Women's Dialogue Challenges Cyprus Conflict Narratives

No Permission to Cross: Cypriot womens dialogue across
the divide
MARIA HADJIPAVLOU
Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus
Abstract Much scholarly attention has been given to the study of the gendered aspect
of ethno-national conicts trying to understand the experiences of men and women in a
conict situation and to what extent these shape different types of intervention for
peacemaking and peace-building. Are womens experiences of conict different from
mens? Do women have a different voice than the mainstream dominant discourses
produced by patriarchal systems? Do women in conict societies respond to militarism
and the violation of human rights differently from men? Are womens needs for identity
and peace different depending on which ethnicreligious group they belong to? Are their
needs different from those of men? This article will try to answer the above questions
focusing on a feminist understanding of conict in Cyprus. The main contention put
forward in the article is that gender is an important factor to take into account when
conict societies are engaging in peace processes. To this end, data are analysed from
different inter-ethnic womens workshops in which the author was either a participant
observer, or a facilitator. This analysis of the data demonstrates that Greek and Turkish
Cypriot womens voices and experiences are diverse and multiple. Both men and women
are socialised in the same nationalist paradigms, a fact that can explain how in the initial
phases of the dialogue processes both groups of women tended to reproduce ofcial
discourses. Their own experiences and differentiated voices began to emerge only after a
gendered understanding of the conict was introduced and trust and conict resolution
skills were instituted in the dialogue process. Drawing attention to the gradual shift of
perspectives in the context of inter-ethnic workshops, the article concludes by arguing that
womens dialogue can challenge the omnipotence of the state and may open up a new space
whereby a diversity of perspectives and mutual trust can emerge.
Flying Away to the Other Side
Our birthplace is split in two and we
Are caught on barbed wire-hybrids
Turk and Greek alike
Is it December is it July
Choose your Side
Are you Turkish or Greek
Correspondence: Maria Hadjipavlou, Department of Social and Political Sciences, University
of Cyprus, PO Box 20537, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus. E-mail: mariat@ucy.ac.cy
Gender, Place and Culture
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 329351, August 2006
ISSN 0966-369X print/ISSN 1360-0524 online/06/040329-23 q 2006 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808429
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Theres no Purgatory in between.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We cannot be from both Sides
Because we are two, one and the other
You refused to believe in
We are loneliness itself (M. Yashin 2000)
Choose your Side!
In ethno-national conicts members of opposing parties are called through
dominant national narratives, which are patriarchal, militaristic and over-
simplied, to choose their side and locate themselves on the conict map.
Chronology, (December 1963, 1967, July 1974, 1983, just to mention the most
contested dates in the recent history of Cyprus) and issues, such as victimhood,
truth, human rights violations, and justice acquire a monofocal meaning
according to the processes of constructing memories and of forgetting which
enter into what Volkan (1979, p. 15) aptly termed chosen glories and chosen
traumas. What are the implications of this bipolar scenario for women and
conict resolution groups, who view political and ethno-national conicts as
having a multi-layered texture? Does a conict culture, as it is dened by
masculinist politics,
1
allowa space for the development of alternative options and
analyses? What does a feminist understanding of the Cyprus conict add and
what have been Cypriot womens interventions?
To discuss the above questions this article will present a feminist analysis of
gender and conict in Cyprus and try to determine how the inscription of conict
onto the Cypriot landscape can be changed through feminist practices such as
dialogue, perspective-taking and conict resolution workshops. The constitution
of the enemy, a practice that lies at the heart of masculinist politics, will be
presented along with ways in which, through conict resolution workshops,
Cypriots attempt to renegotiate their sense of each other, and of the conict in
which they nd themselves.
First, I will give a brief outline of the history of the Cyprus conict in order to
explain the complexities of the current situation. Secondly, I present a general
discussion on gender and conict followed by an analysis of Cypriot womens
attempts to renegotiate their sense of each other, their multiple identities and the
conict. I use data from conict resolution womens workshops and inter-ethnic
dialogues during the period 199596, 19992001 and 2003 in which I was either an
active participant or participant observer and/or facilitator. Finally, I highlight
some lessons learned and the need for future systematic research. One assumption
upon which I work is that both feminist perspectives and conict resolution
processes open spaces for mutual acknowledgement of power disparities, creation
of empathy, the need for emotionality which lead to the development of a new
shared narrative representing the whole story thus avoiding the compartmenta-
lisation of issues which constitute part of the current unresolved Cyprus problem.
History of the Cyprus Conict
The geostrategic location of Cyprus in the easternmost part of the Mediterranean
has made it vulnerable to outside conquests and interference, each leaving their
330 M. Hadjipavlou
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imprint on the local landscape. By far the most predominant character of the
island was determined in the second millennium BC with the arrival and
settlement of the Mycenaean/Achaeans from mainland Greece. They formed city-
kingdoms on the Minoan model and introduced the Greek language, religion and
culture. To this day the Greek Cypriots (GCs), especially the nationalists, refer to
this period to stress the Hellenic heritage and its continuity to the present.
Following this period the Greek Orthodox Church, together with Byzantine
culture, constituted another strong referent point for GCs. The Turkish Cypriot
(TC) nationalists stress that it was the three centuries of the Ottoman presence
(15711878) that determined the inter-ethnic character of the island. In the
pre-nationalist era there were several uprisings by the Christian and Moslem
population of Cyprus against the ruling elites which were made up of Ottoman
administrators, landlords and the higher Orthodox clergy (Hill, 1952;
Koumoulides, 1974; Hadjipavlou-Trigeorgis, 1987; Kizilyurek, 2002). These joint
social protests are often recalled, especially by the left in each community, to stress
the past co-existence and collaborative social fabric among Greeks and Turks of
Cyprus. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans marked a deep historical
trauma for the Greeks, as did the decline of the Ottoman Empire for the Turks.
Such historic events gave rise to diverse patriotic myths and legends that still
appear in school textbooks.
In 1824 the emergence of the Greek nation state and the trends of modernity
impacted upon the traditional society of Cyprus as well as on the traditional
co-existence of Muslims and Christians. Religious identities were ethnicised and a
split in the co-existence fabric was introduced in the form of exclusive identities of
Greeks and Turks accompanied by the past myth of historic enmity between
Greeks and Turks. Furthermore, the British took control of the island in 1878 and
in 1925 Cyprus became a British colony. Divides between Greeks and Turks
crystallised during the anti-colonial struggle in 195559 in the context of which
the Greeks of Cyprus fought the British for Enosis (union) with motherland
Greece and the Turks of Cyprus fought the British for Taksim, that is for union of
part of the island with motherland Turkey. Therefore, the 1950s was also a period
which gave rise to intense inter-ethnic mistrust, suspicion and fears. According to
Turkish Cypriot writers (Salih, 1968; Nedjatigil, 1977; Kizilyurek, 2002), the
Turkish Cypriot leadership expected that sooner or later the Greek ghters would
terrorise the TC community, and so by 1957 the Turkish Resistance Organisation
(TMT) was formed with the goal to counteract the Greek-based National
Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA). Separation existed not only between
communities but also within each community, between right and left factions,
destroying spaces for co-existence and cooperation. The British colonialists
politicised communal differences to serve their colonial interests in the Middle
East (Pollis, 1973, 1996), and furthermore reinforced the rise of two antagonistic
nationalisms and competing visions for Cyprus based on each groups primordial
attachments to their respective motherlands.
Cyprus had a political agreement imposed upon it. A compromise settlement
was put into effect by outside stakeholdersGreece, Turkey and Britain
excluding both partition and union and instead promoting independence, which
led to the creation of the Cyprus Republic in 1960. The top-down settlement
ignored local realities (Hadjipavlou-Trigeorgis, 1987) and thus the constitutional
arrangements, that were also divisive, left no room for integrative politics. Inter-
ethnic violence broke out in December 1963 and again in 1967 (Kyriakides, 1968).
Cypriot Womens Dialogue Across the Divide 331
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In 1963 this crisis resulted in the creation of the Green Line, a dividing line in the
capital of Nicosia to keep the two warring factions apart. TC enclaves were set up
in the major cities of the island where TCs moved for security reasons (Patrick,
1976; Attalides, 1979, Volkan, 1979). The year 1967 witnessed the rst concrete
move for the division and segregation of the two communities in the creation of a
Provisional Turkish Cypriot Administration. The TCs had withdrawn from the
government in 1963, which meant that the GCs exclusively ran the Cyprus
Republic. During these crises Turkey tried to intervene militarily but the
American administration prevented this for fear of an outbreak of a war between
her two NATO allies, Greece and Turkey.
The period between 1963 and 1974 was a time of unequal social and economic
development, a factor that drew the two communities further apart and a reality
that persists to this day. GCs experienced economic prosperity and modernisation,
whereas TCs especially in the enclaves entered a period of economic and cultural
dependency on Turkey. In July 1974 the Greek fascist junta launched a coup detat
to topple the Makarios government, accusing the GC leader of betraying the
Enosis ideal. This prompted military Turkish interventions, leading to the present
division of the island into two homogeneous spaces. A rearrangement of the
Green Line into the Attila Line (120 miles long) emerged.
A long series of inter-communal high-level negotiations have been conducted
on and off since 1975 under the auspices of the UN, but to this day no agreement
has been reached. All negotiations were conducted exclusively by male politicians
and gendered aspects of the divide have never been raised, even in the context of
the latest initiative led by the UN Secretary General in what became known as the
Annan Plan for a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus conict. This plan was
defeated in referenda on 24 April 2004, whereby 76% of GCs voted no to the Plan
and 67% of TCs voted yes. This marked a new turning-point in the recent history
of the conict pointing to the fact that the super ordinate goal (Sherif et al., 1961),
i.e. the accession of the island to the European Union, was not strong enough to
help both sides overcome past divisions and fears and imagine a shared future.
In the meantime, new generations have grown up in each community fostering
distorted information about the other and feelings of mistrust, stereotyping and
psychological distancing. Ritual commemorations, selective histories and
memories are reproduced and used as texts in our schools to dehumanise the
other and often to justify division (Bryant, 1998; Hadjipavlou, 2002). It is within
such a nationalist context that women and other social groups from both sides
have, for years, been challenging the master narratives and the enemy
construction processes. The partial opening of the Atila Line on 23 April 2003,
by the Turkish authorities, marked a historical opportunity for inter-ethnic
(re)rapprochement which now allows citizens from both communities to visit the
other side especially their homes and properties after 30 and 40 years of
separation. No violent incidents occurred; a public euphoria and a desire for
solution and reunication have been created. New personal stories evolved across
the Line. Prior to the opening, thousands of TCs, primarily women and youth,
were out in the streets promoting an end to partition and to ethnic divisions and
claiming this island is ours, meaning a fullment of the re-unication desire on
which the bi-communalist movement has been based.
Despite the cross-visits to and from the north to the south, the militaristic
environment and the enemy images are still visible in the barbed wires, the
military posts, the blue berets and the blue and green posters which read: Buffer
332 M. Hadjipavlou
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UN Zone; Beware Mine Fields; NO Entry; Occupied Zone; Dead Zone;
No PhotographsSecurity Zone. Flags of all kinds are seen together or apart: the
Greek ag, the ag of the Cyprus Republic, the red Turkish ag, the blue UN ag,
the TRNC ag and now the EU ag, all reminding us how strong national
symbols and nationalism abound on the island.
The Line No Permit to Cross: Occupied area
By 1960 the island population comprised 18% TCs and 80% GCs, with 2%
Armenians, Maronites and Latins. The population today totals approximately
750,000 living in the south and close to 200,000 in the north; they are divided by
the Line. The Line is about 120 miles long, stretching across the island separating
the north from the south (see Figure 1). According to ones positioning in politics,
ideology and history, this line is referred to as the green line, the ceasere line, the
dead zone, the demarcation line, the partitioning line, the Attila line, the no-mans
land, or the border. These different designations of the Line constitute part of the
collective historical and political experience in each Cypriot community. This Line
has acquired both a symbolic and a physical presence in daily life. The ideology of
rapprochement after 1974 invited citizens to challenge the Line and rediscover or
discover each other through dialogue and thus explore the diverse cartography of
historical and political experiences which the Line silences. The Line also features
in the artistic and literary productions in each community and has become a
theme for art exhibitions, poetry collections and dance manifestations.
Women often feel that their bodies have been colonised by the Line.
2
Cynthia
Cockburn, in her book The Line (2004), describes the performance of a GC dancer
walking the line in her effort to converse with the partition of Cyprus in multiple
levels and she writes:
What strikes me about this scene is that the dividing line seems to be
alive. The rope slithers and slides, now one thing, now another. This
helps me to see howa geo-political partition is not just armoured fencing,
it is also a line inside our heads, and in our hearts. In fact the physical
fence is a manifestation of these more cognitive and emotional lines that
Figure 1. Map of Cyprus.
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shape our thoughts and feelings . . . When we are afraid or angry at some
identiable moment, a line springs out and plants itself in the earth as a
barrier. It becomes The Line, and passage across it is controlled, by
uniformed men, at a Checkpoint.
These internal demarcation lines are indeed the most difcult to rearrange
because of the emotional and psychological baggage they carry. The new
generations under the inuence of their schooling and ofcial narratives have
formed an imaginary of the other and the inscription is often so sharp that
realities have been formed on assumptions that have never been tested. Once
these bipolar images become complex and blurred, as can happen during conict
resolution workshops, then the participants start confronting their own mental
maps. With the help of a facilitator they begin to rearrange the mapping. It is
usually a painful process but a necessary, liberating one if people want to move
beyond the conict culture which dichotomises experiences and uses hierarchies
to politically manipulate differences and undermine shared cultural experiences.
Feminist Strategies and Conict Resolution
One of the underlying principles of conict resolution is the acknowledgement
that power inequalities in all its manifestations, including socio-economic
asymmetries, constitute causes of conicts. The basic human needs (Burton, 1990)
perspective promotes the view that issues of identity, security, recognition, justice
and dignity need to be fullled in conict societies whereby no group would feel
another was dominating it. Divided societies often view conict as genderless and
leaderships (predominantly male) mobilise the polity to ascribe to the national
cause. Conict resolution and feminism converse to the extent that they share the
common goal of challenging dominant national discourses and promoting the
viewthat one of the Lines in conict societies comprises the gender order of things.
A gendered understanding and analysis of conict experience is, therefore,
necessary so as to gain new insights into the causes of conict and the kind of
conict resolution, new civic constitutional culture and social change that would
be desirable. Feminist and conict resolution perspectives promote the view that
the ways we construct ethno-national identities cannot change unless we also
change the way we construct gender identities. This includes changing all the
socialising institutions. Moreover, it is emphasised that the fears, needs, interests,
historical grievances and concerns of both sides must be accounted for and the
presence and contributions of men and women should be equally valued.
The consequences of armed conict on the lives of women and children has
been well documented by national and international organisations and academic
researchers (Enloe, 1989, 2000; Lentin, 1997). Ann Tickner wrote in 2001 about her
experiences of the war and bombing of Kosovo and how the media reports
portrayed NATO spokesmen with charts and maps brieng on bombings, targets
and the wonders of new high technology warfare:
Beyond the images of the men, we saw more chaotic images of refugees
many of them women and children being helped by aid workers, many
of them also women. All of them seemed overwhelmed by the task.
These are all gendered images: male heroes making sacrices for their
countries, women far from the centres of power, caring for the victims or
as victims themselves. (p. 39)
334 M. Hadjipavlou
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Moreover, Coomeraswamy (2001) reminds us, victimisation of women in ethnic
conicts takes many forms, their bodies are turned into platforms for revenge and
humiliation of the enemy:
. . . it is necessary to understand that rape, sexual violence and forced
pregnancy are directly related to the male dominated social systems and
values that govern those who are ghting. A communitys honour,
especially at times of conict, often rests on the bodies of women. To
dele that honour is to humiliate the whole community. Womens bodies
become the battleeld, the point of communication between men. . .
(Coomeraswamy, 2001, p. 11)
Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1989) maintain that womens involvement and
participation in the processes of war and national struggles can take the
following forms: biological reproducers of members of ethnic groups, and in
participating both in the ideological reproduction of the ethnic collectivity and
transmission of its culture. Thus, women are also engaged actively in the
reconstruction, reproduction and transformation of ethnic and national identity
and become participants in national, economic, political and military struggles.
Ethnic nationalisms reinforce the power and privileges of patriarchal institutions
(such as the family, church, schools, political parties, etc.) by constraining women
to demonstrate their loyalty to these institutions and by turning theminto symbols
of their national collectivities.
Cynthia Cockburn (1998) informs us from her research in many conicts that
the role of women during conict is primarily humanitarian (securing food,
shelter and health) as well as trying to heal themselves and others of psychological
traumas and wounds. Women put their traditional roles aside and become the
main breadwinners and heads of families. Young girls mature and become women
more quickly, and if mothers are killed they assume the mother role. Women also
build networks for solidarity with other women and form groups to protest
resumption of violence both in and outside the home.
While before and during the conict women are used as symbols and
reproducers, after warfare and violent conicts women are called upon to
reconstruct society. Many women in Bosnia, for instance, advocated the
establishment of peace institutions and centres to promote non-violence,
a gender equality agenda and womens rights (Andric-Ruzicic, 1997; Golan,
1997; McCann, 1997; Senjak, 1997). In many instances, however, as Harding (1986)
informs us, victimisation of women does not cease after warfare. Widows and
women heads of families are viewed as a threat to changing social traditions,
which bolster male supremacy and promote womens subordination.
Feminists, especially radical feminists, have promoted the conviction that there
is a relationship among all forms of structural violenceinterpersonal, domestic,
social, institutional and international. The issues of inclusion and exclusion are
highlighted by both feminists and conict resolution approaches. Imbalances in
power sharing in a male-dominated world where womens participation and
perspectives on important issues of war and peace are still very profound. The
dichotomy of space into private and public spheres still continues and global
statistics are a testament to this asymmetry. Patriarchy builds its own self-
preservation mechanisms, as Sylvester reminds us:
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As with most accepted ideologies and practices, once in place, patriarchy
is self sustaining: if a majority of politicians, priests, ministers, popes,
professors, chairs of corporate boards, physicians, job supervisors,
judges and peace makers are always men, then challenges to that groups
monopoly can actually seem unnatural, silly or even harmful to social
order . . . Patriarchy is a system in which there is constant, covert, low-
intensity, structural warfare against womenin war and in peace . . .
With the cessation of hostilities women have been abruptly dismissed
from the homefront jobs that pay, and sent back to their natural
nonpaying jobs in the private household. Both the shooting wars and
subsequent peace contain hidden wars of dominance over women.
