2004-2008 Commission on Gender and Geography Report and Renewal Request
1. Membership
A. Provide a complete list of your commission’s steering committee members. Include all contact information (mailing address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address) for each steering committee member.
Chair / Dr Tovi Fenster Department of Geography and HumanEnvironmentTelAvivUniversity
PO Box 39040
Tel Aviv 69978 ISRAEL / Phone +972 3 640 9045
Fax +972 3 640 6243
Treasurer / Prof dr Janet Momsen
Department of Human and CommunityDevelopment
University of California, Davis
DavisCA95616
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / Phone +1 916 752 0790
Fax +1 916 754 8315
Steering Committee Members
Dr Mariama Awumbila
Department of Geograpy and ResourceDevelopmentUniversity of Ghana
PO Box 59LegonGHANA / Phone +233 21 500 394/20 813 6035 Fax +233 21 500 382
E-mail: ;
Dr Elisabeth Buehler
Department of GeographyUniversity of Zurich - Irchel
Winterthurerstr. 190 CH-8057 ZurichSWITZERLAND / Phone +41 1 635 5247 Fax +41 1 635 6845
Dr Shahnaz Huq-Hussain
Department of Geography and EnvironmentUniversity of Dhaka
Ramna Dhaka 1000 BANGLADESH / Phone +88 02 988 6849
Prof dr Audrey Kobayashi
Department of Geography
Queen's University
Kingston
OntarioCanadaK7L 3N6 / Phone +1 613 533 3035
Fax +1 613 533 6122
Prof. dr Diana Lan
Centro de Investigaciones Geograficas Faculdad de Ciencias Humanas
Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Pcia. De Buenos Aires
Campus Universitario Paraje Arroyo Seco 7000 Tandil ARGENTINA / Phone +54 293 423 956 Fax +54 293 444 222
Dr Robyn Longhurst
Department of Geography
University of Waikato
Private Bag 3105
HamiltonNew Zealand / Tel +64 7 838 4046
Fax +64 7 838 4633
Dr Janet Townsend
Department of GeographyUniversity of Newcastle, Newcastle NE1 7RU UNITED KINGDOM / Phone +44 1388746479
Dr Sorina Voiculescu
Department of GeographyUniversity of the West Timisoara
Blv. V. Parvan 4 300223 TimisoaraROMANIA / Phone +40 256 494068 Fax +40 256 490333
Prof dr Brenda Yeoh
Department of Geography
National University of Singapore
Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore / E-mail
B. The number of commission members in total and by country as of 31 December 2007. The counts of members by country are exceedingly helpful in documenting to the International Council for Science (ICSU) and other international organizations the IGU’s extensive reach.
IGU Commission on Gender and Geography
Membership of Newsletter Mailing List, December 2007
The newsletter is sent twice per year (April and November) in English and Spanish
Argentina 5Australia 20
Austria 2
Bangladesh 2
Belgium 4
Brazil 2
Bulgaria 1
Canada 25
Czech Republic 1
Denmark 1
Finland 3
France 4
Georgia 1
Germany 6
Ghana 1
Greece 1
Hong Kong 2
Hungary 2
Iceland 1
India 5
Ireland 2
Israel 6
Italy 12 / Japan 13
Kenya 1
Korea 1
Mexico 4
Netherlands 7
New Zealand 16
Norway 9
Portugal 1
Romania 1
Serbia 1
Singapore 5
South Africa 10
Spain 23
Sri Lanka 2
Sweden 4
Switzerland 8
Taiwan 2
Thailand 1
Turkey 1
United Kingdom 43
United States 60
Uruguay 1
Unknown* 21
Total 349
*Yahoo.com or similar addresses for which country is not identifiable from the email address.
In addition to the above, the newsletter is also mailed to the Home of Geography, IGU officers, geogfem (a US-based listserv of 525 members which has some overlap with the Commission’s list, membership predominantly in the US but also international subscribers; to the British Women and Geography Study Group list, and the Canadian Women and Geography network.
2. Meetings
A. The meetings your commission organized during the period 2004 through 2008 with information on their locations, dates, and numbers of participants.
