Sexuality in Urban Environments Notes PDF

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Contains all class lectures, textbook-based notes (reading assignments from outside text through the chapter 1-3 of the textbook), and writing and journal assignments for the final paper. Taken in Spring 2020 with Prof Fuentes-Peralta...

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Sexuality in Urban Environments Notes

First day of class intro lecture  Gender- Sex- Sexuality o Gender- social expectations for people to behave according to their certain sex  “Doing gender”, gender reveal parties, gender binary behaviors, colors, gendered  Social construct- changes throughout time, rules are not universalculturally dependent  Clashes over gender binary  House vs Public diff spaces/roles demonstrated with toys  House- private spaces = women- nurturing home  Public =men- politics/outside world  Weak vs strong o Sex- biological characteristics that separate sexes,  forced genital alteration/mutilation in babies o Sexuality- Acts that we do for our pleasure  Sexual desire  sexual practices- bedroom, love hotels, etc  policing of sex  Use of penetration as acts of war to make weak 2/2/20 Holloway and Hubbard Reading People and Place Chapter 8 Place and Power  Introduction o Systems of space- people can find themselves marginalized in, places often demonstrate cultural values and interests of dominant groups, o Outcome of cultural politics- where certain values incorporated into mainstream and other pushed into margins o Usually power means control by authority, but here power can suggest more complex power relationships in a place depending on relations btw people and places at all scales and levels of society  Power discipline and the state o Recently the state is considered central institution responsible for disseminating ideas about correct behavior and not, moral ideas thru laws, governing, rituals, influence of religious beliefs o Way power is acquired thru hegemony- organization of consent based in acceptance that particular set of ideas, beliefs, and values were desirable, inevitable, and natural o Gramsci- power of persuasion, Mussolini, fascism, Italy, eventually overturned by counter-hegemonic ideas o Gramsci Hegemony ideas- groups and individuals continually reassert right to rule  By seeking to inscribe values on places and times  Justifying rule w rituals, power performances

 Power of state constructed with architecture/monuments o Power of state spreads widely into state control centers on education and reform of ‘marginal citizens’ (those not conforming to normalcy standards) o Foucault- ideas on power and knowledge and place  Changing nature of social control  Transition to modern social order through new forms of control, obvious by the effects on the people on the margins of society whose behaviors were controlled massively (like convicts, mentally ill and poor)  Reasoned that modernity came from culmination of developments in science and philosophy that rejected idea of ruling through bodily terror of torture or executions  Forms of control in modern 19th century society  More humane and democratic control of non “normal” behaviors  Poor houses, asylums, prison  Sites of reformation- institutions designed to encourage adoption of productive life to help the state  Panopticon metaphor for forms of spatial arrangement which were central to disciplining deviant individuals and behaviors  Principles of spatial segregation and surveillance were essential in maintenance of social order  Bentham on the panopticon of prison design where action of every prisoner would be visible and able to be observed, threat of continual observation  Documented ways the state dispersed the prisons and disciplinary sitesshowed an expanded, unified, intensified surveillance to secure boundaries of the state  How state control came to be maintained through disciplinary power- on body and mind, turning all citizens into docile, good ones, institutionalized process in education, policy and welfare to promote normalcy, morality, productivity, internalized through individual self-control and adherence to moral codes  School as place of surveillance where undesirable behavior or appearance are discouraged thru coercing and punishment  All places are potentially implicated in reproduction of social orders o Markus: Institutional sites as place of formation and imposed characters to form thru power relations  Sites of recreation used by those in power to redefine their character and reaffirm their privilege o Public space- argued should be democratic and open, culture, urban identity o Death of public space in private residential neighborhoods, shopping malls, sanitized spaces, threat to equal access, o Gendering of public and private spaces  Can be traced back to modern period where new ideas were traced to masculine spaces of public discussion, not domestic sphere