(Sylvester, 1989, pp. 99100)
The under-representation of women in decision-making centres where issues of
war and peace are being decided was aptly brought up during the Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing, 1995 and is also mentioned in the Plan of Action
Document. The UN Security Council Resolution 1325 of 2000 reafrmed, among
other issues, the signicance of women in the process of prevention and resolution
of conicts and in peace-building. It also noted the need to consolidate data on the
impact of armed conict on women and girls and expressed its willingness to
incorporate a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations, urging the
Secretary General to ensure that, where appropriate, eld operations would
include a gender component.
In national governments and parliaments such as in the Scandinavian
countries, where there is a critical mass of women in the centres of decision-
making, it was observed that the priorities of those states were focused more on
issues of peace, abolition of all forms of violence and discrimination, promotion of
gender equality, quality education for all in contrast to the political and social
agendas of other countries in which women were absent or few in decision-
making bodies (Brock-Utne, 1985). Women, Brock-Utne (1985) has found in her
research, are socialised to support, on the whole, more equal distribution of
resources than men, reduction of military budgets, advocate dialogue and non-
violence as a means to solve differences and conicts. Another nding in Brock-
Utnes work relates to the structural and non-hierarchical changes promoted by
women and men who support positive peace (i.e. gender equality which means
access to equal opportunities and resources). In a state with high defence
expenditures and rigid patriarchal structures it is observed that women are at a
disadvantage to men in terms of employment opportunities, and are dismissed
from work more easily. This points further to the need for a feminist policy on
defence and security.
The work of Cypriot women I will discuss below connects to the above issues in
the sense that some womens groups in Cyprus have refused to conform to the
nationalist agenda of patriarchal institutions. They have decided to look at
womens condition through a gender lens and feminist ideology and values which
they perceive as being connected to the conict resolution principles of
cooperation, non-domination and creative synergy. These women tried to
transcend the Line in all its manifestations and create spaces for the articulation of
their experiences of the conict and of the Other. In addition, these women
opened a new space for a shared narrative to be created with possibilities for
reconciliation and renewed relationships.
336 M. Hadjipavlou
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Conict resolution puts citizens back into the process of political participation
and empowerment, as does feminism, in that citizens become agents for political
and social change. In other words, processes within and between societies can
create a political environment, which can inuence de-escalation of the conict
and contribute to its resolution. The pro-active view of national interests and the
feminist understanding of security concerns support the view that protracted
conict relationships are susceptible to a range of inuences fromboth ofcial and
unofcial sources (Kelman, 1993; Cockburn, 2004). Let us now look at Cypriot
womens experiences and efforts to reach across to the Other and jointly create a
feminist understanding of the conict culture within and across the divide.
Cypriot Womens Intervention and Feminist Practices
I have spoken and written in detail elsewhere about the conict resolution and
unofcial citizens work in Cyprus (Hadjipavlou-Trigeorgis, 1998; Hadjipavlou,
2002). Here I will mainly discuss Cypriot womens voices and efforts in securing a
gender understanding of the conict and peace-building. I refer to two specic
groups, the Bi-communal Womens Group (BWG) (199596) and Hands Across
the Divide (HAD) (2003present). The memory and collective experience of
conict events for the Cypriots across the divide differ in time and intensity. It is
important for each group to understand these different experiences relating to
ethnic nationalisms and to a patriarchal social system. However, the collective
attitude in each community still persists that it is only we who suffered and are
the victims. What happened to the other community was unintended; it was an
accident of war, each claims.
The BWG (199596) was composed of 22 women, 11 from each side, of different
ages, social, ideological and educational backgrounds. They came together at the
initiative of a third party, a Fulbright scholar, and two local women coordinators.
3
I was the coordinator in the south and Sevgul Uludag, a feminist journalist, was
the coordinator from the north. This was the rst attempt to introduce a gender
lens and feminist perspectives onto the Cyprus conict and to engage in dialogue
relating to our perceptions of the Other, and to choose jointly if and how to move
forward. The BWGparticipants were not all feminists; some were aware of gender
analysis, but others felt that the conict was genderless because everybody
suffered, so did the women. Some of the women had been to other bi-communal
conict resolution mixed groups while some met the Other for the rst time. The
group worked either separately or together twice a week for 9 months. When the
Turkish Cypriot women were given permission by the military to cross the Line to
the buffer zone the meetings were held at the Ledra Palace Hotel, which is under
the control of the UN peacekeeping contingent. A room was provided for the
group with rudimentary facilities. Over the years, for many of us the Ledra Palace
became the symbol for rapprochement and conict resolution work but for the
nationalists from both communities it was a place of suspects who mixed with
the enemy.
In Cyprus no independent womens movement or feminist womens groups
have been established. All existing womens organisations are afliated to
political parties and often adopt the party agenda which is based on a male
understanding of politics and the conict, excluding the gender issue as being not
important enough to be tackled. HAD constitutes the rst attempt to form an
independent womens non-governmental organisation (NGO). Together with
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other women, I was one of the co-founders. It was registered in 2001 in Britain due
to the political obstacle of (non)recognition. The feminist researcher Cynthia
Cockburn has helped the Cypriot women both in the formation of the group as
well as in securing funding from the British Council and Mama Cash.
4
Since the
embargo on crossings to and from the Line has been lifted, HAD members have
proposed the re-registration of their NGO in the Cyprus Republic so as to benet
from European Union funding privileges. This womens organisation aspires to
become the rst independent movement and aims to raise public consciousness
on the issues of gender equality and womens human rights, which it understands
to be as important as other national and political issues (Agathangelou, 2003).
The Work of the BWG
With the help of the three facilitators, the BMG worked rst on a leading question:
What contributes to pain and suffering in Cyprus through the eyes of women,
what needs to be done and how can it be done?. The group used the specic
method of interactive management (IM), which Dr Benjamin Broome, a Fulbright
scholar, introduced to different bi-communal citizens groups (Broome, 1998,
2000). It is a computer-supported decision-making method. The group progressed
through three stages of planning and design which included: (a) analysis of the
current situation, (b) goal setting/vision for the future and (c) development of a
collaborative action agenda. Some basic assumptions guided us in our rst
workshop as, for example, the following: (a) ethnic communities are
heterogeneous and contain many voices, including womens voices; (b) every
woman speaks as an individual rather than as a representative of her community,
party or business; (c) debate about political positions is best left to the politicians;
(d) the opportunity to engage in bi-communal dialogue is a privilege; and (e) we
are not here to solve the Cyprus problem but create conditions for the solution.
The BWG was not able to meet as a whole for the rst part of the workshop
because no permission was given for the TC women to cross to the Ledra Palace
Hotel in the buffer zone. The TC women often experienced this arbitrary decision
of the military authorities as both a violation of their right to meet the other, based
on the patriarchal assumption that the state, or male authority, can decide for its
citizens without giving any explanation, simply because it has claimed the power
to do so (Freire, 1970). The frustration and powerlessness felt by the whole group
was immense. The BWG chose, however, to continue the workshop mono-
communally at rst and when permissions were granted they worked jointly.
The BWGs voices on the lead question reected the complex and multilayered
fabric of the conict and we noted how our gendered identities intersect with
class, ethnicity, sexuality and rural/urban modalities. This realisation was in
opposition to the GC ofcial view, which assumed that because of past
co-existence, as soon as the Turkish army withdraws the people in both
communities will have no problem coming together as they did in the past. The
obstacle is not only the presence of the Turkish army but, as we realised from
many inter-ethnic citizens contacts and conict resolution training workshops, a
great deal of systematic work is needed to overcome past fears, hatred, suspicions,
mistrust and decades-old alienation before we can claim any level of future
cooperation and co-existence.
The IM method allowed each participant to generate as many ideas as she had
in answering the lead question. The 11 TC women produced 82 factors/causes
338 M. Hadjipavlou
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that have contributed to pain and suffering and the 11 GCs produced 72. These
responses can be mapped into four broad categories which reect the many layers
of the conict: (a) (social) psychological; (b) structural; (c) historical and political;
and (d) philosophical. These factors were, sometimes, specic to GC women or to
TC women, and were sometimes shared.
Once an idea was presented the group engaged in discussion about that specic
factor as it was dened and meant by the author of the idea, the purpose being to
form a shared understanding and where possible reach a consensus. For instance,
in a general discussion the majority of the GC and TC women connected the idea
of women and peace with the biological functions of childbearing and
motherhood and thus concluded that women are by nature more peace-loving
than men. Thus the debate over nature or nurture arose. This assumption became
complicated when some other women in the group challenged this view, and
sought an explanation as to why some men love peace and some women
supported and participated in war activities. The feminists in the group brought
up the role of gender socialisation and social expectations and gender stereotypes
explaining that women in a patriarchal society at times of conict are turned into
objects and promoters of the national cause and values, as articulated by the
male-dominated system.
Previous research ndings among GC women only, and more recently among
women in all Cypriot communities which I coordinated (Hadjipavlou, 2004),
conrm this discussion in that many Cypriot women were unclear with regard to
the concepts of patriarchy, feminisms (still feminism carries negative connotations
in Cypriot society) and anti-militarism and connected peace with women only in
an essentalising way. Discussions and debates on these concepts and issues are
still absent from both the school curriculum and the civil society. Due to this lack
of gender consciousness and knowledge about feminisms as well as alternative
views about how femininity and masculinity are constructed and exploited by
ethnic nationalisms and conict cultures, a number of contradictions arose among
the members of the BWG: on one hand, all the women in the BWG described the
social organisation of their societies as patriarchal and hierarchical, but on the
other hand, many (apart from four women) said they were not feminists and that
the conict affected everybody irrespective of gender. At rst some did not
question their role as mothers offering their sons to ght for the liberation of their
homeland as a gender issue. It did not occur to them that they can challenge and
resist such practices and expectationsso deeply had they internalised their
national duty role (Anthias & Yuval-Davies, 1989). The discussion on the rest of
the issues became more gender-focused and for many this constituted a new
revelation of a different worldview about gender and peace. What we learned
fromthis initial discussion was that Cypriot women who were exposed to feminist
theories and gender analyses of social phenomena in their formal education were
able to inform and share with the rest of the BWG alternative viewpoints to the
internalised prevalent male view. The feminist women of the Group sensitised the
others to the fact that men were deciding both the national and international
agendas on Cyprus and that women adopted these agendas as if they were their
own. Many admitted that as women we are not trained in Cyprus to challenge
authority.
After this initial introduction to a gendered understanding of the Cyprus
conict the BWG was invited to imagine a new construction of the self and a
collectivity of the we, which would not be based on the traditional conceptions
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of masculinity, femininity or gender constructions. Many women of the group
using this new perspective probed into their own experiences and located
knowledges outside the dominant hegemonic history as told by governing elites
in their communities. The gender lens perspective, a new tool for many, helped
them to articulate alternative interpretations of the conict and become the agents
of their own reality, recognising that their personal experience did matter. This
mental shift was not easy to maintain without being reminded constantly of the
process and the new concepts.
I now turn to the conditions which the BWG articulated as factors that
contributed to their suffering and pain on the island. I refer rst to the social,
psychological and philosophical factors, because these are usually the least to be
noted and addressed in a divided society where power politics is the normand the
us and them dichotomy creates sharp boundaries.
Fear of Domination and Free ExpressionWho is the Other?
The social psychological factors relating to the construction of otherness, to the
shaping of individual and collective national identities, to perceptions and belief
systems and to victimhood and stereotyping are factors that not only hinder the
resolution of the conict but also can help us understand the deep-rootedness of
the conict and the exclusion of some groups such as women from the peace
process. One of the issues that all the TC women expressed strongly was their fear
of being dominated by the GC majority and by Turkey, we feel like a sandwich
between the two some said. This metaphor was indeed very powerful. They
related personal stories of how they experienced the GCs, and what it felt like
living for a decade (196374) under constant fear and exclusion from the
privileges that the international recognition of the Cyprus Republic provided for
only GCs until today. This reects not only the arrogance of the dominant group,
the failure of the Republic and nationalist ideologies, but also majority/minority
dynamics whereby often the dominant group not only claims to knowwhat is best
for the dominated, but often speaks on their behalf. As a result, some of the GC
women were deeply touched and others felt some sense of guilt for what their
community did and still does. The TC women also criticised the Turkish military
presence in the North and the impact this has on their individual and collective
freedoms.
Some TCwomen also felt fear of expressing our true feelings contrary to ofcial
narratives because we would be ostracised. Thus a form of self-censorship was
imposed. Cypriot women (as do some men) tended to resort to silence, because
those who spoke their mind were labelled traitors or unpatriotic. The TC
women spoke about feeling disappointed at the lack of solidarity with, and the
indifference shown, by the GC community at their tragedy as experienced in the
196374 period when they felt like second-class citizens. The GC women
responded by saying that they also feared Turkeys domination, military presence
and expansionist intentions in Cyprus. Both groups realised through facilitation
that the master narratives drewlines between them in an effort to essentialise the
Other, which led to mutual victimhood.
For the TCs the Other in the pre-1974 period was the GCs, whereas for the GCs
in the post 1974 period it was Turkey (making the TCs invisible). Some women
expressed their difculty in reconsidering established beliefs about the Other
and they explained this as being due to their attachment to ideas and belief
340 M. Hadjipavlou
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systems as being unchanged. Both groups admitted fear of opening up to the
Other which we do not know. The tendency to homogenise the Other in conict
situations emerged in these womens discussion. It was apparent that each ethnic
group had different grievances but shared the common desire for acknowl-
edgment of their pain.
The BWG discovered that the gendered view of history as developed by each
ofcial side left outside their consciousness the existence of the Others story,
which is why the need for otherness became an issue as well as the inclusion
exclusion dynamics. Each group tried to inform the other and understand why
each side silenced the reality of the Other. The TCs tried to make the GCs aware of
some of the severe problems and violence they had been subjected to in the 1960s,
and the GCs tried to make the TCs aware of their tragic condition in 1974. They
acknowledged that the ofcial male-dominated narratives silenced their own
communitys contribution in causing their own sides tragedy. As their dialogue
developed and they shared pain and historical grievances, concepts such as
apology, forgiveness and relational empathy were discussed as necessary
reconciliation tools. Both the process used and gradual trust-building released
energy and safe space to engage in exploring their multiple identities. This led the
GC women to be frank and to admit to the prevalence of a Greek superiority
complex and cultural arrogance, saying we, the Greeks have difculty to accept
other cultures. And since we are the majority we believe Cyprus belongs to us.
Statements such as these helped some TCs admit that we, as a minority play up
our victimhood role and we expect others to take notice of us. This clarity in the
group helped them move to the next, more creative phase of the workshop.
Both ethnic groups pointed out the privilege of being together and the new
possibilities these contacts created vis-a`-vis the unnaturalness in being forced to
live in one part of the island and keep fantasising about the other. This they
connected to the fact that Cyprus is an island and it is difcult to escape from it in
a psychological sense. Thus we are inter-dependent. But this ethnic division and
the Line was often experienced in a physical sense, as one TC woman vividly
expressed it:
When I am with you, Greeks, I nd my other half, which is missing.
At the end of a workshop when I leave the Ledra Palace and each of us
crosses the check point to go to our homes in opposing sides I feel at that
moment something really physical, a split within my body. The
geographical proximity becomes irrelevant compared to the forces of
militarism and foreign occupations as this denes my relationship to
you, the other.
The BWGstruggled in these discussions to locate its inner voice and strengths to
move beyond the practices of silencing, and public hegemonic histories and
instead create alternative feminist strategies such as empathy, apology and desire
for reconciliation.
Identity and Structural Conditions
The issue of identity in the Cyprus conict has, for each side, been signicant and
contested. Is the island Greek, or Turkish, or Cypriot, or European? Many men
died ghting for the Greekness or Turkishness of the island but none for the
Cypriotness. The imposed constitution in 1960 did not leave space for Cypriotness
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and integrative institutions to develop; instead the majority/minority model
permeated every aspect of life creating mistrust and separation. In the post-1974
period many citizens groups started exploring the local cartography of struggles
and framed shared inter-ethnic desires and a vision of Cypriotness. The BWG
challenged the national dichotomy imposed on collective identities. My research
in 20023 on this issue has shown that despite the ofcial propaganda on the
reproduction and preservation of Greekness and or Turkishness, an over-
whelming majority in all communities denes their collective identity as Cypriot.
The majority of these were women who, connected with the land and the
community in a direct and concrete fashion, differed from the majority of men
who were exposed to the military and national discourses, as they have to carry
out their military service for more than 2 years (Hadjipavlou, 2004). The BWG
expressed their concern about the future in a divided and highly militaristic island
where biased education and biased history leave no say to women to determine
our future.
Since the late 1970s, due to the inux of Turks from Anatolia, the TC women
feared losing the Cypriot part of their identity because they considered the
settlers to be less educated, less cultured and more religious. Thus TCs created
another Other who, although from the same ethnic background, was viewed as
different and as not belonging to Cyprus. In a sense they behaved towards and
treated the Other Turks as they themselves were treated by the GCs in the past.
The GC women viewed the settlers as a problem, too, but from a different
perspective. The settlers were given GC refugees homes and properties, which
were illegally occupied by the Turkish military thus the settlers issue emerged
as a shared concern, but for different reasons. This issue then opened up a
discussion on racism, the power of the military and how this fed the assumed
power of the TC leadership, which encouraged the mainland Turks to come to
the north to be used as a voting instrument so that the establishment remained in
power and weakened the opposition.
The GCwomen in the workshop felt that the overemphasis on the Greek part of
their identity led to the exclusion of other aspects of their identities. Thus, for the
purpose of national unity the political male actors dened in an exclusive way
what constitutes the imagined community as well as the nationalist project.
Women were included in this as long as they served the national agenda of each
side, which included primary responsibility for reproduction and cultural
transmission of their respective communities. Some women in the BWG called
this patriotism and love of ones country, while others called this a gendered
nationalist project, which they connected to the need to have enemies as this
helps each ofcial side to refrain from taking its own share of responsibility in the
creation of the conict. They also critically linked love for our country to the view
that men are socialised to be the protectors and liberators of their nation, while
women are there to reproduce the nation and transmit to their children the
national ideology.