Meetings in 2005
Location and date: Dhaka, Bangladesh, End of 2005
Meeting Cancelled
Meetings in 2006
Location and Date: Barcelona, Spain, 22-26, February, 2006
Number of Participants: paper presentations: 15, participants: 40
Location and Date: Hamilton, New Zealand, June 28-July,1, 2006
Number of Participants: paper presentations: 20, participants: 40
Location and Date: Brisbane, Australia, July, 3-7, 2006
Number of Participants: paper presentations: 35, participants: 130
Meetings in 2007
Location and Date: Zurich, Switzerland, May,31-June,2, 2007
Number of Participants:paper presentations :38 , participants: 50
Location and Date: Taipei, Taiwan, 23-26, November, 2007
Number of Participants: paper presentations: 24, participants: 60
B. A brief summary of the questions addressed at each meeting and the findings or conclusions resulting from the discussions. Please highlight the new ideas and insights identified at each meeting and their immediate and long-term theoretical and practical implications.
After the world conference in Glasgow 2004, the Commission had 5 meetings;
International Seminar in Barcelona, Catalonia , Spain Feb.22-25, 2006 : Geography and Gender World-Wide: Contesting Anglo American Hegemonyco-sponsored by the Commission.
Questions addressed
The main question addressed in this international seminar is the effects of the Anglo American Hegemony on research and study of gender worldwide. The International Seminar was organized by the Gender Studies Group of the Department of Geography at the AutonomousUniversity, the Catalan Geographical Society and the UGI Comission on Gender and Geography. Other supporting/collaborating organizations include the Autonomous University of Barcelona, the Ministry of Education and Science (Spain), the Catalan Women’s Institute, the Generalitat (the Catalan Government) and the Spanish Women’s Institute.
The program has brought together scholars from Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Israel, The Netherlands, Singapore, Spain ,Switzerland, Turkey, the US and the UK to explore perspectives and recent developments in the regions of the world in which they are based. In addition, the purpose of the seminar has been to reflect on the implications of the dominance of Anglo-American work in geography and the social sciences and to propose alternatives in the field of gender and geography. Our reason for addressing this topic was the fact that we see that geography -including feminist geography- has focused on ideas about exclusion, marginality, periphery , situated knowledge, differences, and the politics of identity and place; but geography - and gender geography quite often- has not systematically turned the gaze on the ways in which institutionalized discursive and material practices of Anglo-American geography marginalize other geographical knowledge and practices from other geographical traditions.
New Ideas and Insights
The contributors represent a wide range of ideas and insights. While it was not possible to include all world regions, given both limits of space and also the geography of the production of research on gender, we aimed to represent the diversity of practices and to include both those where the field is well-established and others in which it still struggles for a footing. The contributions come from countries in East-Central and Western Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America, North America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The main omissions are the Australian-Pacific realm and East Asia. Of course, within all of these regions there is diversity, some of which we hoped to capture by including in the European case representation of different language groups and geographic traditions. We also included several examples of this region because we anticipate they will be of particular interest to the readers of a European such as Belgeowhich.committed to publishing a guest-edited monographic issue from the conference. In addition to reflecting on the work of the authors of these papers, we draw on the insights of discussants from a number of other countries (Greece, India, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain, the US) who read the papers prior to their oral presentation at a symposium at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. . They also participated in debates both following the presentations and in an extended Round Table. Reflections from the Round Tablewere incorporated into the papers, especially into the introductory article “Gender and Geography: World Views and Practices” by Maria Dolors Garcia Ramon and Janice Monk.
Findings and Conclusions
The presentations of the papers gave us a picture of the different ways of doing gender and feminist geography on the world and motivated us the desire to see a “more” inclusive scholarship, one that recognises the richness of the different gender perspectives in geography and the value of paying attention to the social, cultural, and political experiences of gender in relation to place. Nevertheless, it was made clear that to talk about Anglo-American hegemony is not sufficient; the presentations reflected a multilayering of hegemonies many time linked to the colonial history, like in Singapur, Ghana, or to most recent events in history like the case of Eastern Europe .