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Isolation of ordered suburbs and domestic life isolated women from civic spaces, separate spheres for gender, urban being more masculine associated with power, suburb with feminine, dependence Genders have unequal access to particular spaces- feminist geographers  Structure of power and society, private vs public space remains potent means where women are controlled, oppressed  Women are still excluded from some places by gender

In class notes 2/4 

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Place and Power o Places often reflect cultural values and interests of white, wealthy, male, bourgeois, het, and able-bodied people o Certain groups- whether defied in terms of income, ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality – find themselves marginalized in wider systems of space, able to inscribe their values only in certain and often (marginal) locations o Mainstream and margins- unequal relations of power o Places can encapsulate certain cultural values in the service of power o Relationship people have w place/space must be looked through the analysis of relationships of power in society- inequality o The design, organization, and use of space reflects forms of social and cultural inequality How do we define power? o Authority o The ability of a person or group being able to exercise power or making decisions over the broader group o Broader and more diffuse exercise of power o Power may be discerned in the relations that exist btw people and places at all scales and levels of society, from individual household relations to the type of interdependencies that exist btw the peoples of the global south and the global north  Depends on who and where we are Power, discipline, and the state o Michel Foucault o Power and legitimacy: how do dominant groups achieve certain ends? (e.g. maintain its dominance, or use its dominant position to extract particular privileges and rewards)- monarch, church, aristocracy, politicians…  Tradition of state o Who gets to decide what is legal and what is illegal/bad or wrong?  Dominant groups in power o Public displays of consequences of not following state rules- torture and executions in front of public o Political debate and creation of laws- part of deciding rules

o The way in which particular political groups have succeeded in imposing their values and rules on society is, however, far from involving a complex process of domination, coercion, and persuasion o Italian New-Marxist Antonio Gramsci- Hegemony (1930’s Mussolini regime)  Tools people in power use to consolidate their power ie mass media and rallies, white statues used as symbols for white power  Hegemonic idea of supremacy that people are defending o Hegemony: concept used to describe organization of consent based on acceptance that particular set of ideas, beliefs, and values were desirable, inevitable and “natural”  Fascism: rule of white man is natural o Ideas that would only be overturned once the Italian people were able to develop counter-hegemonic ideas which challenged the taken-for-granted assumptions underpinning Mussolini’s ideas o Groups and individuals need to continually reassert their right to rule o One way in which they do this is to inscribe their values in specific places and times, celebrating and justifying their rule through symbolic rituals and performances of power  Symbols of white house, architecture o This account of the workings of political power perhaps fails to acknowledge the way that the power of the state may be spread far more widely, into a variety of places in the center or on the margins of society o Education and reform or ‘marginal’ citizens o For Foucault, the transition to a modern social order was made possible by the imposition of new forms of control dispersed through complex networks of knowledge and power

2/6 Class Notes on reading: Holloway and Hubbard Reading People and Place Chapter 8 Civilized Bodies, Civilized places, and Place and moral order  Civilized bodies, civilized places o Fischer and Poland- a focus on state role on shaping behavior can downplay the wider relationships btw state and civil society o Civil society: social relationships and interactions which occur outside the sphere of the state  Reproduction of society is organized around everyday relationships that are characterized by forms of inequalities  Relationships are influenced by social rules and norms w certain behaviors, bodies, and acting privileged over others- distinctive social hierarchy  Social hierarchy is perpetuated in everyday activites and ways of being o Bourdieu- social standing and cultural capital ideas that explain why such performances are important for defining social relationships we share w others