TC and GC women viewed the patriarchal structure of social organisation, the
absence of women from decision-making bodies and the peace processes as large
obstacles to the functioning of true, representative and participatory democracy in
Cyprus. They spoke about . . . insufcient levels of democracy in both
communities and the predominance of the national problem hindering womens
separate space to articulate womens issues. In other words, democracy in
divided societies is contingent upon the ethnic nationalist agenda, setting the
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criteria of what not to say or reveal to the enemy, thus imposing covert
censorship. Both GC and TC women also agreed that the lack of structures to get
to know each others culture, ways of living, and education reinforced the
communication embargo and the restrictive movement of ideas as additional
factors to serve adversarial politics.
Both education systems, according to the BWG, are structured to support the
patriarchal mentality and socialisation of youth in the conict; the national history
oneachside emphasises the atrocities committedbythe other against them. The GC
women in the group noted the prevalence of religious and social prejudices against
inter-marriages as these were, until recently, included in the Cyprus constitution.
5
Another mutual concern was voiced regarding the gendered division of space
into private and public. In both communities the BWG agreed women are absent
from key policy-making centres of power so they are not allowed to voice their
concerns and views unless they behave like men or do as men say. Thus the
politics of space builds a certain type of masculinity and femininity whereby
Cypriot men are viewed as pragmatic, tough, assertive and emotionally strong
and thus t for public life whereas women are viewed as emotional, home carers
and willing to give in, or in paying attention to the wrong things, thus t only for
the private sphere. Many women in the group also spoke about the increase in
structural and domestic violence and felt such issues had been social taboos a few
years back, in that they were not talked about publicly as were other issues
relating to reproductive rights, abortion and contraceptives. They supported the
view that if more women were present in decision-making centres and in public
life they would support the establishment of appropriate services to address the
thesis that the personal is political, and so their experience of domestic violence
would be addressed as a public, political issue. The lack of such sensitisation
and services they again related to the perpetuation of the conict which has
marginalised womens social issues.
Historical/Political Obstacles
The role of third parties and outside interferences were instrumental in shaping
the relationships within and between the two communities and politics in general.
Hence the BWG had no difculty identifying this factor. They went further,
however, than the national narrative, which attributes blame only to the outside
interference factor. They looked at the domestic factor as well pointing out the
role of the extremists and nationalists in each community, the role of leadership
and how the need for domination of the TCs by the GCs led to the creation of the
Green Line. This analysis challenged the dichotomy of us and them and
introduced a conict resolution discourse that allowed perspective taking as well
as getting away from the blame the other model. An acknowledgement of the
struggle [about] who is going to own and rule the island led to the discussion
about domination, nationalism and inequality in power and economic
development between the communities. The GC women pointed out that the
Greek words for fanaticism and nationalism are masculine whereas peace, love
and equality are feminine in an effort to elicit the male dominated culture of
exclusion and violence in their community. The BWG believed that due to the lack
of internal cohesion and inter-communal solidarity the Cypriots failed to prevent
harmful interference from outside powers thus we need to take our own
responsibility.
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In conict resolution workshops the issue of trust both inside the room and
outside was signicant in helping participants move beyond confrontational,
gendered politics. The BWG identied the loss of trust for decades in each other
and the development of incompatible goals and expectations as causes of
alienation. The desire for building alliances across ethnic divides was expressed as
not yet an easy task to accomplish across civil society.
We also noted some intra-group differences as these emerged from time to time
in the way some women projected their level of thinking and identity vis-a`-vis the
other. For instance, some of the GCs who had university education were more
reective at times on issues of self-criticism, vulnerabilities and abstractions: We
have deep fears in accepting the others truth and we are unaware of ones own
identity as human beings. There is unawareness of who I am . . .. This level of
abstraction or transcendence was too much for some TC women, who were
struggling with basic, concrete needs such as employment, safety and visibility
andthey didchallenge these GCwomen. This was not surprising in viewof the fact
that these GCwomen belonged to the dominant and more privileged ethnic group
which, because of international recognition of the Republic of Cyprus, have to a
large extent resolved their basic needs for economic survival (low unemployment
rate andfour times higher per capita income than that of the TCs) andthey can thus
afford to move to higher level needs and reection. This discussion revealed not
only the ethnic difference but also class issues, and reminded the privileged group
to be more aware and sensitive to other identity differences.
A serious concern was voiced regarding the emphasis both communities put on
their differences, we always emphasise differences and not enough attention to
similarities and avoid mention of our shared positive past. Each group
understands the past differently. The TCs sought acknowledgement by the
dominant group of their past grievances and violences inicted on them, which
still remain unaddressed, whereas the GC women wanted to forget that past and
move on. The past, these women believed, became a tool for male politicians and
nationalists in each community to promote their politically incompatible positions
onto the solution of the conict and to justify the Line. The GCwomen were openly
critical of how the Republic of Cyprus uses military institutions to promote their
conception of security and defence and in a covert way intimidating citizens from
being critical about the high defence budget and militarisation. For these women
security meant building trust and cooperation at both ofcial and unofcial levels
and also economic wellbeing. They referred to human security needs.
In general the BWG were able, over time, to form a new community with a deep
awareness of the impact of patriarchy and of the conict on their personal and
collective lives. They promoted the practice of conict resolution workshops, of
dialogue, of direct personal contacts, use of their personal stories to construct new
knowledges and the ideology of rapprochement. They supported the need for a
gender understanding of the conict, history and power as tools and practices to
help bring about a culture for a solution in which womens presence and voices
will be accounted for.
I believe the BWG laid the foundation for the creation of HAD because some
members of this organisation were participants in the BWG until 1997 when, due
to political obstacles and the military practice of no permissions, the group was
prevented from meeting thereafter. This demonstrates how the work of women
in divided societies becomes contingent upon politicians arbitrariness who have
inscribed the Line on the Cypriot landscape in the rst instance.
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HAD
In discussing the role of HAD I use data from a meeting/symposium held in 2003,
at which I was a participant and note-taker. The meeting took place in a restaurant
across the dividing Line in the Turkish Quarter of the walled city of Nicosia
(in Cyprus we combine work with food and drink. It is a usual practice in our
conducting a symposium!). Eighteen members attended: nine TCs and nine GCs
of different ages and class backgrounds. At the time of our symposium, at the
ofcial political context the Annan Plan had been submitted to the leadership of
both communities. These women had read parts of the Plan and public discussion,
especially in the TC community, was quite extensive.
The underlying shared worldview of HAD is we all believe in the values of
democracy, which for many of us means an open market of ideas and freedom of
speech, gender equality and equal access to resources and opportunities and we
all aspire to live in a united country. Moreover,
We have come together to form a unitary organization, disregarding, as
far as possible, differences of ethnic or national identity, and even
geographical location . . . We know that to cooperate effectively we must
take account of the inequalities between us and inevitable differences in
the needs we prioritise, deriving from our different past experiences and
different realities today. (www.handsacrossthedivide.org)
The question that the group worked on at the symposium was: why do I as a
woman want a solution?. The facilitative process, which Cynthia Cockburn led,
was as follows: women worked in pairs brainstorming on the leading question.
Then each had to choose one main reason for wanting a solution. All the
answers were recorded on ipcharts and became working material for the
second phase of the workshop the following week. Here are some examples,
which indicate the multilayered aspect of the conict, as well as womens desires
for change:
A future, thats what I want. I want all the things that are suppressed
now, to be liberated, including gender. I want to feel free to plan ahead,
and move on . . . I want to live in a house that I know is my own . . . I want
the barbed wire and barrels, and sand bags out of my garden . . . I want a
solution so as to have normalisation of space and unblocking of energies.
(HAD meeting, 2003)
The women of HAD further voiced concerns and needs from a feminist
understanding of the solution and located their personal desires as being
political unlike the way as it is often projected in mainstream male politics
which deal with the solution in a legalistic and exclusionary way, not close to
the reality of most of the polity. The women did not simply want an agreement
on paper. They longed for a change in mentality, a new thinking and a
constructive way of looking at the future, including through a gender lens.
They proposed explicitly: We want particular attention to be given to the
practical implementation of legislative provisions on gender, so that equality
does not remain a mere principle, but it is achieved in practice . . . all new
policies should be screened and evaluated for their gender implications before
they are introduced . . . and their gender effects should be monitored during
implementation.
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HAD members also felt strongly about the Cypriot part of their identity, as did
the BWG, but they also went beyond the ethnic part (GC or TC) to demand
opportunities to develop as women and as citizens.
As women [we] also want respect fromeach other in a society that will be
fully democratic. We want an electoral system that guarantees women
numerical parity with men in parliament and on all decision-making
bodies.
I want a solution urgently because I want my identity. . . my Cypriot
identity. I want to gain my identity rid of the oppression I feel now.
Women could change a lot in society if there were opportunities for
women to develop. I want to be sure of having equal rights as a woman
and as a person.
From the expressed desires of these women it is obvious that a solution to the
political problem is not only urgent but that it will also open up spaces for
womens development and participatory democracy. Women of HAD struggle
with their desire to broaden the implications of what a Cyprus solution entails
which to them means opportunities to be part of the solution.
Security for the women of HAD was dened beyond armies and weapons.
It meant human relationships, doing away with dividing lines in order for new
arrangements to be put in place without checkpoints and passports or identity
cards to cross to and from. More than the GC members, the TC members were
concerned with their childrens future and wanting the settlers to leave as well as
have the ability to present ourselves to the outside world as one country. For the
GC, women the freedom of movement on the whole of the island was more
important and the need for security and respect. I want a land without borders, a
single country with respect, gender equality and security. For the TCs the
prospect of Cyprus joining the European Union created a hope, because EU laws
may help us solve some of the problems of inequality we face in a patriarchal
society and offer us opportunities to work elsewhere as equals. Peace for the
women of HAD meant demilitarisation and not only the withdrawal of foreign
troops, but a change in the mindset about the Other: I want to start thinking
positive, new thoughts about the Other. Most of the desires of these women were
future-orientated and longed for a peaceful environment, a culture of peace. The
nationalist propaganda was bankrupt, they believed. Above all, we want a
solution in order to give us a future, to unlock our energies so that we can all
contribute to change as a society. I believe men are suffering too, they are victims
of the patriarchal system as well.
The women of HAD were much more aware of their role as social agents than
were the members of BWG, which shows a further development in gender
awareness work. They had very concrete ideas as to what the content of the
solution of the Cyprus conict should be like and wanted new structures and
institutions to address, among other issues, gender inequality and violence
against women: As women we wish to see the post of a gender ombudsperson
created, an ofce to which individuals suffering from discrimination on grounds
of gender, marital status, etc.[,] may appeal for redress. The idea for the
establishment of a Ministry of Equality was put forward.
These Cypriot womens desires, as expressed here, shed light on what is lacking
in the politics of the country as a whole and how the national issue, as dened
346 M. Hadjipavlou
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by a patriarchal elite, has completely ignored these multiple inter-subjective
realities of womens perspectives and needs. It is a clear example of the gendered
nature of peace and conicta dimension that is not included in the political or
formal peace agendas. Women in Cyprus are still absent from the peace
negotiations. This is in contravention to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325,
which has been signed by Cyprus, calling upon states to include women at the
peace table so that their perspectives, experiences and concerns are legitimated
and included in a future solution. The Cypriot women in this organisation noted
some of the omissions of democracy, such as limitations on womens human
rights, continuation of gender inequalities and the invisibility of womens
agendas and needs. The above desires also reveal the multiple levels of reality
women experience and the efforts needed to employ feminist understandings and
gender perspectives that take into account the realities of both men and women.
Thus the inclusion of women of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds living
in the same space of Cyprus could further help to build alliances and cross-section
coalitions to affect a peace agreement.
Conclusion
From the Cypriot womens experiences as I have presented them in the BWG and
HAD, we note that to employ a feminist and gender perspective in the analysis of
the conict is supported by the use of conict resolution processes, methods and
tools. The use of both levels of analysis in the context of Cypriot women and their
experience of the Line across the Divide has encouraged both organisations to
produce in a safe and open environment their concerns, needs, grievances,
contradictions and desires for the future. Furthermore, the feminist strategies and
conict resolution processes have revealed these womens differences, both intra-
and inter-communally, with regard to freedom of expression, identity issues,
structural conditions, social psychological and political obstacles as these emerge
in a divided, patriarchal and militaristic environment. The fact that certain women
in the groups were themselves feminists and had been exposed in their formal
education to Womens Studies helpedthe others appreciate alternative worldviews
about nationalist constructions of identity, as well as gender constructions, and to
challenge the role of patriarchy and nationalisms in dening the levels of
development for menandwomeninconict societies. Thus Cyprus is still suffering
not only from a patriarchal order of things but also from nationalism and
militarism. Militarised masculinity is not the only form of masculinity and these
women hoped that with a solution and a new peace structure, other forms of
manhood for men and boys would be constructed. Values shared among feminists
and conict resolvers, such as tolerance, understanding, apology, cooperation,
empathy, acknowledgingthe others painandrealitybecame part of these womens
peace-building efforts. High on their agenda, they placed the need for gender for
equality and fullment of basic human rights. The culture these women promoted
was focusedmore on needs than on political positions or static, legalistic principles
that characterise the realist power-politics view of solving political conicts.
Aview that all women shared was the recognition that the Cyprus conict has,
for over 30 years, dominated the public discourse and the lives of all its citizens.
In effect this undermined the signicance of social issues, including womens
issues. In conict cultures there is a tendency to homogenise communities, failing
to acknowledge their complexity, andthus prolonging misperceptions, stereotypes
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and misunderstandings between and among conicting parties (Hadjipavlou,
2003). In this article I have tried to show the heterogeneity and multiple voices of
women within and across communities. In Cyprus, we still lack extensive research
to understand womens realities and what women really want and need. This
micro-level research will be useful to both women and policy makers as well as to
third parties involved in peace negotiations. These womens experiences and
voices could produce new and signicant knowledges and information which
should be taken into account in a future Cyprus. This will build further bridges
and strengthen democratic principles, such as gender equality and the need for
otherness which in the context of Cyprus means inclusion of all other Others and
no need for permissions to cross to and from to met the Other.
My personal journey as a Greek Cypriot to peace-building and the choices I have
made has convinced me that there is no other way to question simplistic,
monolithic, patriarchal understandings of national interest and national
security other than experiencing the Other, the perceived enemy and realising
that the enemy has been socialised in the same way as myself. We were both
projects of ethnic nationalisms. I also learnt that a different education in feminism,
gender studies and conict resolution can help us question and overcome socially
constructed enemy images and gender stereotypes. We can even use this reective
learning to enhance our own insights into the victimperpetrator mentality and
acknowledge that the perpetrator is as much a victimas is the victima perpetrator.
The Cypriot womens daily psychological and political suffocation within the
parameters of multiple Lines until today is a testament to the continuing power of
militarism and ethnic nationalisms, despite the fact that the Republic of Cyprus
has become a member of the European Union. These conditions need to change
urgently, as the Cypriot women in the BWG and HAD have shown us. There is a
willingness and ability to make it happen. As Sharoni (1995) has reminded us,
every time a woman explains how her government is trying to control her fears,
her hopes and her labour such a theory is made (p. 89); that is, a feminist theory
on international conict and international relations. More micro-level studies on
gender and conict are needed in order to understand better the relationship and
multiple experiences of the men and women in the construction of a peace culture
where the dichotomy of self and Other, subject and object, can be eliminated.
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to the four anonymous reviewers for their
very constructive suggestions and support as well as to Linda Peake, managing
editor of GPC for her encouragement and suggestions and to Leeann Townsend,
the editorial assistant for helping with corrections to the text. Also many thanks to
my colleagues at the University of Cyprus, Maria Margaroni and Fabienne Baider,
for their initial support in reading the rst draft of this paper which I presented at
the international conference on The Languages of Gender held at the university
of Cyprus, 2003. I bear full responsibility for the nal text.
Notes
1. By masculinist policies I mean an androcentric understanding of the conict which is divisive into
us and them and one of whose many tasks is that of the construction of the enemy that leads to the
perpetuation of the conict.
348 M. Hadjipavlou
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2. I remember, after an inter-ethnic encounter in the buffer zone, that the moment of separation was
experienced by many of us as a form of violence on our bodies and we felt stiff and de-energised at
the realisation of how real this Line was and still is, affecting us not only psychologically but in a
physical sense too.
3. The language used in many bi-communal workshops and encounters was and still is English. Since
2003 many started learning each others language
4. Many more details about HAD can be found in Cockburns newly published book The Line, 2004.
5. Due to the accession of Cyprus to the European Union, such anachronistic and undemocratic
provisions became obsolete after 1 May 2004.
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ABSTRACT TRANSLATION
No Permiso para cruzar: Dialogo de mujeres Chipriotas a
traves de la linea
Resumen Mucha de la atencio n erudito han jado en el estudio del aspecto de
genero de los conictos etno-nacional para entender las experiencias de mujeres y
hombres en una situacio n de conicto y hasta que punto determinan estas
experiencias los diferentes clases de intervenciones para hacer y construir la paz.
Son las experiencias de mujeres diferentes que las de hombres? Tienen mujeres
una voz diferente que los discursos dominantes que producido por el sistema
patriarcal? En sociedades en conicto, responden mujeres diferente que hombres
al militarismo y la violacion de derechos humanos? Son las necesidades de
mujeres para identidad y paz diferente dependiendo en sus grupos etno-
religiosas? Son diferentes sus necesidades que las de hombres? E
ste art culo

intenta de responder a dichas preguntas enfocando las interpretaciones feministas
del conicto in Cipres. La conexio n principal que propone este art culo es que
genero es un elemento importante para tomar en cuenta cuando el proceso de paz
350 M. Hadjipavlou
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se realiza en sociedades en conicto. Haciendo uso de un analisis de data que
viene de talleres con mujeres de diferentes grupos etnicos los que participo el
autor como participante observadora y facilitadora. El analisis muestra que las
voces y experiencias de mujeres chipriotas griegas y turcas son diversas y
mu ltiples. Hombres y mujeres son socializados in el mismo paradigmas
nacionalistas, lo que pueda explicar como en las etapas iniciales del proceso de
dialogo los dos grupos de mujeres tendieron a reproducir discursos ociales. Sus
experiencias propias y voces diferenciados empiezan solo despues de una
comprension de genero y el conicto se introduc an y se institu an conanza y la
capacidad de resolucio n de conictos. Llamando la atencio n al cambio gradual de
perspectivas en el contexto de talleres inter-etnicos, el art culo concluye
argumentando que el dialogo de mujeres puede desaar la omnipotencia del
estado y puede abrir espacio nuevo en lo que perspectivas diversas y conanza
mutual pueden surgir.
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Breached Bodies and Home Invasions: Horric
representations of the feminized body and home
MARCIA ENGLAND
Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, KY, USA
Abstract This article addresses abject representations of the feminized body and home.