Theoretical and practical implications
Although it was evident that it was in British writing where the prioritization of theory has been most pronounced, we should be very aware of the fact that too often knowledge from other places (than the Anglo-American realm) is constructed as divergent and local and as such not producing theory but only study cases. For example, the African scholars are trying to create theory that speak to the region’s culture (taking into account religion, ethnicity, age etc.) and express concerns about the ways in which biases of Western development studies influence thinking about gender. It was clear from the discussions that the dichotomy between theoretical and applied work is a very complex one. Whereas in some settings applied work may have diminished support , in others it can serve as a way to connect to local geographic agendas and traditions and to foster support for and by women’s movements beyond the academy.
In the Round Table it was made clear that an important dimension of this Anglophone hegemony is the power of language as English has become the “lingua franca”. Language is much more than a communicative tool for exchanging ideas as it represents a way of thinking and a framework to express our own experiences as realities. Then, the question of the different scholarly traditions in geography (with their distinct ways of approaching the subject, their logic and their values) should always be included in any discussion about languages. As feminists we know that language is not innocent, that apparently neutral and disembodied vocabularies often carry a whole web of power relations.
As strategies for moving ahead we reiterated the importance of recognizing the implications of hegemonic practices within institutions, locally within departments and national systems, and in the international arena. Publishing is a key political practice and the growing practice in non- Anglophone countries of counting only English publications- and thus reproducing Anglophone dominance- should be contested without reverting to parochialism. We also draw the attention to the importance of networking across national boundaries that includes not only between “cores” and “peripheries”, but among “peripheries”. Finally, it was clear that contesting hegemonies and fostering inclusive perspectives were essential for enriching feminist geography.
As elaborated later, the Belgian geographical journal BELGEO (2007, 3) has recently published a monographic issue entitled “Feminist Geographies around the World”, edited by Maria-Dolors Garcia –Ramon and Jan Monk which includes a selection of the revised papers delivered at the seminar. The issue is designed to widen understanding beyond the US/UK perspectives that dominate the literature in English.
The Gender Commission pre- meeting at Waikato , New Zealand on June 28-July,1, 2006:Shifting Boundaries: Gender, Bodies and Spaces.
Approximately 20 delegates from a variety of countries met to present papers at the International Geographical Union Commission on Gender and Geography Pre-Congress Symposium held at the Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand on June 28-30, 2006. The Symposium was hosted by the Department of Geography, Tourism and Environmental Planning at the University of Waikato. The organizers chose the theme partly because it was contemporary and spoke to the research interests of the Waikato Geography Department and partly because they wanted a theme that was broad enough to encompass the interests of a range of different gender scholars who wanted to attend the Waikato meeting prior to attending the IGU Regional Congress, Brisbane, Australia, July 3-7, 2006.
Questions addressed
The primary aim of the Pre-Congress Symposium was to explore the notion of boundaries, especially gendered boundaries. We addressed the question ‘what exactly are boundaries and how do they order gendered social and spatial and relations?’ The sessions were grouped under the themes: shifting conceptual boundaries; crossing sex and gender boundaries; crossing national and professional boundaries; unsettling normative boundaries; shifting familial boundaries; and, queering nature and ‘natural’ boundaries.
A secondary aim of the Symposium was to offer delegates an opportunity to think more about Māori ideas and protocols and to prompt them to question what it means to live in a bi- and increasingly multi-cultural nation such as Aotearoa New Zealand.
Findings and conclusions
In relation to the first aim of the Symposium it was concluded that boundaries are threshold spaces that differentiate one thing from another. They indicate the bounds or limits and play an important role in the gendered social and spatial ordering of spaces and things. Boundaries are imbued with power relations. They are a means of relational ordering and provide a space or a thing an identity that is defined in relation to its Other. Shifting or crossing boundaries often disrupts the gendered social and spatial order of spaces and things. In this symposium delegates shifted and problematised gender boundaries and geographical disciplinary boundaries in order to reconceptualise them as places of exchange, feedback and process.