o Turner- social status involves practices which exhibit cultural separations and differences that are apart of stratification of lifestyle involving dress, speech, outlook o Distinction with style: what type of people, practices, and places are culturally (commercially) valued  Certain dress, speaking and acting considered more desirable than other ways  Some social groups have more control than others over desirability o Fisher and Poland- example of changing smoking in public as desirable then not desirable- debates over smoking bans and rights  Socially undesirable now, exclusion to outdoor spaces o Consumption of food in public spaces example  Supposed to be at table in private rather than in public, outside and messy, seen as animalistic and lowering the tone  Alcohol bans to help public order o Foucault’s Idea of fear of the gaze of the overseer, inward inspecting gaze of oneself  Fear of the gaze restricts people to follow rules ie eating to the domestic realm o Power seems to discourage distasteful bodies- people must look after bodies, maintaining and policing its boundaries often and well o Body in power relations  Body is socially constructed- takes on diff meanings which categorize and differentiate btw people  Connote social identity- something about individuals based on appearance  Body is physical expression of individual identity o Shilling- Theory of the civilized body- body has been transformed over time into a polite and sophisticated object to be possessed and managed by owner to live up to the right standards and boundaries  Focus on individual civilizing their body –  Lupton argues that during medieval cities, bodies were more public where they did more “private” more wild but normal processes in public  People’s bodies were more community oriented; disease and pollution were community issues not individual, boundaries btw each other were more collective than individual  Church authority drew boundaries btw behaviors and disciplined and purified bodies in collective level o Pile, Nast and Teather- connections btw people and place by exploring bodily identities are performed and perceived in diff places- home, work at play  How bodies are perceived as certain genders, sexualities, colored, sick, how certain types are excluded o Longhurst- how some bodies may be read as out of place- on examination of pregnant body  Exclusion of pregnant imagery of women and lack of maternal clothing options, many social norms that don’t accommodate for pregnancy

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o Desirable bodies vary across time and space  In history of western societies, there was preference for bodies that were not too thin nor too fat  This century, women have been preferred to have a thin or ectomorphic body-type- considered the ideal and men as muscular  Bordo- slender body has become valued as an ideal of a well-managed, disciplined self  Widespread anxieties about this body image Places and moral order o Moral geographies- emprirical research into aspects of socio-spatial ordering which invite a moral reading  Judgements people make on everyday basis about what type of people and actions are acceptable and appropriate in which settings  Matless- argued moral geographies operate thru powers of control and exclusion but also through individual spatial practice  Taste and manners with a series of expectations of what should happen where  Ie ideas that say smokers are weak-willed, negligent, and unintelligent and immoral o Matless- space contributes to social order  Geography- where acts are deemed appropriately to belong is crucial to understanding power relations o Not just sights but smell- more desirable and undesirable smells, how it’s used to promote consumerism, consumption of smell  Finkelstein- restaurant dining is about excitement and conspicuous consumption, new sights and smells  Lupton- smells can excite emotions, other smells can repulse  Smell of smoke interpreted as stigma symbol  Pocock- lack of acknowledgement of space being based on sense of smell and vision  Hallidays- Great Stink of London on smellscapes of London and Corbin’s The foul and fragrant on odors of Paris  Desire to eliminate bad smells – obsessive desire among bourgeois indiv to rid cities of smells indicative of immoral behaviors of working class o Sibley’s geographies of exclusion: how urges to marginalize particular social groups feed off ideas of difference, urge to remove bad smells closeby is engrained w desires to maintain cleanliness and purity o Sounds and geography  Roadway notes we encounter background and foreground sounds in everyday  Background sounds- constant or ambient, traffic hum  Foreground sounds- punctuate this soundscape  Debates around appropriateness of sounds in locations focus on foreground sounds of indiv source  Loud music in residences

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Rural ‘noise pollution’- Matless- modern influences must be accommodated only into existing rural landscape order, keeping with pastoral aesthetic, countryside values  Threat to visual and loudness in countryside and was condemned  Well-mannered citizen- noise conscious on countryside  Crang- attempts to ban beats music in public places, attempts to criminalize raves when they threaten social order o Order is inscribed through and in space in place- boundaries and areas carry expectations of good and appropriate behavior Book summary of the chapter: o Power is partly about the ability of the state to control how people ought to act in different places. This control is enforced through policing, surveillance and regulation carried out by agencies and institutions of the state. o Power is also about self-management and regulation, with people expected to monitor their own behaviour in accordance with ideas about what is desirable and culturally valuable. o Power is instilled in place through a complex range of laws, norms and expectations (reflected in its design and appearance) which encourage us to adopt particular bodies and behave in particular ways. Rather than being fixed and ‘natural’, such norms are arbitrary, needing constant maintenance by dominant groups, and varying over space and time. o Power is not unidirectional, with all people having the potential to resist dominant ideas of what is good and right.