Abjection plays a key role in the creation of ambiguity and unease, encompassing the
paradoxes of transgression, which is key to the critical examination of social relations and
constructions. I conduct an investigation of portrayals of abject spaces in two sites, the
body and the home, which are analyzed through three lms: I Walked with a Zombie
(1943), Evil Dead II (1987) and The Others (2001). In my analysis, I show how these
lms repeatedly portray feminized bodies and homes that, when transgressive, are seen as
abject until order is re-established at the conclusion of the lm. In these horror texts,
boundaries dissolve and create potentially progressive moments which can disturb
gendered norms and binaries, but ultimately, the boundaries are reied and re-normed,
reinscribing patriarchal gender codings of space.
Introduction
The relationshipbetween feminismandhorror lms is oftena complicatedone that
is embroiled in paradox. As a feminist and horror lm lover, I frequently nd
myself in a contradictory position. Often, horror lms can be read in two ways: one
way that upholds patriarchal binaries, and another way that shows the
emancipatory possibilities of transgressing those dualisms. This article investi-
gates three horror lms, Alejandro Amenabars The Others (2001), SamRaimis Evil
Dead II (1987) and Jacques Tourneurs I Walked with a Zombie (1943), that exemplify
this ambivalent association.
1
Using the particularly gender-coded geographical
sites of the body and the home, I will highlight the paradoxical relationship
betweenfeminismandhorror, arguing that while the potential for progression may
exist, ultimately these lms strengthenthrough the mobilization of discourses of
abjectionrather than undermine patriarchal gender codings of space.
Horror texts have long beencriticizedfor their objectication of women andtheir
misogynistic overtones. Many feminists have taken issue with the sexually
embedded violent nature of many horror lms (e.g. virginity is a life-saving
characteristic, whereas any formof sexual activity is a virtual deathsentence) or the
almost pornographic feel of many slasher lms, where sexual repression is acted
out on women through the mutilation of their bodies. While these arguments most
Correspondence: Marcia England, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, 1457
Patterson Ofce Tower, Lexington, KY, USA. E-mail: England@uky.edu
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 353363, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808452
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denitely have merit, a number of feminist media scholars who work on horror
lms argue that horror lms help to destabilize gender roles (Schoell, 1985; Clover,
1993; Sobchack, 1996; Pinedo, 1997). Theyargue that constructions of femininity are
reworkedthroughthe depiction of a female protagonist, or what Clover (1992) calls
the Final Girl. The Final Girl takes action anddefeats the killer/monster at the end
of the lm. She is the heroine of the lm, not the victim. Schoell (1985) states, Scenes
in which women whimper helplessly and do nothing to defend themselves are
ridiculed by the audience, who nd it hard to believe that anyonemale or
femalewould simply allow someone to kill them with nary a protest (quoted in
Clover, 1994, p. 36). Yet often it is the Final Girl who restores the patriarchal binaries
to regain order at the conclusion of the lm.
By defeating the killer, the Final Girl returns society back to its patriarchal state,
often unchanged by the destabilization of binaries that occurred within the lm.
According to Wood and Lippe (1979), the repression of ideologies that run
contrary to the patriarchal family institution is central to horror lms. As Wood
states, the true subject of the horror genre is the struggle for recognition of all that
our civilization represses or oppresses (quoted in Grant, 1996, p. 2). While
ultimately those conventions are restored once the killer/monster is defeated,
Berenstein (1996) notes that gender conventions can be disturbed due to the
presence or interference of the monster, stating:
It is as if the ends toying with . . . elements that usually remain separate,
such as male and female gender traits, force or invite human characters
to cross boundaries as well . . . it is also a generic space in which human
characters, male and female, behave monstrously and transgress the
social rules and roles that usually conne them. (p. 5)
My methodological approach to these three lms is to discuss them as lm texts
rather than as genre pieces, although they do t many characteristics of both the
classic and postmodern horror genres.
2
This approach provides for exibility
within my analysis and does not constrain me to discuss the lms in the light of
conventional guidelines outlined by the genre; and it allows me to ask two
primary questions: what narratives of the body and home do these horror lms
exhibit, and what can these narratives tell us about the way society conceptualizes
the two sites? While these lms cannot be viewed as a substitute for the real world
due to their fantastic nature, I take them as empirical examples of social
constructions of the feminized body and home, for as Deutsche (1991, p. 18)
argues, . . . representations are not objects at all, but social relations, themselves
productive of meaning and subjectivity (quoted in Cresswell & Dixon, 2002, p. 4).
Horric Abjection
Grosz (1994, p. 192) states that the abject is what of the body falls away from it
while remaining irreducible to the subject/object and inside/outside oppositions.
The abject necessarily partakes of both polarized terms, but cannot clearly be
identied with either. Within horror lms, abjection plays a role in the creation
of feelings of horror, which are caused by ambiguity, transgression and unease.
Horror occurs when boundaries are transgressed, when what is seen as normal
suddenly becomes invertedwhen bodies just will not die, when monsters
appear, when there is no sanctuary and nothing is familiar. Abjection becomes
a state more likely to occur when spatial boundaries are questioned (Sibley, 1981,
354 M. England
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1995; Kristeva, 1982; Douglas, 1984; Grosz, 1994; Cresswell, 1996, 1997; Hubbard,
2002). Abject spaces are considered dangerous and frightening because they are
places of uncertainty. Boundaries dissolve in abject spaces, resulting in confusion
of categories and apprehension as comfort levels are breached.
In her analysis of horror lms, Creed (1993) states how they can be used as an
illustration of abjection. She notes at least three ways: rst, the images of
abjectionthe corpse with its putrefying esh and bodily waste such as blood and
vomit are ubiquitous in many horror lms. The fear the lms provoke also
threaten to violate bodily boundaries, as Creed (p. 10) states when a viewer says
that a lm scared the shit out of me. Secondly, those that cross borders or threaten
to cross them are seen as abject. These borders can be between human and
monster, living and dead or good and evil. Thirdly, the maternal gure is
constructed as abject in the horror lm. The motherchild relationship is central to
the gure of the monstrous feminine, as the child at once seeks to separate from
the mother and remain in the maternal relationship. The mother plays her role by
preventing the child from extricating by refusing to abdicate control.
Abjection is typically represented by the monster in the horror genre, where
monsters represent the in-between, the mixed, the ambivalent, as implied in the
ancient Greek root of the word monsters, teras, which means both horrible and
wonderful, object of aberration and adoration (Braidotti, 1997, p. 62). These
monsters break down social order by dissolving binaries (including me/not me;
animate/inanimate; and life/death) that form our signifying system (Auerbach,
1993; Creed, 1993; Hollinger, 1997; Pinedo, 1997).
While abject spaces in horror lms contribute to the breakdown of binaries
through the erosion of categories, in the end the binaries are usually restored at the
conclusion of the lm. This article examines two geographical sites, the body and
the home, and looks at the horric dissolution, and then ultimate reication, of
binaries in the three aforementioned horror lms, all of which show transgression
of the home and body through a variety of means, including possession, haunting
and zombication. The lms were chosen for analysis as they portray both the
reication and complication of patriarchal binaries regarding the body and home
through the actions of the main characters. Each of these lms explores the
dualisms of interior/exterior and public/private as they apply to both the body
and the home.
Opening Credits, or an Introduction to the Films
Evil Dead II, the second of the Evil Dead series, takes place in a remote cabin in
Tennessee.
3
As the movie opens, the main character Ash and his girlfriend, Linda,
are introduced. The cabin is the vacation home of archaeology professor,
Dr Knowby who, along with his wife, Henrietta and daughter, Annie, has been
investigating the Book of the Dead, which serves as a passageway to the evil world
beyond. Ash stumbles across a reel of the professor reading passages of the book
aloud, which serves as an invitation to the Evil Dead to return to the world of the
living. During the original recording, Henrietta is possessed by the Evil Dead.
Upon hearing the recorded incantation, Ashs world is turned upside-down as
both he and Linda are possessed by the spirits, transforming them into demonic
creatures that are neither living nor dead. While Ash survives his possession,
Linda does not. Shortly after Lindas death, the archaeologists daughter Annie
arrives and aids Ash in his ght against the Evil Dead.
Breached Bodies and Home Invasions 355
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The Others tells the story of Grace and her two photosensitive children Nicholas
and Anne, who live in isolation in a large mansion on the British isle of Jersey post-
World War II. When the servants of the home vanish without a word, a new trio of
domestic help appears just as mysteriously. Soon after their arrival the house
seems to become haunted, with the children the ones most attuned to the invading
spirits. The family continually nds evidence of an intruding presence: music
played when no one is in the room; the removal of the essential protective
curtains; and unlocked doors. Grace resolves to protect her home and her family
from the intruding Others. Instead, we realize at the end, it is Grace and her
family, along with the servants, who are doing the haunting of the new inhabitants
of the house and are, in fact, the Others of the title.
I Walked with a Zombie takes place on a plantation, Fort Holland, in the village of
St Sebastian on the island of Antigua in the West Indies. The plantation and its
inhabitants become sites of transgression as the colonized and colonizer meet, the
West and non-West intersect and science and religion collide. Through Nurse
Betsy, we are told the tale of Paul Holland, a man with(out) a wife. The woman he
married, Jessica, has been ill since the night she attempted to leave him for his
brother Wesley Rand. As the title zombie, she transgresses the boundary between
life and death as well as between religion and science. Thought to have suffered
spinal cord injury from a debilitating fever, Jessica is considered to be
sleepwalking through life. When Western medicine fails, including insulin
shock treatment, where the victim is put into an insulin coma and then brought
out through electroshock treatment, Nurse Betsy decides to heed the advice of her
servant Alma and take Jessica to a witch doctor. Mrs Rand, who works at the
village dispensary, further transgresses boundaries between superstition and
science as well as between the West and non-West, as she acts as a witchdoctor for
the servants who live on the Lower Fort and she is the one who sentenced Jessica
to be a zombie for breaking her sons heart.
In the following paragraphs, I will analyze the above lms and show how they
both destabilize and reinforce gendered binaries of the body and home. I will
show how the social construction of these dualisms is highlighted within the lm,
which simultaneously evokes a sense of horror and undermines gendered norms
of space, and how the transgression of these binaries is punished, leading to the
bracing and re-establishment of patriarchal codings.
Breached Bodies
Creed (1993), using the term monstrous woman, argues that the monstrous is
dened by the female reproductive body. She argues that the woman as monster
has been virtually ignored in feminist theory, as theorists have favored the woman
as victiminstead. Womens bodies, due to their capability to reproduce (childbirth,
menstruation), confuse bodily boundaries. While the female body is one that is
portrayed as particularly abject (in regards to menstruation, childbirth, etc.),
human bodies, regardless of sex, are abject in that they are not bounded entities.
The bodies that spew blood can be seen as menstrous monsters, especially when
taking into account that the climactic villain in Evil Dead II is Henrietta, Annies
mother. The character of Henrietta exemplies and embodies the grotesque.
Harpham (1982, p. 5) denes the grotesque as [k]notting the alien whole with
more or less familiar parts, these creatures simultaneously invoke and repudiate
our conventional, language-based categories (quoted in Weese, 2000, p. 353).
356 M. England
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Bakhtin (1968) states how these categories are disrupted: the grotesque image
ignore[s] the closed, smooth and impenetrable surface of the body and retains only
its excrescences . . . and orices, only that which leads beyond the bodys limited
space or into the bodys depths (pp. 317318). The use of the grotesque is an
aggressive move that shocks the audience out of accustomed ways of perceiving
the world and presents a radically different, disturbing perspective (Thomson,
1972, pp. 5859). As Russo (1997, p. 325) states, the grotesque body is the open,
protruding, secreting body, the body of becoming, process and change.
The monster is also an example of a pharmakon, to use Derridas (1983) term,
that which is neither and both. The zombie (or ghost or vampire) is neither living
nor dead, yet simultaneously both. It is at once both human and monster, both the
self and the Other. Derrida denes the pharmakon as both remedy and poison
(1983, p. 70). The pharmakon sets up and disrupts simultaneously.
In its rst appearance in Evil Dead II, the Evil Dead crashes through the window
of the Tennessee cabin into Lindas body shortly after the recorded book passages
are read. Linda viciously attacks and infects Ash by biting his hand, which
eventually forces him to behead her. Although Linda literally loses her head, her
body performs a grotesque ballet and continues to antagonize Ash by chasing him
with a chainsaw, pirouetting and leaping about. She is an abject spectacle as she
dances headless in the full moonlight. As her head is still attached to Ashs hand,
he amputates his own arm in order to free himself from the demonic bite.
When bodies become possessed by the Evil Dead they become putrid. Their skin
becomes discolored and pocked with sores. They swell and leak, spewing uids of
every color and consistency. Their bodies change, distort and mutate. They
become grotesque. The abundance of uids the monsters expel (many times quite
violently) breaks down the binary of the interior and exterior. Grosz (1994, p. 194)
argues that the body uids attest to the permeability of the body, its necessary
dependence on an outside, its liability to collapse into this outside . . . to the
perilous division between the bodys inside and its outside. Abody that refuses to
adhere within the boundaries between interior and exterior is disturbing. As
Douglas (1984, p. 121) argues, all margins are dangerous. If they are pulled this
way or that the shape of fundamental experience is altered. We should expect the
orices of the body to symbolize our specially vulnerable points.
After Ashs amputation, almost each new character that appears becomes abject
in some form. The character of Jake, a man hired to carry Annies bags to the cabin,
is caught in the cellar door clutched by both Annie and the hellacious Henrietta,
who was buried (but not dismembered) in the basement by her husband
Dr Knowby after he killed her. His body becomes a liminal space between the two
women and between the world of the living and the dead. Henrietta ultimately
wins the tug o war and Jake dies, creating a massive ood of blood.
Another breached body in Evil Dead II occurs when the character of Bobbie Joe,
Jakes girlfriend who accompanies him on the journey to the cabin, is raped. Her
bodily boundaries are transgressed in multiple ways when she is brutally
assaulted by the surrounding forest during an attempt to escape the cabin and the
Evil Dead within. Bobbie Joes attempt to ee is futile, as the Evil Dead is within
the forest as well. During her rape, the boundary between her body and the
surrounding environment is blurred. She is not only raped sexually; her body is
penetrated in non-oricial places. Her body becomes transgressive and abject
with that breach of bodily boundaries as she becomes both esh and forest,
socially constructed and physically constructed as (N)ature.
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Eventually, when Henrietta is resurrected from the cellar, she is a tremendous,
ghastly, putreed beast, the very picture of the grotesque. She is swollen to more
than three times her human size and is balding with sores covering her naked
body. While there is little physically discernible about her to identify her as
human, she responds to her daughter Annies singing of Hush, little baby.
Recalling her human maternity, Henrietta is both monster and mother.
InbothThe Others andI Walkedwitha Zombie, the portrayal of abjection, of breached
bodies, is more restrainedbut equally as horrifying. In these lms, the element of the
grotesque is removed. The abject is represented through a more subtle form of
possession. The ghostly and zombied bodies still showthe disruption of categories
and the breaching of boundaries, but in a less vulgar way. The horror evoked here is
one of anxiety, not of disgust. There is anxiety(as well as a desire) insocietyabout the
entryways to our bodies and the transgression of those entrances.
When Anne rst possesses the character of the Old Lady, a medium hired by the
family currently living in the house, she is playing alone in her room in her First
Communion dress. Grace enters the room and notices the child playing with a
marionette but, incongruously, Anne has the hands of an old woman. Grace
begins to panic and approaches Anne, lifting her veil. Grace is able to see only the
Old Lady, not Anne, and feverishly asks her: Where is my daughter?. Anne/the
Old Lady cackles in reply, Are you mad? I am your daughter. This sends Grace
into a frenzy and she beats Anne/the Old Lady until Annes form is restored.
The ghosts in The Others, similar to the zombie in I Walked with a Zombie, are both
living and dead, breaching the very border of life. For examples, the Book of the
Dead that Grace nds in the attic as she is searching for the Others was made so
that the souls of the dead could go on living through the portraits. Grace,
Nicholas and Anne all believe that they are alive and still engage in the activities
that once sustained life. They eat, they drink, they sleep. Jessica, as a zombie in
I Walked with a Zombie, has a very similar lifestyle.
Jessica is a body that breaches the boundary between life and death. She borders
on the brink between life and death, she is the walking dead, and similar to
The Others she is fed, bathed, medicated and taken care of as though she were still
fully alive, but she is not. When Jessica and Betsy rst arrive at the voodoo temple
seeking help for Jessicas condition she is violently stabbed in the arm by the
Sabreur, who guards the Lower Fort. The voodoo worshippers gather around her
and stare, as no blood appears from the wound. They state repeatedly She does
not bleed, she does not bleed.
Jessica is not the only transgressed body on the island. When she rst arrives
there, Betsy is taken to Fort Holland via coach. She engages the coachman in
conversation about the history of the fort and the Holland family. The old man tells
her that the Holland family brought the colored folks to the island. The colored
folks and Ti-Misery. When she inquires as to who Ti-Misery is, the coachman tells
her that he is the gurehead off the slave boat. Ti-Misery, or St Sebastian, as the
family calls him, is a black man, his face contorted in pain, with long iron arrow
shafts emerging from his torso.
4
The imagery of Ti-Misery features frequently in
the lm: the penetrated, pained body that symbolizes the domination of the Other.
Abject bodies elide boundaries and disturb categories. When these bodies
breach the boundaries between good/evil; interior/exterior; self/Other, they
show the vulnerability of these socially constructed dualisms. The frailty of these
categories is protected through punishment (either through death, mutilation,
rape or possession) of those who transgress their borders.
358 M. England
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Home Invasions
As geographers well know, the boundaries between the public and private are
continually constructed, challenged and redened (see Kilian, 1998; Staeheli, 1996;
Mitchell, 2001). Within these chosen horror texts, the divide between the public
and private is porous and disconcerting. The home becomes a conduit within
these horror stories, one that is permeable to the outside. It is no longer isolated
and segregated; it is invaded. It is from this fuzziness that we begin to see the
fragility of the constructions of public and private space, of the home and of
family, of society as a whole.
Through the breaking down of barriers, patriarchal notions regarding the home
are challenged. Sobchack (1996, p. 145) posits that with this breakdown, a mans
home ceases to be his patriarchal castle due to the invasive presence of Others.
When the Other inltrates the home, it opens up the previously private domain.