In relation to the second aim, a well respected Maori woman from the Waikato Museum of Art and History, Mamae Takerae, as tangata whenua (people of the land or indigenous people), welcomed and bid delegates farewell in a culturally appropriate manner. On the final day delegates embarked upon a field trip led by Maori Geography lecturer Angeline Greensill to Raglan (Whaingaroa). Whaingaroa is Angeline’s home (turangawaewae). It is a small coastal town on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand that is shaped by complex gender, social, cultural, environmental, and Māori politics. Delegates also visited the Waikato Migrant Resource Centre which was set up in Hamilton several years ago to offer new migrants a ‘one stop shop’ for information and resources useful for settling in a new place.
New ideas and insights
This Symposium prompted a range of new ideas and insights on a broad array of interesting subjects. Some of the subjects addressed were the dominance of Angloamerican feminist geography, auto-ethnography, Bedouin women in Israel, heteronormativity in transnational migration, women’s employment in Guyana, men’s houses in Papua New Guinea; D/deaf people’s (non)engagement with the Internet, and gender and women’s health at the Mexico-US border. It became apparent during the Symposium that not only do boundaries structure social life but also geographical knowledge. Geographical knowledge tends to be grouped into definable categories or sub-disciplines. The array of research presented in Hamilton, the field trip to Raglan, and the excursion to the Waikato Migrant Resource Centre, however, illustrated that the boundaries around knowledge (both ‘European’, Māori and ‘other’ knowledges) are discursively constructed and always shifting. The Symposium pushed some of geography’s disciplinary boundaries by addressing topics such as toilet provision, ‘queer breastfeeding’ and ‘camped up’ performances at weddings, illustrating that geographical knowledge and knowledge production is and gendered, sexualized, racialised and embodied.
Theoretical implications
The Symposium demonstrated that it is possible to approach the issues of ‘gender, bodies and spaces’ from a range of different theoretical perspectives. Some researchers presented work informed by liberal feminism while others drew on poststructuralist feminist theory. Still others employed queer theory. On the field trip delegates were presented with a Māori perspective. Both real and discursive spaces were examined. Binary categories such as nature/culture, heterosexuality/homosexuality, public/private and Pākehā/Māori were deconstructed throughout the Symposium. The Symposium offered a space to present original empirical material but it also illustrated clearly the ‘shifting theoretical boundaries’ in geography.
International Geographical Union Regional Conference in Brinsbane , July, 3-7, 2006: Regional responses to global change: Views from the Antipodes.
Four sessions of the Gender Commission were held in Brisbane including 12 presentations. The first was a keynote session to honor the contribution of Janice Monk to the field of Gender and Geography. It was followed by three sessions of contributed papers.Some 30-40 people attended each session which has been followed by excellent discussions. A business meeting was also organized to plan future work by the Commission.
The Commission also sponsored a half-day field trip focusing on women’s and indigenous spaces in the urban spaces of Brisbane organized by Jenny Cameron.
Questions addressed
The Gender Commission's sessions in the main meeting addressed the following questions:
“What are the Regional Responses to Global Changes: Gendered Views from the Antipodes,”
“What are the crossing paradigms in gender research” What are the gendered constructions of 'nature'” and “What are the gendered perspectives on the notion of 'crossing borders.”
Findings and conclusions
The papers presented a wide range of research methodologies, from qualitative to quantitative research, from case study oriented to a more theoretical research. Researchers represented a wide range of geographical spectrum: among them New Zealand, Australia, Spain, Bangladesh, India and Japan.
New ideas and insights
The new ideas and insights relate to the intersections between the topics, methodologies and geographical contexts. Some of the ideas and insights relate to epistemological issues in producing feministgeography in particular contexts, thus extending the discussions of the preceding Barcelona conference. Among themes were the development of feminist geography inNew Zealand; the significance of gender , space and institutions in processes of creating difference in Australia; and the contribution of women in the South to the feminist knowledge. Other insights related to alternative explorations of arenas of life in which gender is of importance in human experience such as violence against women, gendered politics of water management, wedding tourism, and parenthood as contested terrain. And lastly, some of the insights relate to issues of transgrassive identities, bodies and spatial politics and labor force participation.
Theoretical implications