 For class 2/11 People and Place Ch 9 Struggles for Place  Place, conflict and transgression o Some homes are not places of escape from power relation o Children and parent power dynamics with adult control, children personalize their spaces  “negotiated geography between adult and child played out through modalities of dependency and autonomy”  Teenagers occupation of space is “increasingly curtailed by the police”, curfews to reassert adult authority in cities  Combatted by teenager fashions, language, and music that is antiestablished adult values and tastes, o Transgression: crossing of boundaries, usually occurs wen particular phenomena appear as out of place, challenging expectations about what is supposed to be found where  when these occur, dominant social groups may act histerically  creat a moral panic about a particular group or practice that triggers new forms of social and spatial control  ie homeless in public spaces, contested presence, stigmatization

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o gentrification: resulted in dozens of homeless people evicted from a park they slept in, treatment symptomatic of fears evident among middle and upper classes who relocated to lower east side o heavy handed attempts to exclude street homeless form sites as symptomatic of the “revanchism evident in contemporary cities where “brutal attacks on ‘others’ have been cloked in language of public morality, neighbourhood security, and ‘family values’”  to exclude others from spaces claimed by the affluent, anti-homeless laws o “acts sens out message that authorities are concerned to remove homelessness from the gaze of ‘respectable’ populations” o Zero tolerance policing o “complex struggle for one group’s sense of place to be imposed on those of other groups” o Turf wars: “what is often regarded as ‘normal’ and proper behavior in place is struggled over by different groups and individuals who are all seeking to mark off a specific place as being available for their type of people to use, excluding others in the process” Place and resistance o Resistance – mobility of homeless itself as they seek to combat the exclusion and separation from various public spaces o “importance of ‘nomadic’ behavior in societies where space is often clearly segmented and bounded” o “at street level we find that individuals and groups create their own geographies, using places in ways very different than bureaucrats and administrators intend” o Certeau- intracies of resistance writer, highlighting everyday manifestations and forms  “resistances are more usually assembled from the materials and practices of everyday life”  Ie “reclaim the night” of women walking streets at night as resistance  Walking is politicized  Underlying factor constituting resistance: intentionality: “appreciating the spatial context in which it occurs”, “refusal to recognize dominant socio-spatial orders”  “distinguishes act of resistance from one of transgression”  Cresswell: ‘unintended consequence of making space a means of control is to simultaneously make it a site of meaningful resistance’  De Certeau- refers to resistive appropriations of everyday spaces as tactical: “seeking to distinguish btw the strategies of the strong and the tactics of the weak”, practices of resistance cannot be apart from consideration of practices of domination  Places can be “challenged and subverted through everyday spatial practices and tactics”  Graffiti- where the graffiti is o Latent and symbolic forms of resistance

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Goffman- importance of coping strategies: people who fail to match of to what citizens must look like seek to develop performances of the body which enable them to cope with stigma in public places, “pressure of idealized conduct seen among marginalized populations whose deviance forces them to be in ‘discredited’ groups, based on nature of stigma”  For them, attempts to pass as normal in public space involve use of ‘dis-identifiers’ to establish selves as normal ie women powerdressing to communicate they belong to male-dominated worlds of business”  Judith Butler- performances of the self need to be “und3rstood in relation to scripts aready written through conventions of society”, way we make our bodies gendered, sexually oriented through clothing, makeup, bodyadornment, way we alter and ‘work’ our bodies to conform to idealized view of appropriate gender type – pg 222  Butler- body as site of resistance, parody of cultural conventions through excessive performances- like male drag artist or lipstick lesbian as challenge to het norms, responses depending on space context  Subcultures: “any faction ...