Sobchack continues this argument by stating that the Other can become part of the
family, andopenupthe kitchenandfamilyroomtothe horric andwondrous world
outside this private andsafe domain (ibid.). Thus, withinmost horror lms that deal
with the home, spatial boundaries are transgressed. Yet only when the Others are
dealt with and either subdued or removed from the home does the lm reach its
conclusion. Those who invade the home by transgressing the public-private divide
are punished and this punishment reinforces gendered codings of space.
The element of intrusion is a common thread for many horror lms. Beers (1996)
argues that ghost stories: elide the distance between the actual and the imagined.
They speak, literally and guratively, of an intrusion into the everyday world.
In ghost stories, the ctional takes place in the everyday: it takes space, and. . .the
usurpation of space by the immaterial . . . is one of the deepest terrors released by
the ghost story. . . [G]host stories are to do with the insurrection, not the resurrec-
tion, of the dead (quoted in Huggan, 2000, pp. 353354). This insurrection of the
dead into the space of the living is the source of terror and confusion in these lms.
The Others portrays the collision of three worlds in one home: the world of the
servants (who died in 1891); Graces family (ca. 1945); and the modern family who
currently lives in the home. Grace is a woman whose husband is off at war and she
is left alone in a large mansion with only her two children, until three servants
mysteriously appear at the door. In one of the rst scenes of the movie, the
servants are seen waiting outside of the massive front door. From hereon, only
a handful of scenes take place outside the home.
The Others contains traces of the Gothic, as it ts the Gothic formula of the
image of woman-plus-habitation (Nolland & Shermen, quoted in White, 2000,
p. 214). Gothic themes of connement and rebellion, forbidden desire and
irrational fear are prevalent throughout the lm (Johnson, 1989, p. 522, quoted
in Davison, 2004, p. 47). The house is continually locked and fortressed against the
outside. No door must be opened without the previous one closed.
The lm blurs time and space through the use of multiple timespace
dimensions. The worlds of the servants and of Graces family co-exist within the
house with only an occasional peek into the world of the modern family with
sounds such as footsteps and voices, and movements, such as the removal of the
all-important curtains or a displaced piano cover. Victor, the son in the modern-
day family, cries continually as he is frightened by the presence of the Others.
He continually warns Anne and Nicholas that they have to leave the house.
They must be removed for order to return to his life.
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In one scene, Grace hears the piano playing and enters the music room to
investigate. Spying the open piano cover, she shuts it and leaves the room,
satised that it is empty. Checking to see if the door to the music room is working
(and locking) properly, she works it back and forth several times before the door is
literally slammed in her face. Grace is caught between the world of the living and
the dead, highlighting the porosity of her home. In one of the nal scenes, the
living family in the house performs a seance in an attempt to reach the Others.
They call, Come with us. Speak to us, asking them to cross the threshold from
dead to living.
Each family claims the house as theirs. When Grace feels the threatening
presence of the Others, she responds with force. The servant family is locked out
of the home after Grace realizes they are dead and, in fact, ghosts. She begins to
carry a gun throughout the house, determined to police the boundaries of her
home. As the movie concludes, Grace, Nicholas and Anne repeat, This house is
ours, with Grace ending the lm stating, No one can make us leave this house,
reasserting their role in the home to any future intruders.
The invading force in I Walked with a Zombie is voodoo. The plantation home
is continually inltrated with sounds of the servants on the Lower Fort. The
home becomes a site of transgression, where religion and science clash and
religion wins, where the West and the non-West meet and the non-West
dominates. A repetitive sound throughout the lm is drums. Whenever drums
are heard within the house, the viewer is supposed to be lled with
apprehension. The sounds of the Other are invading the home of the self. Within
the lm, the two worlds of the plantation owners and the servants are kept
separate. It is only in moments of horror that they intersect. At the conclusion
of the lm order is restored to Fort Holland. The voodoo practitioners return to
the Lower Fort, Jessica dies and Mrs Rand, the source of the transgression, is
dismissed as crazy.
Within Evil Dead II, the house literally becomes transgressed by the Evil
Dead. The furniture, the walls, the lamps, everything becomes invaded by the
Evil Dead in an attempt to drive the character of Ash mad. When Ash is alone
in the house, before Annie and the rest of the cast arrive, he is tormented by the
Evil Dead, which has infested the whole house. As Ash desperately tries to
hold onto his sanity, everything in the home mocks him. The mirrors become
liquid, the clock turns out of control, animal heads on the wall laugh along with
lamps. The chairs rock and the couch dances. While this scene ends when
daylight arrives, the house is continually overrun by the Evil Dead. The house
is ultimately destroyed at the end of the lm when, within its borders, a vortex
to an alternate universe opens up, transporting Ash to the next lm in the
trilogy.
This horric blur of the public and private draws on dominant assumptions of
those spaces in order to evoke feelings of terror. When the home becomes uid
and spatial boundaries break down, the implications are the exposure of the
myth that there is a distinction between family members and alien Others,
between private home and public space, between personal microcosm and
sociopolitical macrocosm (Sobchack, 1996, p. 147). This myth is ultimately
protected through the re-establishment of order at the end of the lm. The
invaders in The Others move out, the voodoo spell of I Walked with a Zombie is
broken and the Evil Dead of Evil Dead II is removed (at least temporarily as the
trilogy continues).
360 M. England
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Conclusion
The chosen horror texts show how the breached body and transgressed, invaded
home are terrifying places, by playing into fears regarding the borders of both the
body and the home. The body in Evil Dead II, The Others and I Walked with a Zombie
is represented as in-between space and a site of conict, while private space is also
paradoxically represented as a space of both haven and assault. These portrayals
contribute to both the strengthening and the undermining of hegemonic narratives
of both the body and the home. While the fragility of the social constructions of
these sites is acknowledged and even horrically celebrated within these texts, the
extreme forms of punishment for the transgression of boundaries support the
argument that horror lms ultimately reify patriarchal norms.
My purpose here is not to typify horror lms by condemning them, but to
investigate the social codings they portray. While the three lms explored above
can be readas potential subversions and/or destabilizations of hegemonic codings
of space, they can also be read as ultimate reications of those codings. Gelder
(2000, p. 3) states, Horror can sometimes nd itself championed as a genre because
the disturbance it willfully produces is in fact a disturbance of categories we may
have takenfor granted. Horror lms transgress the limits of the body andthe home
and make them sites which violate the coded division between interior/exterior,
open/contained and private/public. While the permeability and porosity of the
body and the home are shown and divisions erode, those who transgress those
boundaries are punished and when patriarchal order is restored, the lm ends. So,
while the hegemonic and gendered binaries may literally bleed into one another in
horror lms they are, in the end, bandaged up and set back into place.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Anna Secor, Linda Peake and three anonymous referees for
their thoughtful comments on this article and Paul Robbins for the inspiration
behind it.
Notes
1. Film details: The Others (written and directed by Alejandro Amenabar, produced by Fernando
Bovaira, Tom Cruise, Jose Luis Cureda, Rick Schwartz, Sunmin Park, Paula Wagner, Bob Weinstein
and Harvey Weinstein, released in the United States in 2001 by Miramax Films); Evil Dead II (written
by Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel, directed by Sam Raimi, produced by Bruce Campbell, Alex De
Benedetti, Irvin Shapiro and Robert G. Tapert, released in the United States in 1987 by DeLaurentiis
Entertainment Group and Renaissance Pictures); and I Walked with a Zombie (written by Charlotte
Bronte (uncredited), Inez Wallace, Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray, directed by Jacques Tourneur,
produced by Val Lewton and released in the United States in 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures).
2. For a discussion on the difference between classic and postmodern horror genres, see Pinedo, 1997.
The horror genre, like all genres, is in a constant state of ux. The conventions of horror today are
not those of the 1940s, or even of the 1980s. The roles and relationships which engage the
participants of the lm have changed over time, yet the conventions of the horror genre are
important to note because the success of a lm can largely depend on the audiences reaction to the
lms adherence to the rules or innovative re-creations of the rules.
3. The other lms in the trilogy include Evil Dead (1982) and Army of Darkness (1989).
4. St Sebastian is a Christian martyr. According to Christian legend St Sebastian, during Diocletians
third-century persecution of the Christians, was charged as Christian, tied to a tree, shot with
arrows and then left for dead. He survived, recovered and returned to preach to Diocletian. The
emperor then had him beaten to death with a club.
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References
Auerbach, Nina (1995) Our Vampires, Ourselves (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press).
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1968) Rabelais and his World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press).
Berenstein, Rhona (1996) Attack of the Leading Ladies: Gender, sexuality and spectatorship (New York,
Columbia University Press).
Braidotti, Rosa (1997) Mothers, monsters and machines, in: Katie Conboy, Nadia Median & Sarah
Stanbury (Eds) Writing on the Body: Female embodiment and feminist theory, pp. 5979 (New York,
Columbia University Press).
Clover, Carol J. (1993) Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the modern horror lm (Princeton, NJ,
Princeton).
Creed, Barbara (1993) The Monstrous-feminine: Film, feminism, psychoanalysis (London, Routledge).
Cresswell, Tim (1996) In Place/Out of Place (Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota Press).
Cresswell, Tim (1997) Weeds, Plagues, and Bodily Secretions: A geographical interpretation of
metaphors of displacement, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87, pp. 330345.
Cresswell, Tim & Dixon, Deborah (2002) Introduction: engaging lm, in: Tim Cresswell & Deborah
Dixon (Eds) Engaging Film: Geographies of mobility and identity, pp. 110 (Lanham, MD, Rowman &
Littleeld Publishers, Inc.).
Davison, Carol Margaret (2004) Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female Gothic closets in The
yellow wallpaper, Womens Studies, 33, pp. 4775.
Derrida, Jacques (1983) Dissemination (Chicago, IL, University of Chicago Press).
Douglas, Mary (1984) Purity and Danger (London, Ark Paperbacks).
Gelder, Ken (2000) Introduction: the eld of horror, in: Ken Gelder (Ed.) The horror reader, pp. 110
(London & New York, Routledge).
Grant, Barry Keith (Ed.) (1996) Dread of Difference: Gender and the horror lm (Austin, TX, University of
Texas).
Grosz, Elizabeth (1994) Volatile Bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism (Bloomington, IN, University of
Indiana Press).
Hollinger, Veronica (1997) Fantasies of Absence: The postmodern vampire, in: Joan Gordon & Veronica
Hollinger (Eds) Blood Read: The vampire as metaphor in contemporary culture, pp. 199212 (Philadelphia,
University of Pennsylvania Press).
Hubbard, Philip (2002) Sexing the Self: Geographies of engagement and encounter, Social and Cultural
Geography, 3, pp. 365381.
Huggan, Graham (2000) Ghost stories, bone utes, cannibal countermemory, in: Ken Gelder (Ed.) The
Horror Reader, pp. 352363 (London & New York, Routledge).
Kristeva, Julia (1982) The Powers of Horror: An essay on abjection (New York, Columbia University Press).
Mitchell, Don (2001) Cultural Geography: A critical introduction (Oxford, Blackwell).
Pinedo, Isabel Cristina (1997) Recreational Terror: Women and the pleasures of horror lm viewing (Albany,
NY, State University of New York Press).
Russo, Mary (1997) Female grotesque: carnival and theory, in: Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina & Sarah
Stanbury (Eds) Writing on the Body, pp. 318336 (New York, Columbia University Press).
Schoell, William (1985) Stay Out of the Shower: 25 years of Shocker lms, beginning with Psycho (New York,
Dembner Books).
Sibley, David (1981) Outsiders in Urban Societies (New York, St Martins Press).
Sibley, David (1995) Geographies of Exclusion (London, Routledge).
Sobchack, Vivian (1996) Bringing it all back home: Family, economy and generic exchange, in: Barry
Keith Grant (Ed.) Dread of Difference: Gender and the horror lm, pp. 14363 (Austin, TX, University of
Texas Press).
Staeheli, Lynn (1996) Publicity, Privacy and Womens Political Action, Environment and Planning D:
Society and Space, 14, pp. 601619.
Thomson, Philip (1979) The Grotesque (London, Routledge).
Weese, Katherine (2000) Normalizing Freakery: Katherine Dunns Geek Love and the female grotesque,
Critique, 41, pp. 349364.
White, Patricia (2000) Female spectator, lesbian specter: The Haunting, in: Ken Gelder (Ed.) The Horror
Reader, pp. 352363 (London & New York, Routledge).
Wood, Robin & Lippe, Richard (Eds) (1979) American Nightmare: Essays on the horror lm (Toronto, ON,
Festival of Festivals).
362 M. England
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Filmography
Army of Darkness (Sam Raimi, 1989, USA).
Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1982, USA).
Evil Dead II (Sam Raimi, 1987, USA).
I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943, USA).
Others, The (Alejando Amenabar, 2001,USA).
Cuerpos violados e invasiones del hogar: representaciones
horricas del cuerpo feminizada y el hogar
Resumen E
ste art culo trata las representaciones abyecto del cuerpo feminizado
y el hogar. Abyeccio n tiene un papel critica en la creacio n de ambigu edad y
inquietud, abarcando las paradojas de trasgresio n, lo cual es importante para
examinar cr ticamente las relaciones y construcciones sociales. Realizo una
investigacio n de las interpretaciones de espacios abyectos en dos sitios, el cuerpo
y el hogar, a traves de tres pel culas: I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Evil Dead II
(1987) y The Others (2001). En mi analisis, muestro como estas pel culas interpretan
repetidamente los cuerpos feminizados y hogares que, cuando trasgresivos, se
ven como abyecto hasta que se reestablece el orden al n de la pel cula. En estos
textos horrores, las fronteras disuelven y crean momentos potencialmente
progresivos que pueda perturbar el genero y las normas y dicotom as, pero
u ltimamente se reican y se renormalizan las fronteras, reescribiendo el genero y
los patriarcal co digos de espacio.
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Landscapes on the Margins: Gender and homelessness
in Canada
FRAN KLODAWSKY
Department of Geography, Carleton University, Canada
Abstract This introductory article examines the issue of gendered homelessness and
asks why so little academic feminist writing addresses this theme. The article begins with
reference to a feminist novelThe Longings of Women by Marge Piercythat does
tackle this matter. The invisibility of the novels homeless character is used as a way of
introducing some distinctions between womens and mens homelessness. More generally,
the article has two objectives. The rst is to examine what feminist and other critical
geographers have said, conceptually and empirically, about gendered homelessness,
especially in Canada but also in other Western contexts. The second involves highlighting
the problematic nature of too great a focus on visibility in relation to gendered
homelessness, and offers an alternative reading drawn from examining the relations of
bodies and urban space in conjunction with a discussion about the politics of scale and
difference. All told, this collection of essays is an effort to highlight the often hidden and
variable nature of gendered homelessness in Ontario, Canada and to argue that the theme
is worthy of greater attention by feminist geographers.
Introduction
Until she could squat for the night, whether in a basement or a garage or
someones momentarily vacated house, [Mary] had hours to kill. She
rode public transportation out to the end of the line and back. She walked
around. Malls were for sitting. She always looked respectable enough not
to be bothered, so long as she didnt become familiar. Once again, her
invisibility helped. Malls were for old people killing time, retirees,
people on xed incomes in tiny rooms. Were all superuous. . .
It was a priority for Leila to have a house she could afford by herself, one
she could heat, hold on to. In spite of her accountants paean to
mortgages and deductible interest, she would pay off this mortgage as
rapidly as she could. There was nothing in the world like dealing with
the homeless to make a woman engage in nancial planning. It might not
work, for there was no avoiding catastrophes, but meeting former
Correspondence: Fran Klodawsky, Department of Geography, Carleton University, 1125
Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada. E-mail: fran_klodawsky@carleton.ca
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 365381, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808478
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housewives, teachers, factory workers, waitresses, secretaries made Leila
understand how fragile were the underpinnings of security for women.
A man left or died, a job ended, a factory closed, a re burned out her
building, and she was out of money and on the streets. (From: Marge
Piercy, 1994, pp. 81, 428)
In The Longings of Women, novelist Marge Piercy explores the signicance of
home in the lives of three American women. One of them is homeless Mary
Burke, formerly a suburban middle-class housewife. Piercy examines the
particularly gendered route by which Mary lost her housingthat of a naive
wife who had subsumed her own needs to those of her family and found herself
suddenly without material support after her husband left her for a younger
woman. Piercys sensitive portrayal of Mary captures something of what is known
about the specics of North American womens homelessnessthat it is less
likely to constitute absolute homelessness such as sleeping on the street or in an
emergency shelter than the relative homelessness of, for example, squatting in an
employers empty house or exchanging sex for shelter.
Piercys novel is organised to illustrate the similarities and differences between
Mary and two other womenthe working class, uneducated and ultimately
ruthless Becky, and the outwardly successful author and professor, Leila. The
Longings of Women reects a feminist analysis that recognises society as having
coded certain spaces andtypes of activities as female andothers as male. Implicitly,
Piercy conveys how this coding contributes both to womens homelessness and to
its invisibility. Mary is able to pass as housed only as long as she looks the part of
a suburban housewife, in contrast to the obviously homeless characters who
panhandle and use emergency shelters in the downtown area.
Piercys portrayal also contests popular understandings of who is homeless and
where that homelessness is located. But ironically, the strategy of women such as
Mary who seek invisibility to avoid unwanted attention has resulted in
homelessness being seen, in the West, as a problem faced overwhelmingly by
men. For example, two early surveys using similar methodologyin Los Angeles
and in Calgaryestimated a gender ratio of about one woman to nine men
(Wolch & Dear 1993, p. 276; Perassini & McDonald 2000, p. 537). More recent
Canadian assessments have suggestedthat about 30%of the homeless are women
but these estimates, too, are based upon fairly narrow denitions of what
constitutes being homeless (Begin, 1999). One result has been a relative lack of
acknowledgment of the fact and diversity of womens homelessness and perhaps
as a consequence, a relative lack of feminist attention to this experience. Through
The Longings of Women and specically, through the character of Leila, Piercy alerts
readers that womens homelessness is not an extraordinary phenomenon but one
closelyintertwinedwithwomens vulnerabilities inthe labour market andat home.
This novel contributes to a terrain of womens experience where few feminist
theorists have chosen to venture. In academic writing, homeless women have
either been a forgotten category or they have been a point of reference to illustrate
such phenomena as the feminisation of poverty or the negative results of neo-
liberal social policies. Very rarely has the focus been on homeless womens
diversity or resistance to their situations. One motivation for this collection of
essays is to assert that feminist geography has much to contribute, both
theoretically and empirically, to gendered research and analysis of homelessness.
