et politiques, cet article se veut une contribution aux débats sur les possibilités empiriques et conceptuelles que présentent les notions anti-essentialistes comme le ‘troisième espace’. Les résultats d'une recherche ethnologique viennent appuyer mon étude critique de deux stratégies spatiales (la création intentionnelle d'un quartier ethnique, et l'approbation obtenue pour ériger un centre associatif) mises sur pied par des immigrants latinos américains à Toronto (Canada) pour s'approprier un espace urbain et revendiquer l'égalité des droits. Les efforts considérables déployés par les latinos américains pour appartenir à Toronto permettent d'examiner comment et pourquoi les nouveaux arrivants tentent aujourd'hui de (re)construire une identité collective dans l'espace. Je soutiens que les immigrants essentialisent de manière stratégique leurs identités dans et à travers le lieu en vue de se rendre visible et de faire entendre leur voix. Les milieux ethniques représentent des sites de résistance et de créativité dans lesquels les immigrants construisent leurs propres subjectivités en même temps qu'ils redéfinissent les notions dominantes que sont l'inclusion et la citoyenneté. Malgré que les identités de ces nouveaux arrivants soient enracinées localement, elles restent fluides et sont touchées par diverses formes d'exclusion.Este papel contribuye al debate sobre las posibilidades empíricas y conceptuales de nociones antiesencialistas como ‘tercer espacio’ con el fin de ir abriendo nuevos caminos epistemológicos y políticos. Basándose en los resultados de una investigación etnográfica, examina críticamente dos estrategias espaciales (la creación deliberada de un barrio étnico y el establecimiento de un centro comunitario) desarrolladas por los inmigrantes latinoamericanos en Toronto, Canadá, con el motivo de apropiarse de espacio urbano y reivindicar la igualdad de derechos. El caso de la lucha de los latinoamericanos por pertenecer en Toronto sirve para reflexionar sobre cómo y por qué los nuevos grupos de inmigrantes de hoy en día (re)construyen una identidad colectiva de forma espacial. Sugiero que los inmigrantes esencializan estratégicamente sus identidades en, y a través, del lugar para hacerse visible y hacer que se escuche su voz. Lugares étnicos representan sitios de resistencia y creación donde los inmigrantes construyen sus propias subjetividades mientras que redefinen nociones dominantes de inclusión y ciudadanía. Aunque tienen base local, estas nuevas identidades de inmigrantes siguen siendo fluidas e interactúan con múltiples formas de exclusión.

A review of new literary approaches to the Book of Joshua, including my own reading of the Conquest Narrative using critical spatial theory alongside a narrative analysis.