366 F. Klodawsky
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In this introductory paper, I have two objectives. The rst is to examine what
feminist and other critical geographers have said about gendered homelessness,
especially in Canada as well as in other Western contexts. More particularly,
it introduces the following articles that draw on empirical research within the
province of Ontario, where a shift in welfare regime to one closely aligned with
neoliberal globalism is well under way (Peck, 2001). My second objective involves
highlighting the problematic nature of too great a focus on homelessness as a
problem with a particular image or set of visible characteristicsthat of bag
ladies, panhandlers or other apparently unhoused women. Instead, I offer an
alternative reading, by examining the relations between bodies and urban space in
conjunction with a discussion about the politics of scale and difference.
All told, this collection of essays is an effort to interrogate the variable nature of
gendered homelessness and to provide some clues for its recognition within the
multiplicity of often hidden places where homeless women are found. Too often,
when womens homelessness is acknowledged, it is presented as a negative status
so far from the experiences of housed women that no further distinction is
warranted. Among researchers and practitioners in the eld, however, it is clear
that there are multiple, quite distinct, pathways by which various women come to
be, and experience homelessness.
Gendered Geographies and Homelessness
Two early and very signicant feminist contributions to the analysis of
homelessness are found in the work of Watson and Austenberry (1986) and
Watson (1988). The authors argue that womens homelessness had to be
understood as a continuum of more and more tenuous housing arrangements,
intricatelytiedtothe sexual divisionof labour andtowomens social vulnerabilities
as daughters, wives and mothers:
Home ownership does not simply act to reproduce patriarchal family
relations at an ideological level. The structure of provision of this form of
tenure acts to systematically marginalize women and to further reinforce
the nuclear family household and womens economic dependence on a
male partner. (Watson, 1988, p. 28)
Watson (1988) makes the case that the opposite of homelessness is not housing
but home. For the single women she interviewed, home implies a set of social
relations. . . strongly linked with a notion of family (op. cit., p. 134). Along with
Watson and Austenberry (1986), the results of their research clearly establish that
being homeless depends on who is doing the dening. Many of those regarded as
homeless by the authors did not regard themselves in a similar manner. Their
analysis fundamentally challenges assumptions that homelessness is only about
the absence of a roof, as has sometimes been inferred in policy discussions
(Somerville, 1992).
Watson and Austenberrys arguments dovetailed neatly with broader feminist
debates about the meaning of home and homelessness in the early 1990s
(Dowling & Pratt, 1993). In arguing for a broader and more inclusive
understanding of womens homelessness, they challenged a policy and analytic
orientation that tended to focus on absolute homelessness, dened as sleeping
rough in public places or living in a shelter (Callaghan et al., 2002, p. 55). Their
work supports a more expansive denition (of relative homelessness), similar to
Gender and Homelessness in Canada 367
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that suggested by United Nations researchers with regard to people who are
homeless:
Those who have no home and who live either outdoors or in emergency
shelters or hostels, and people whose homes do not meet UN basic
standards of adequate protection from the elements, access to safe water
and sanitation, affordable prices, secure tenure and personal safety, and
accessibility to employment, education and health care. (op. cit., p. 8)
This more expansive denition of what being without housing means is useful for
four reasons. The rst is practicalthe broader denition casts a wider net in an
arena where very little research has taken placebut equally there is a second,
conceptual rationale. An experience of homelessness does not dene the whole of
a persons life, although as the opening quote indicates, it can be all-encompassing
at some points in time. Rather, the dynamic nature of being homeless is best
appreciated when homelessness is regarded as part of a complex process that
includes unstable housing as well as its absence. Thirdly, this more expansive
denition speaks to the considerable evidence that womens homelessness is more
likely to be hidden (Watson &Austenberry, 1986; Novac et al., 1996; Kappel Ramji
Consulting Group, 2002). By hidden, I mean the fact that homeless and unstably
housed women have been less visible on the street and also in emergency shelters
than have men. Women have more frequently used informal strategies, such as
staying with friends and family or attaching themselves to housed men, in order
to avoid either the streets or emergency shelters. Even when shelters are used,
those devoted to women tend to be much smaller and less visible than those for
men (Klodawsky et al., 2002). Finally, more and more research in the West (as well
as internationally) is acknowledging the utility of the more expansive denition
(Somerville, 1992; Springer, 1996).
Watson and Austenberrys (1986) feminist perspective on housing and
homelessness offered a signicant advance over other contemporary writing
and their musings on the relationships between feminist and urban theory
anticipated more recent strands of feminist thought. They recognised the
problems of regarding homeless and unstably housed women as one
homogeneous group, acknowledging that their diverse situations could not be
understood without an appreciation of time/space, class, race and cultural
variations. Although very much a product of socialist-feminism, Watsons (1988)
observations about post-structuralism are noteworthy in naming an absence that
would soon attract the attention of numerous feminists:
Post-structuralism . . . allows for the possibility of a recognition of
fragmentation. Within this approach individuals are buffeted by
conicting and often unconscious needs and desires and are situated
in the midst of discourses not of their own making . . . Foucaults
contention that no relations of power exist without resistance provides
an impetus to perhaps refocus our attention as feminists on womens
opposition to the forms of control they experience within the urban
system. (Watson, 1988, p. 145)
The recognitionof urbanwomens resistance was addressedwithenthusiasminthe
1990s by a variety of feminist scholars (Bondi &Rose, 2003), but not especially with
regard to homelessness. Yet, as will be discussed below, the challenges raised by
368 F. Klodawsky
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these scholars about the complex nature of gendered and racialised urban spaces
have provided important markers for work in this area as well. Before turning
to this newer feminist literature, however, it is appropriate to acknowledge other
geographers who have contributed to knowledge about the eld.
Seeing Gendered Homelessness
Some geographers, working in the tradition of welfare and social-cultural
geographies, have contributed signicant insights to homelessness research in the
Western world. Dear & Taylors (1982) landmark contributions on the relationship
between NIMBY (Not-In-My-Backyard) and the presence of community facilities
for deinstitutionalised psychiatric patients anticipated a more ambitious research
programme in Los Angeles. There, Jennifer Wolch, Michael Dear and various
students were among the rst to raise awareness about the relations between
welfare state restructuring and the dynamics of homelessness in United States, as
well as contributing new insights about homeless women (Wolch & Dear, 1993).
Rowe and Wolch (1990) revealed how the homeless women in LAs Skid Row had
concerns about physical assault, both on the street and in shelters, and their use of
sex as a survival strategy. Takahashi et al. (2002) conducted detailed research with
eight homeless women with children, exploring how their social identities were
shaped by structures and institutions but also how they contested those identities.
DeVerteuil (2003) described carefully how new poverty management strategies
of LA institutions organised and controlled the lives of 25 homeless women.
Takahashis (1998) study of the responses of communities to human service
facility siting for homeless individuals, and those with HIV/AIDS, noted that
homeless women tended to be regarded less fearfully than men. She also found
that racialisation accounted for the degree of stigma attached to various homeless
bodies. Together, the analytical contribution of these studies has been on the
multiple and spiralling adverse impacts on the everyday lives of marginalised
peoples, including their movements in space, that welfare state restructuring has
generated in the United States.
Another ambitious and multifaceted contribution by geographers has involved
a focus on the rural homelessness in Britain through both a cultural and a policy
lens. Cloke, Milbourne and Widdoweld (2002) were motivated in their work by
a strong political sense of the injustice of homelessness and from a desire to
provoke practical policy responses to the needs of homeless people hidden away
in rural areas (p. 4). They paid particular attention to the contrasting images that
rural and homeless evoked and what this implied for the ability of both rural
communities and government policies to address the problems faced by homeless
people living in rural areas. They did so with great sensitivity to both the uneven
geography of rural Britain and to the culturally charged meanings of home and
homelessness. Their conclusions regarding gendered homelessness, however,
were somewhat disappointing in that they focus on womens lesser propensity to
sleep rough. They attributed this difference as stemming from two factors: rst,
womens greater ability over men to achieve a higher priority for council housing,
especially when they were accompanied by children; and secondly, the reported
observation among professionals and volunteers that there was a greater
propensity for women (in contrast to men) to deal with their problems (p. 182).
However, their conclusions left unanalysed the relative signicance of hidden
homelessness for women as opposed to men.
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A somewhat different set of concerns has been the focus of cultural geographers
engaged in examining the links between changes in ofcial attitudes about access
to such public spaces as the street or the park, and what this signied about the
rights of homeless people. Mitchell (1995), for example, in examining a series of
conicts over the Peoples Park in Berkeley, observed that activists and homeless
people who used the park promoted a vision of a space marked by free interaction
and the absence of coercion by powerful institutions (Mitchell, 1995, p. 115), but
this vision was effectively undermined by propertied others. In a somewhat
similar vein, Ruddick (2002) has explored the increasingly restrictive legal context
for the use of public space by homeless youth in central Toronto and how this
shift, in turn, taught the larger, potentially sympathetic public how to re-read
those gestures [by homeless youth] as aggressive and alien (2002, p. 63; see also
Ruddick 1996). Similarly, Brinegar (2000) has evaluated the extent to which
Tempe, Arizona residents attitudes towards homeless people reected the ofcial
and exclusive policies of the municipality.
Interestingly, there is little acknowledgement of gender differences in these
discussions. Rather, categories of the homeless or homeless youth are the
referents of choice. One probable rationale has already been noted: the much more
visible presence of homeless men on the street. Another explanation is given by
Peressini (2003):
homelessness is characterized by a leveling process, in which personal
and demographic characteristics have no observable impact on a
persons ability to adapt and to survive on the streets. To be homeless is
to be truly disadvantaged . . . (Peressini, 2003, pp. 386387)
Some researchers have argued explicitly against an emphasis on womens
homelessness because of their apparently smaller numbers and their better access
to facilities and services (Passaro, 1996; Perresini, 2003). The conclusions of urban
anthropologist Joanne Passaro (1996) are especially noteworthy here, in that they
are based on a feminist analysis of why single black men in New York City are
much more likely than women, especially women with children, to be and remain
visibly homeless. Her conclusions are based on a 4-year-long participant
observation research initiative with and about homeless men and women in New
York. She asserted that:
. . . homeless womenare ultimatelycomplicit inmaintainingandrecreating
the dominant discourse on gender and womens place because that
discourse and its protectionist entailments gives them a leg up for
survival . . . Inorder tosurvive, homeless womenhave little choice but to be
activeagents of their ownsuburbanization, complicit actors ina systemthat
denes their place as home andnds homes for theminthe outer boroughs
beyond the borders of Manhattan. The struggle over the Manhattan
landscape is left largely to men, primarily to black menwho are childless or
do not live with their children; these men are left without homes in part
because they are seen as hypermasculinized and untamed, not belonging
within the domesticated connes of home. (Passaro, 1996, p. 85)
She concludes with a strong plea for the critical importance of equally valuing all
individuals human rights (see also Cloke et al., 2002). She challenges the all-too-
facile assumption that housing support for women and children is more
important than support for single black men. Passaros text makes important
370 F. Klodawsky
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reading, but she perhaps jumps to conclusions too readily about a hierarchy of
suffering and minimises the negative impacts of invisible homelessness. Although
her analysis is sensitive to the spatial distribution of, and different characteristics
between, homeless women and men, there is a lack of appreciation of the social
construction of scale in shaping understandings of similarity and difference and
the dynamics of this construction (Smith, 1993; Marston, 2002). In conjunction
with explorations about gender, bodies, home and the urban by geographers such
as Bondi (1998), Duncan (1996) and Bondi and Rose (2003), the next section
elaborates on the potential signicance of scale to contribute new insights to
gendered analyses of homelessness.
Scaling Gendered Homelessness
Through a series of vignettes, Neil Smith (1993) has illustrated how a purportedly
local homeless problem was actually embroiled in a politics of scale,
encompassing body, home, community, urban, region, nation, global (1993, p.
101). The example he used involved a series of conicts over who should be able to
claim the right to access a particular park. Previously, this space had been viewed
as available to homeless peoples but more recently had become a target of middle-
class consumption. In asking why this differentiation emerged, Smith implicated
municipal, national and global actors who were set on reorganising property
values in the city. He showed that their involvement consisted of various efforts to
establish boundaries that emphasised some types of differences, but rendered
others invisible. Specically, the Lower East Sides Tompkins Square Park was
alternatively scripted as a retreat from the wild city or as a symbol of the widest
degeneration the city could offer (1993, p. 93). In this view, restricting homeless
peoples use of the park while promoting its potential as a support for
gentrication was a strategy that helped shift understanding of how the space of
the park should be seen. Smith lamented that activists were so caught up in
contesting the Tompkins Square Parks changed meaning that they neglected
potential links with other similar struggles going on elsewhere in the city.
Consequently, the park became the site of a conict between particular (local)
homeless and housed bodies. But, seen at another scale, the gentriers and those
without homes were products of similar economic and political processes over the
redevelopment of land. Through their promoters differential ability to
manipulate and produce scale, some ideas about the park (such as its potential
as a site of middle class pleasure) were accentuated while others (such as the
negative impacts of commodication) were obscured.
Smith (1993) also noted that a gendered politics of scale was especially prominent
at the scales of body and of home. Drawing upon feminist analyses, he reminded
readers that the politics of abortion, rape, prostitution, reproduction and
bodycare focus on access to womens bodies, work women do with their
bodies and the boundary between individual and state control over the body
(1993, p. 102). These observations resonate with feminist geographies concerns
with, for example, womens learned fears about stranger rape, the dangers of
being in public alone, and patriarchal constructions of womens place in the home,
with bodies in need of male protection (Pain, 1991; Duncan, 1996). At the urban
scale, Liz Bondi (1998) has explored the variety of means by which women have
been associated, both ideologically and materially, with the suburban, the private
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and the domestic, while men have been more commonly associated with the
urban, the public and the political, in ways reminiscent of The Longings of Women.
All these associations might, through the lens of a politics of scale, be regarded
as the unstable outcomes of gendered and other conicts. As such, homeless
womens spaces might also be recognised as diverse and ambiguous. One
powerful example that has emerged from on-going research in Ottawa, Ontario is
the problematic linking of immigrant women who are confronting multiple
barriers to settling in a new country, and Canadian-born women with severe
psychological challenges. Both have been labelled as homeless and have been
assumed (by some) to be equally served by the same womens emergency shelter,
the same services for homeless women and the same federal government initiative
against homelessness. Yet, an alternative reading of their situations might have
resulted in housing, policy and service initiatives that were distinct in terms of
both scale and rationale. With regard to scale, the federal level of government in
Canada is responsible for immigration policy and the provision of transitional
support, whereas health care is a provincial matter. With regard to rationale, the
transitional support that state policy assumes is enough for newcomer settlement
is clearly distinct from the long-term care that is often needed by vulnerable
people. These alternative understandings are certainly recognised by some
homeless women and by some service providers. However, large gaps remain
between services based on dominant images of womens homelessness, and the
measures that would be required to respond to their needs in a more nuanced
manner (Aubry et al., 2003; Klodawsky et al., 2005).
In a somewhat similar vein, Bondi (1998), Duncan (1996) and Bondi and Rose
(2003) have asserted recently that uncritically accepting public/male private/
female dichotomies have problematic shortcomings. Bondi and Rose (2003) draw
on Nancy Frasers analysis of how current struggles for justice have become much
more focused on recognition, or acknowledgement of differences among groups
mobilized under the banners of nationality, ethnicity, race, gender and
sexuality than on redistribution, or struggles against class exploitation (Fraser,
1997, p. 11). Thinking about feminist urban geography, they observe that
[a]lthough the distributive impacts of affective identities are noted, these are not
problematised to the same extent as issues of recognition (p. 9). In other words,
they conrm an impression that has often been voiced informally among feminist
geographers: that the sophistication and nuance of theoretical work, often
constructed around questions of identity, have not sufciently addressed policy
implications. Conversely, where issues of inequities and their policy implications
predominate, there often seems to be a lack of appreciation for the nuances
apparent in more theoretically informed analysis. Seen from the perspective of a
politics of scale, these dichotomies might also be criticised for their uncritical
reinforcement of certain associations between bodies and places. In the realm of
homelessness research, these divides have been very much in evidence. Drawing
upon both class and identity to problematise womens homelessness in a nuanced
yet policy-relevant manner is a challenge that remains to be addressed.
Marion Iris Young (1990) is a political philosopher whose musings have often
been utilised productively by feminist geographers. Her recent assessment of Toril
Mois claim, that the concept of lived bodies has greater analytical depth than
does gender, echoes some of the issues raised above (Young, 2002). Mois
argument is that, in destabilizing categories both of biological sex and gender
identity, recent deconstructive approaches to feminist and queer theorizing have
372 F. Klodawsky
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opened greater possibilities for thinking a plurality of intersecting identities and
practices (Young, 2002, p. 411). Young praises the move from gender to lived
bodies in its greater sensitivity to the embodied particularities of individual lives,
but she also challenges the implicit assumption that feminism is now exclusively
about subjectivity. Instead, she asserts the conceptual value of gender as integral
to projects that describe and explain . . . structures and processes that produce
differential opportunities and privileges in contemporary society (op. cit., p. 421).
In other words, for Young, the concept of gender. . .[is] a tool for theorizing
structures more than subjects (op. cit., p. 422), and she proposes three axes of
analysis: a sexual division of labour, normative heterosexuality and gendered
hierarchies of power. Directly in the case of the sexual division of labour and
indirectly in the other two axes, Young hints at the structural reality of a
(somewhat uid) public/private dichotomy. She recognises the continuing
signicance of womens greater involvement in the work of caring . . . [that] takes
place primarily in unpaid labour in private homes (ibid.) and acknowledges the
gendered advantages and disadvantages that this produces. She notes that:
Gendered hierarchies of power intersect with a sexual division of labour
and normative heterosexuality in many ways to reproduce a sense of
entitlement of men to womens service and an association of
heterosexual masculinity with force and command. (ibid.)
Youngs (2002) discussion of gender and structures is reminiscent of Frasers
(1997) characterisation of a politics of redistribution, whereas her reections on
lived bodies is more compatible with a politics of recognition. Her arguments
also echo Bondi and Roses (2003) observations about a theory/policy divide. For
Young, an emphasis on lived bodies is likely to result in a focus on the pluralities
of womens experiences of, and responses to homelessness, while gendered
analysis will engage more centrally with social structures and the ways they
produce inequalities. In other words, for Young, an analysis that emphasises social
structure, gender and policy is distinct from one that emphasises lived bodies,
subjectivity and theory. Although questions of redistribution and recognition are
relevant to both, recent feminist engagements with subjectivity have tended to
emphasise issues of recognition, while policy orientated analysis that emphasises
a structural analysis has engaged more readily with issues of redistribution.
Youngs (2002) examination does not, however, acknowledge the complications
that a politics of scale might yield. Smiths (1993) argument is that the contexts within
which lived bodies nd themselves are profoundly affected by boundaries that are
politically constructed (and contested) (see also Marston, 2002). More explicit
attention to scale may hold important clues for how the apparent similarities and
dissimilarities between livedbodies are constructed(andthus might be rearranged).
For example, Passaro (1996) contrasts the situations (lived bodies) of men who are
on the streets of New York City and women with children in suburban emergency
shelters. Yet, from the perspective of a structural analysis, their experiences stem
largely fromsimilar forces, having to do with economic restructuring, gentrication,
and ultimately, marginalisation. As understood by Young, [m]arginals are people
the systemof [paid] labor cannot or will not use . . . (Young, 1990, p. 53). The different
situations of male and female marginals reect primarily their differing associations
with children. North American society is still somewhat less tolerant of children
sleeping on the streets (as opposed to unstable and substandard housing, hidden
from view), than it is of single (especially black) men doing so. As a result, public
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policy distinctions of where different sorts of homelessness should be located are
affected; Moshers (2002) analysis of the parallels between the shrinkage of private
spaces for mothers on welfare andof public spaces for street youthin Ontario clearly
illustrates the difference between such a structural analysis and one that relies too
heavily on visible differences.
Conceptualising scale as a productive quality in the construction of difference
and similarity of womens and mens homelessness offers interesting conceptual
possibilities that encompass the insights of both lived bodies and gendered
perspectives. I am not claiming that both must be equally incorporated into any
one examination, but rather that there are dangers in fully neglecting one or the
other. Homeless women who may, at rst glance, powerfully illustrate the power
of public/private dichotomies to establish the terrain of womens subservient
status, also need to be recognised as diverse actors, with distinct trajectories that
led to their homelessness. The voices of homeless women who express their relief
at having escaped the violence and abuse of their family homes and who nd
increased autonomy and privacy in shelters and hostels do need to be
acknowledged (Tomas & Dittmar, 1995; Wardhaugh, 1999). And, while gendered
axes of power operate in and through space-time, so too do acts of individual and
collective resistance. Theoretical tools that capture the dynamic nature of these
movements and counter-movements are required and this means an appreciation
of the politics of scale in conjunction with investigations of lived bodies and
structures.
Placing Canadian Contributions
It is quite insightful to consider the ideas explored aboveabout gender and lived
bodies, policy and theory, recognition and redistribution, and the politics of
scalein the light of an examination of the small body of extant feminist Canadian
writing on place, gender and homelessness. This material might be sorted into
three somewhat distinct groups: (1) policy orientated documents and papers;
(2) academic papers that explore the lived bodies of particular groups of homeless
women; and (3) papers that implicitly or explicitly recognise scale as having
explanatory potential.
In examining this material, it is imperative to begin with an appreciation of its
pioneering efforts. Writing about gender and homelessness is quite recent in
Canada. One of the rst examples of a place-based analysis was Farges 1989 paper,
reporting on participant observation research with women in four Toronto hostels
for single homeless women. Her conclusions addressed a policy community that
regardedwomens homelessness as voluntary, using a theoretical framework that
emphasised womens roles in the sexual division of labour. Sylvia Novac used a
somewhat similar conceptual framework to present a series of compelling
arguments about the serious problemof womens homelessness (Novac et al., 1996,
1999, 2002). Novacs contributions have been particularly signicant in alerting the
Canadian policy community to the signicant nature of the problem and its
racialised, class- and age-specic dimensions. Sever (2002) also compiled and
organised a variety of primary and secondary research materials to highlight the
structural links between domestic violence and womens homelessness, and to
argue for the signicance of secure housing for women. Redistribution and policy
insights have also been of interest to Glasser et al. (1999) who, after comparing the
results of two recent censuses of homeless people in Quebec City and Hartford,
374 F. Klodawsky
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Connecticut, made inferences about differences in urban and social policies in
Canada and the United States.
A second group of research articles qualitatively explored the interactions
between women residents and the specialised housing situations they inhabited.
For Beaman-Hall and Nason-Clark (1997), the focus was on the relationships
between transition house service providers, the clergy and womens groups in
Atlantic Canada, with regard to the issue of family violence. Transition housing
for battered women, this time in a large Canadian city, was also the site of Krane
and Davies (2002) analysis of attitudes towards mothering in shelter practice
with battered women. Bridgmans (2002) examination focused on the impacts of
an innovative shelter for chronically homeless women in Toronto. She emphasised
the signicance of ethnographic research in evaluating design from the
perspective of marginalised users.
In only a few Canadian cases, however, have gender, place and space been
interrogated as elements that are deeply implicated in the construction of both
gender and homelessness. A pioneer in promoting this approach has been Gerda
Wekerle (1997, 1994), whose examinations of womens housing disadvantage and
womens motivations for establishing alternative housing developments have
been set within a political economy frame of reference that linked gender, welfare
state restructuring and housing needs and resources. Jeff Sommers (1998)
discourse analysis of the changing construction of masculinities associated with
Vancouvers Downtown Eastside examined the ways in which particular spaces
and bodies constructed one another and how this changed over time in
conjunction with changing socio-economic and political contexts. Benoit et al.s
(2003) geographic location was also the Downtown Eastside, but they focused
specically upon the needs of Aboriginal women living there. As well as
providing important contextual information about the signicant presence of
aboriginal women in this extremely disadvantaged Vancouver neighbourhood,
they assessed the extent to which existing health clinics, including those run by
the Vancouver Native Health Society, adequately addressed these womens needs.
This articles most noteworthy element was its efforts to give voice to a particular
group of Aboriginal women, while remaining attuned to the structural factors that
had placed them and maintained their marginalisation in the Downtown Eastside.
Although the key analytical focus of Knowles (2000a, b) writing is not gender, it
remains exemplary in the seamless way that it captures the impacts on the bodies
of the madex-psychiatric patients in the City of Montrealof numerous stages
of downloading, privatisation and marketisation of long-term care, and how those
bodies cope with the resulting patchwork of services. She explained that:
Those who live in shelters, in rooming houses, and on the street and
who graze from food banks, soup kitchens and day centres generate
(a version of) the city, not as overlapping zones of occupation but as a
series of nodal points connected by the movement of people between
them . . . Lives are not lived in place but in the threading together of places as
sequential scenes in their trajectories. It is in the activities of lives and bodies
connecting places that the grammar of space is written, congured
through the agency of lives. Lives are best framed and understood as
multiple journeys from place to place and not as the processes occurring
in one particular place. Time and space intersect each other and give each
other form and substance. (Knowles, 2000b, pp. 216217)
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Knowles researchistheresult of herobservationsandinterviewswith60ex-psychiatric
patients, two-thirds of whom were men. In Bedlam on the Streets, she explains her
difculty in nding women and getting into what were specically womens shelters
(Knowles, 2000a, p. 15), but her autobiographical sketches of two women capture the
ways in which motherhood and sexual abuse gured in their lives. Invisibility again
becomes a barrier to Knowles ability to access their lives equally to those of men.
Knowles lack of success in accessing women in womens shelters raises two
additional issues that will not be adequately explored in this paper, but that
certainly need to be acknowledged. The rst is the relationship between the
researchers and the researched in an area where power and other differentials are
all too evident and where the rewards of encounters are likely to be much more
signicant for the researcher than the researched. It is possible that womens
shelter gatekeepers had such an evaluation in mind when they decided not to
enable Knowles access to women shelter residents. Efforts that acknowledge and
incorporate these power differentials into their research are also examples of
efforts to combine understandings of lived bodies and gender in analysis.
A second and closely related issue is the role of feminist service providers in
helping to differentiate or homogenise the category homeless women. Exploring
howthey, too, have a role to play in acknowledging homeless womens diversity is
an important question for future research.
Cumulatively, the Canadian contributions itemised above mean that the base of
relevant knowledge at the beginning of the twenty-rst century is far greater than
it was in 1990. On the policy front, Novac especially has highlighted links between
violence, poverty, economic restructuring, racism, sexism and womens home-
lessness. Certainly, she has drawn extensively from feminist analysis and has
presented a compelling case for greater attention to gendered homelessness.
Without her efforts, it is likely that federal funding would not have been
forthcoming to support a session on Women and Homelessness at the
International Geographical Unions Gender and Geography Commission Work-
shopPlacing Gender/Making Policythe genesis of this collection of essays.
Yet, the limitations of policy-relevant writing in response to contractual funding
has restricted the extent to which theoretical advances are possible. Academic
writing in the eld also needs to be regarded as quite preliminary. New insights
have been conveyedbetween faith communities, womens violence and
homelessness, or between shelter design and quality of life and/or welfare state
restructuringbut equally, these insights highlight the enormity of what remains
to be considered, both theoretically and practically.
Geographers have begun the task of exploring what an appreciation of scale
might add to examinations of gendered homelessness. Wekerle (1997) Sommers
(1998), Benoit et al. (2003) and Knowles (2000a, b) are approaches that acknowledge
the multiscalar nature of cultural, social, political and economic factors that
produce andshape genderedhomelessness. The articles that followalso contribute
to these efforts. Interestingly, despite my efforts to capture experiences across
Canada, all the authors included here draw upon empirical research in Ontario.
Evidence from a recent Statistics Canada Census of Collective Dwellings (2002),
coupledwithknowledge of ashift inpolitical regime inOntario, provide some basis
for appreciating why this might be so. In 1995, provincial Ontario electors brought
to power a political party intent on reinventing government, especially with
regard to social security matters. Among its rst actions was a 21.6% reduction in
welfare rates for all recipients. Another was the immediate cessation of any new
376 F. Klodawsky
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social (non-prot) housing (Ralph et al., 1997). Coupled with previous cutbacks in
the area of social housing at the federal level, visible homelessness grew
enormously in the 1990s, especially in Ontario. In 2001, the number of residents in
emergency shelters for persons lacking a xed address, other shelters and lodging
and rooming with assistance services was far greater in Ontario than in any other
province6100 compared to 3365 in Quebec and 1085 in British Columbia.
Similarly, residents in service collective dwellings includ[ing] hotels, motels and
tourist homes, lodging and rooming houses, school residences and YM/YWCAs
exhibited a similar pattern: 20,440 in Ontario compared to 11,760 in Quebec and
7740 in British Columbia (Statistics Canada, 2002, p. 5).
Despite their concentration within one province, the essays that follow do draw
on very diverse voices and circumstances. Indeed, the extent of these differences
within one (socially constructed) jurisdiction is testament to the need to
thoroughly and continuously challenge popular understandings and images of
homeless women, who are not only bag ladies with shopping carts or single
mothers living in emergency hotels or panhandling teenagers. Rather, as Leilas
reections on the opening page suggest, their diversity is almost as extensive as
that of housed women with whom they share overlapping characteristics. The
tendency to accentuate a divide between being housed and being homeless and to
naturalise that division is most fundamentally what is at stake for critical feminist
geographies. It is the hope that the articles that followby Whitzman, Klodawsky,
Aubry and Farrell, and Chouinardare seen as contributing to that contestation.
Respectively, women outside metropolitan locations, diverse male and female
youth in Ottawa, and women with disabilities affected adversely by changes in
provincial public policies, are the subjects of the three articles. In each case, bodies,
urban space, the politics of scale and difference are incorporated, albeit to a lesser or
greater extent. Whitzman contributes a nuanced and empathetic portrayal of the
impacts of homelessness on the bodies, voices and health of women living outside a
metropolitan area. She exposes the challenges faced by homeless women who have
seldomif ever beenheardfrom, throughher interviews withwomeninthree Ontario
communities: Oshawa, Kingston and Haliburton. She interrogates insightfully how
location acts to compound other disadvantages, such as disability, lack of education
and poverty. At the same time, Whitzman examines the policy barriers to integrated
healthservice solutions that result froma locationoutside of the metropolitan. Based
on research in Ottawa, Klodawsky, Aubry and Farrells article explores a gap
betweensenior government employabilitypolicies gearedtomarginalisedyouth, the
interests andgoals of suchyouthandthe role of local helpingagencies, oftencaught
between these two sets of pressures. Incorporating a feminist ethics of care lens, the
article raises questions about the effectiveness of workfare driven policies for
disadvantaged youth and queries the lack of senior government recognition of the
signicance of appropriately located, mult-faceted social services. Vera Chouinards
reections are pitched more broadly and consider the myriad connections between
housed and homeless women and the ways in which advantage and disadvantage
are dialectically intertwined. Her empirical focus is women with disabilities who are
in need of provincial income assistance in Ontario. As in the previous articles, the
impacts of neoliberalisation are documented, but rather than examining their
manifestation in a particular locale, Chouinard unpacks the governmental processes
that exacerbate the gaps between the afuent and the marginalised. None of these
cases is about women who are visibly homeless. Rather, the gendered lenses utilised
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by the authors contribute new insights into the socio-spatial manifestations of
marginalisation in relation to home and homelessness.
Conclusions
Wherever there is illusion, the optical and the visual world plays an
integral and integrative, active and passive, part of it. It fetishises
abstraction and imposes it as the norm. It detaches the pure form from its
impure contentfrom lived time, everyday time and from bodies with
their opacity and solidity, their warmth, their life and their death. After
its fashion, the image kills. In this it is like all signs. Occasionally . . . the
artists tenderness or cruelty transgresses the limits of the image.
Something else altogether may then emerge, a truth and reality
answering to criteria quite different from those of exactitude, clarity,
readability and plasticity (Lefebrve, 1991, p. 97).
In his discussion of Social Space, Lefebrve (1991) particularly emphasises the
dangers of relyingonthe visual. Inthis essay, too, the falsityof the visual inthinking
about genderedhomelessness has been at the core. The seeming predominance of a
certain type of imagethat of a passive male panhandlerhas reinforced many
womens perceived interest in hiding or rejecting mainstream notions of their own
situations of homelessness. Feminist geographers with an interest in this eld need
to reject this image but much more is required. One question for research is to ask
why so muchhas occurred(or not occurred) onthe basis of this image while so little
has taken place on the basis of research that rejects its veracity. Another is to
incorporate both an appreciation for the multidimensional, multiscalar nature of
the meaning of home, to recognise that houselessness is not the same as
homelessness, and that the latter signals a more existentially complicated set of
needs andissues. There also is the needto problematise the ways that being housed
has been naturalised while being homeless has either been rendered invisible or
categorised as other. Finally, I would urge feminist geographers not only explore
the theoretical nuances of the relationships under investigation but also to develop
their policy and practice implications. An infusion of sophisticated gendered
analysis about diversity into a policy arena such as homelessness is desperately
needed, and it is hoped that this collection of essays will help to generate materials
that contribute to such a project.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Valerie Preston for the collaboration that was the inspiration for this
project. Thanks also to Susan Farrell, Sheela Subramanian, Carolyn Whitzman,
Janet Siltanen, members of the Carleton University Centre for Labour and
Community Studies and the three anonymous referees for their very useful
comments on an earlier draft of this article.
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Paisajes en los margines: genero y la falta de vivienda
Resumen E
ste art culo introductoria examina el tema de genero y la falta de

vivienda y pregunta porque hay pocos escritos feministas academicas que toca
este tema. El art culo empieza con relacio n a una novela feministaThe Longings
of Women por Marge Piercyque trata el tema. La invisibilidad del personaje sin
380 F. Klodawsky
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hogar en el libro se utiliza como una manera de introducir algunas distinciones
entre la falta de vivienda de mujeres y hombres. Mas generalmente, el art culo
tiene dos objetivos. El primer es examinar lo que feminista y otros geo grafos
cr ticos han dicho conceptualmente y emp ricamente sobre genero y la falta de
viviendo, no solo en Canada sino en otros contextos Occidentales. El segundo
involucra destacar la naturaleza problematica de un enfoque extensivo en la
visibilidad en relacio n a genero y la falta de viviendo, y ofrecer una lectura
alternativa que viene de examinando las relaciones de cuerpos y espacio urbano
conjuntamente con una discusio n sobre las pol ticas de espacio y diferencia. En
general, esta compilacio n de ensayos es una tentativa para enfatizar que la
naturaleza de genero y la falta de vivienda en Ontario, Canada son a menudo
escondidos y variables, y ademas para argumentar que este tema vale la pena de
tender mas atencion por geo grafas feministas.
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At the Intersection of Invisibilities: Canadian women,
homelessness and health outside the big city
CAROLYN WHITZMAN
Urban Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning, University of Melbourne,
Australia
Abstract This article explores the concept of invisibility in relation to women,
homelessness and health in Ontario, Canada. While popular images of homelessness
continue to focus on older men with mental illness and/or addictions issues, the proportion
of women without secure, affordable shelter continues to rise. The stereotypes of
homelessness also have a spatial component, with the incorrect assumption that housing
affordability crises are concentrated in the centres of large cities. There is a third aspect to
invisibility: the tendency of the traditional medical model of health care to ignore the
interrelated physical and emotional impacts of stress among women who make up the
majority of the hidden homeless. While an increasing number of women are facing loss of
their accommodation in suburban, small city and rural settings, this social policy issue
remains largely invisible outside the realm of local services struggling to meet womens
needs. Interviews with women facing homelessness in Haliburton, Kingston and Oshawa,
a rural area, small town and outer suburb, illustrate both experiences of invisibility and
possibilities of integrated health services combating this personal and societal invisibility.
Introduction
This article is an exercise in making the invisible visible (Sandercock, 1998).
Invisibility has not received the comprehensive analytical attention it deserves in
spatial literature. However, invisibility is a common reference point, especially in
feminist and post-modern literature on space and place. For instance, Sandercock
(1998) refers to the historical and contemporary invisibility of racialised groups,
women and other subject peoples as well as the invisibility of radical ideas in her
introduction to insurgent planning historiographies. Sibley (1995) also refers to
exclusionary practices that have resulted in the invisibility of ideas and people, in
both the past and present. Power is expressed by the monopolisation of space,
both in the literal sense and in the world of policy discourse (Sibley, 1995). The
notion that the lives of poor women are invisible to policy makers has been
expressed in the feminist literature since the early 1980s. Hays, who writes about
invisibility and inclusion in her book on low-income US women, emphasises that
Correspondence: Carolyn Whitzman PhD, Senior Lecturer, Urban Planning, Faculty of
Architecture, Building, and Planning, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
E-mail: whitzman@unimelb.edu.au
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 383399, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808502
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the women she spoke to told their stories . . . with the hope that they would be
recognized not simply as a composite of cliches, but as whole persons . . . citizens
and social members (2003, p. 139). What these references to invisibility have in
common is a set of multiple meanings embodied in the term. Individual peoples
interior lives, their reasons for being at a particular place in their lives can be made
invisible, misrepresented or simply not cared about (for example, the welfare
queen stereotype promulgated in the United States in the 1990s). Groups of
people can be made invisible in both the spatial sense (visibly homeless people
excluded from using public space) and in the policy sense (hidden homelessness
not counted in statistics).
Although feminists have been providing a gendered perspective on housing
and homelessness in English-speaking developed nations since the mid-1980s
(McClain & Doyle, 1984; Watson with Austerberry, 1986), popular conceptions of
homelessness in these nations still focus on the visibly homeless, those who stay
in emergency hostels and shelters and those who sleep rough in places considered
unt for human habitation (Novac, 2001, p. 3). Less visible to public scrutiny and
policy initiatives are women and men who face hidden homelessness, those
who are temporarily staying with friends or family . . . and those living in
households where they are subject to family conict or violence, or who are at risk
of homelessness because they are paying so much of their income for housing that
they cannot afford the other necessities of life such as food; those who are at-risk of
eviction; and those living in illegal or physically unsafe buildings, or overcrowded
households (Novac, 2001, p. 3). While men are more likely to be visibly homeless,
sleeping rough or in shelters, womens homelessness is largely hidden from
public view (Novac, 2001, p. 3; see others in this issue).
Asecond dimension to the invisibility of women and homelessness is the focus
on visible homelessness in the centres of large cities. As Cloke, Milbourne and
Widdoweld have pointed out in the British context, the spatiality of homeless
people is entirely encompassed by city limits (2000a, p. 716). Soup kitchens, drop-
ins, shelters for homeless people and other visible symbols of homelessness are
concentrated in downtown areas of larger cities. Suburbs, small towns and rural
areas share an idealised image of old-fashioned communities, puried space
free from the lack of social cohesion and control that is assumed by some
conservative commentators to breed homelessness (Cloke et al., 2000b, p. 715; see
also Sibley, 1995). In Canada, a growing research focus on housing affordability,
spending over 30% of pre-tax income (or in a more extreme measure, spending
over 50% of pre-tax income) as an indicator of changes in the risk of homelessness
(Moore & Skaburkis, 2004, p. 397; emphasis in original) has only recently shifted
attention to stressed households living in suburban and ex-urban locations
(Bunting et al., 2004). While there is a higher number of single-person households
facing affordability stress in inner cities, single-parent households are spread
more evenly across metropolitan areas. Local and senior government policy
responses have not yet caught up with this demographic reality, leading to a
mismatch between where housing affordability stress is produced and where
services for the homeless and those at risk of homelessness are consumed
(Bunting et al., 2004).
A third dimension, and a focus for exploration in this article, is the invisibility of
the landscapes of despair (Dear & Wolch, 1987) within women who are homeless
and at risk of homelessness. A recent literature review by the US National
Organisation for Women concludes that the primary cause of homelessness
384 C. Whitzman
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among women in developed nations continues to be inadequate affordable
housing and insufcient income, a situation which is often set into motion by
physical abuse by a male partner (NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund,
2002). The World Health Organisation (WHO)s landmark report on violence and
health (Krug et al., 2002) cites national and cross-cultural studies that showpartner
violence has huge impacts on physical, reproductive and mental health, as well as
economic impacts such as lessened ability to stay in paid employment and lower
personal incomes. Given the links between domestic and sexual violence, poverty
and homelessness, it is hardly surprising that impoverished women often speak of
extreme physical and mental stresses associated with keeping their lives and their
families lives together. Recent Canadian and international policy approaches use
WHOs integrated, holistic and values-based denition of health, going beyond
the absence of illness to describe a state of physical, mental, spiritual and social
wellbeing (Shah & Hodge, 1997; Burke, 2000; Thurston & OConnor, 2002). While
more affordable housing and better income and social supports are central to
solutions of homelessness, the health care system plays an important role in
preventing homelessness and in assisting women who are episodically homeless.
As bell hooks says: you cant effectively resist domination when you are all
messed up (1990, p. 218).
Methods
This article aims to combine the policy-based and empirical work undertaken for a
studyinthe province of Ontario, Canada, withinsights gainedfrompost-structural
theoretical literature, particularly from feminist geography, in order to illuminate
the relationships between gender, health, homelessness, services and space. It
draws upon research conducted for an Ontario Womens Health Council [OWHC]
report on integrated health services for women who are homeless or at risk of
homelessness (Inner City Health Research Unit, St Michaels Hospital and Oriole
Research and Design, 2004). The client organisation was established in 1998 to
advise the Minister of Health and Long TermCare; . . . advocate for improvements
to womens health care in Ontario; promote, inuence, and disseminate research
into womens health issues; and to reach out and empower women across the
province to make informed decisions that will contribute to improvements in their
health.
1
In consultations with health care providers across the province in 20001,
the OWHC heard that poverty was a key determinant of womens health. The
OWHC commissioned a research study on the health issues of women who are
homeless and at risk of homelessness (OWHC, 2002a) and also held a 1-day think
tank with health care workers in November 2001 (OWHC, 2002b). At the think
tank, the importance of providing integrated health care for women who are
homeless or at risk of homelessness was a major theme.
While the initial terms of reference requested only a North American literature
review and survey of health services across the province, the research team, of
which I was a member, decided to organise four focus groups with female clients of
healthservices, to elicit their opinions onquality of current healthcare andideas for
improvement. The locations for the focus groups were selected with the aim of
speaking with a range of women across the province, and were organised in
partnership with agencies serving low income women. One focus group was held
at the Parkdale Activity and Recreation Centre, a drop-in centre for homeless
people in west downtown Toronto with an on-site health clinic. Toronto, with
Canadian Women, Homelessness and Health 385
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a population of 2.5 million people in the city proper and a further 2.5 million in its
metropolitan area, is the largest city in Ontario and in Canada. A second focus
groupwas heldina communityhealthcentre inOshawa, a suburbof Torontowitha
population of 150,000, 50 km east of downtown. An industrial city that until
recently would have been considered a separate entity, it now publicises
itself as commanding the eastern end of the Greater Toronto area (City of Oshawa
2003, p. 1). The third focus group was held at a street health clinic specialising in
services for substance abusers and/or people with mental health issues in
Kingston, a medium-sized city of a little under 100,000 people, 250 km east of
Toronto. Kingston is a historic university town, with an economy that is largely
tourism-dependent. It is also the locationof several prisons. The fourth focus group
was at a family services centre in Haliburton, a small town of 5000 people 250 km
due north of Toronto. Haliburton, adjacent to Canadas most popular outdoor
recreationarea, AlgonquinPark, is heavilydependent oncottage country tourism.
The 40 participants in the OWHC focus groups ranged in age from teenagers to
women in their late 60s. The women were also varied in their marital and family
status, ethnic backgrounds and physical and mental health histories. Many of the
women in the Haliburton, Kingston and Oshawa groups had custody of
dependent children, although several had lost custody at some point due to
housing crises. Several of the women in the Kingston and Parkdale groups spoke
of currently not having custody of dependent children. All the women had direct
experience of homelessness or being at-risk of homelessness. Their experiences
ranged from living on the street, to extended periods without secure private
accommodation, to one woman who still owned the marital home, but was at
imminent risk of losing it. Because of the small sample size, I was unable to break
down responses by self-identied ethnicity and family status, but multiple
burdens (e.g. low income combined with care of a mentally ill dependent) were
referred to in the focus groups. In the sections below, I focus on the words of
women in the three focus groups outside central Toronto to describe their own
experiences of invisibility, and strategies for obtaining health services within these
interlocking structures of invisibility.
Homelessness Inside and Outside the Big City
Homelessness is a growing crisis around the world, although the absence of
systemic and comparable data makes quantication difcult. Demand for
emergency shelter beds and other stop-gap services such as food banks is
growing, even as the number of these services increases. However, a state of denial
over the existence of homelessness and absolute poverty outside the centres of
large cities continues to be fed by politicians and developers (for UK and US
examples, see Cloke, 1997). In 1991, Tom Albrecht, the head of the London
(Ontario) Development Institute, told the Commission on Planning Reform in
Ontario to forego Toronto solutions such as a requirement to make 25% of all new
housing developments affordable to low and moderate income households, as
affordability is not an issue in London (New Planning News, 1991). Ten years later,
the City of London, Ontario, with a total population of 300,000, was serving 4000
people per year in its shelters and had demand sufcient for over 2000 more beds
(City of London, 2001). In 1997, the successful candidate for mayor of the newly
amalgamated City of Toronto said that there are no homeless people in North
York, the suburb he had governed for 20 years. That same night, the body of Linda
386 C. Whitzman
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Houston was found in the washroom of a North York gas station, where she had
sought shelter from the cold (Toronto Star, 12 October and 7 December 1997).
Homeless women are of every age and socio-economic background, but there
are certain risk factors within the broad gender category of women. Gender,
racialisation, ethnicity, physical ability, life cycle stage, sexual orientation and
access to income form interlocking structures of constraint that limit access to
social goods and choices for individual women (Young, 2002; see also Jacobs &
Fincher, 1998). For instance, the areas where housing affordability stress is
concentrated in the Toronto region correlate with high levels of new immigrants
and refugee claimants, above-average rates of unemployment, and a high
proportion of single-parent households. There are two wedge-like arcs of social
deprivation, which start in the east part of downtown and the northwestern inner
suburbs and radiate outwards (Bourne, 2000). In Canada, census areas with a high
proportion of Aboriginal people also tend to have high levels of housing
affordability stress (Moore & Skaburkis, 2004). Almost three-quarters of
Aboriginal single mothers live below the poverty line in Canada (OWHC,
2002a), housing conditions on many reserves are overcrowded, unsanitary and
unhealthy (CERA, 2002), and Aboriginal women are more likely than other
women to be sleeping rough in the centres of big cities (Novac et al., 1999).
Newcomers to Canada, particularly refugee claimants, are at risk of homelessness,
and lack of credit and employment histories in Canada leads to difculties in
accessing private rental accommodation (CERA, 2002; Access Alliance, 2003).
Visible minority women are nearly twice as likely as non-visible minority women
to live below the poverty line, and racial discrimination restricts access to housing
(CERA, 2002; see also Informal Housing Research Network, 2003). Over two-
thirds of women with disabilities or chronic health problems live below the
poverty line (Chouinard, 1999). Young women form an increasing cohort of the
visibly homeless, with almost a quarter of shelter admissions in Toronto
comprising young people between the ages of 15 and 24 (CERA, 2002). As in the
case of recent immigrants, the lack of credit and employment histories is a barrier
to accessing rental housing (CERA 2002). Lesbians are over-represented among
homeless young women in Toronto, but there are no comparable data for Ontario
or Canada (Novac, 2001). The poverty rate for all single women, including
mothers with young children, almost triples after divorce or relationship break-
up, and many women who leave their spouses (including victims of wife assault)
move in with relatives or friends immediately after separation, which may be the
beginning of a spiral into long-term homelessness (Novac, 2001). Women over 60
years old are less likely than their male counterparts to own homes, and
approximately half live below the poverty line (CERA, 2002). Chronic or long-
term homeless women, those who have lived for more than a year in shelters or
other short-term accommodations tend to be older women, many of whom have
severe mental and physical health problems, often compounded by addictions
(Novac et al., 1999).
Women, Homelessness and Health: The internal landscape of despair
Homeless women in Canada are subject to nutritional deciencies, exposure to
pollutants and extreme temperatures, lack of access to basic services such as a
telephone, lack of money for basic hygiene products (toothbrushes, soap,
menstrual supplies, and so on), insufcient sleep and other by-products of
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extreme poverty and lack of stable housing. Because of these poor living
conditions, homeless women are subject to higher rates of almost every disease
and poor health condition, as compared to the general female population
(Ambrosio et al., 1992; Craft-Rosenberg et al., 2000; Farrell et al., 2000; Hwang, 2001;
Novac, 2001). A recent literature review on the risk of death among homeless
women in Toronto found that the mortality rate for homeless women under
45 years was about ve- to 30-fold higher than in the general population of housed
younger women (Cheung & Hwang, 2004).
Along with health issues common to both genders, homeless women are
canaries in the coal mine of gendered health concerns. Physical and sexual
violence is a common experience in the histories of homeless women, both as a
precipitator to homelessness and as a result. One Toronto study found three-
quarters of a sample of 84 single homeless women in Toronto had been physically
or sexually abused, usually by a male family member, prior to becoming homeless
(Novac, 2001). Almost half the women in a 1992 Toronto street health survey had
been physically assaulted in a 1-year period, with 21% reporting sexual assault
(Ambrosio et al., 1992). In addition, North American studies have found that
homeless women are at greater risk of abnormal pap smears, STDs, HIV/AIDS
and unwanted pregnancy than the general female population (Wenzel et al., 2001;
Ensign & Panke, 2002; Weinreb et al., 2002). Women who are assaulted by their
spouses often report the abuse beginning during pregnancy, which suggests that
the onset of pregnancy may be an instigator of abuse and subsequent
homelessness among women (Weinreb et al., 1995).
Unsurprisingly, given their greater risk for violence and poor physical health,
homeless women are at much greater risk than homeless men or women in the
general Canadian population for serious depression and other mental health
disorders (Mental Health Policy Research Group, 1997). In all four focus groups,
the difculties of meeting basic needs for shelter, food, clothing and transportation
led to a great deal of stress, depression, and anger, which in turn often resulted in
physical illness:
Getting any decent sleep is a big problem. You are always tired and cold.
You cant think and have no energy. (Kingston)
The injustice of it all makes you angryresults in ulcers, indigestion,
makes you crazy. You get panic attacks, headaches. You turn into an
emotional basket case. (Haliburton)
The worst is seeing things fall apart, getting to homelessness, and
thinking about being on the street. Before I became homeless, and I could
see it coming. It is like a roller-coaster of stress. (Oshawa)
Several women with dependent children were particularly affected by stress,
compounded by their insecure living situations and their dependence on others
for housing:
It is stressful to be a mom with kids in a shelter. No privacy and a lot of
unrealistic and unwanted interference on how to handle kids. Stressed
out moms and stressed out kids cause problems. (Kingston)
People you are staying with may want to take over how you are raising
your kids. (Haliburton)
388 C. Whitzman
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These quotes above suggest an internalised reprivatization discourse (Fraser,
1989). While some women were extremely aware of what external supports might
help them in their present untenable situation (particularly housing and income
supports), their day-to-day stresses were exacerbated by feelings of self-blaming.
This was especially true among two women who described wealthier and more
secure pasts, and who could not help wondering what they might have done to
change their current situation:
I didnt think I would lose what I had, what I had built up, and have to
start again with almost nothing. (Oshawa)
I feel it is my fault. I have to blame someone, who else is there to blame?
(Oshawa)
As Hays (2003) points out, the message that womens poverty is an outcome of
personal bad choices, a common trope in welfare rhetoric, has triumphed, not
only within the policy realm but within womens perceptions of their own lives.
Invisibility Within the Health Care System
There have been several recent North American studies that ask homeless women
about barriers and enablers in relation to health care access (Acosta & Toro, 2000;
Craft-Rosenberg et al., 2000; Hatton, 2001; Ensign & Panke, 2002; Kappel Ramji,
2002). One theme that emerges from these studies is that there are signicant
differences between homeless women and men in relation to comfort with
emergency housing provision. Homeless women, whether single or with children,
prefer strongly to avoid shelters, including shelters for abused women. This is
because of legitimate concerns for their safety, and also because they wish to avoid
the stigma and disruption caused by leaving their immediate environs, especially
if they have children in school (Hatton, 2001). Several women in the Haliburton,
Kingston and Oshawa groups spoke of hiding their homeless status, partly
because coming out as living in insecure accommodations would be harmful to
their children:
You want to protect your kids from being stigmatised or teased at school.
(Haliburton)
If you have kids, there is the danger of [Childrens Aid Society]
involvement as soon as you get services from an agency. You can lose
your kids. When the crisis is over you are dropped from the CAS
caseload, but the record stays with you and can be used against you later
in custody issues, etc. (Kingston)
This dilemma echoes the ndings of other North American researchers, who have
found that women often stay in an abusive relationship or double up with family
and friends, rather than seeking refuge in a shelter, even if the shelter has access to
health, housing and legal services that are otherwise unavailable. The recognition
that womens homelessness is largely hidden has important implications for
access to health care services, and may provide one of the reasons why low-
income women with dependent children and fewer social supports are so much
less likely to utilise health care options than low-income men or higher-income
people (Acosta & Toro, 2001). Given the extremely limited options available,
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women may choose to avoid giving control to potentially intrusive and
insensitive health, judicial, welfare, and housing systems. For instance, several
women in the focus groups described the measures that they took (credit card
debt, appeals to welfare authorities) so that they could avoid moving from their
original home, even through that home was no longer affordable to them.
As the Ontario Womens Health Centre had already discovered, health services
are often scattered in agencies throughout rural Ontario (with attendant
transportation problems), and lengthy waiting lists for many services, such as
free dental care, alcohol and drug treatment. There is a shortage of doctors in
many rural and isolated areas, leading to closed patient lists. Simply not knowing
about a service is a common barrier in all settings (OWHC, 2002a). Another
Canadian study has found that physical access to appropriate services is
especially acute among small town, rural and isolated women, many of whom
lack access to transportation, do not have family or social networks to rely on, and
lack access to a telephone (Craft-Rosenberg et al., 2000). Several women in the
focus groups complained of how local medical clinics provide inconsistent,
incomplete and insensitive service:
The local clinic is staffed by residents, so it is never the same doctor. No
consistency. You have to repeat your health history each time you visit.
Id have to be pretty ill before I go. (Haliburton)
Not enough good family doctors. Where I used to live, my doctor was
three or four towns away. I used the walk-in clinics, where their whole
attitude is NEXT!. They dont have time to ask you any questions.
(Oshawa)
I was concerned about my underweight baby, and visited the local clinic.
They didnt show concern, but when I went to a Bobcaygeon doctor
[50 km south], he immediately referred me to a pediatrician in
Peterborough [another 50 km south]. (Haliburton)
There is never any help beyond the immediate crisis at [a local hospital].
(Oshawa)
Yet transportation costs to the big city are onerous:
I see a doctor in Toronto. Sometimes gas money comes out of food
money, housing budget, kids costs, or you beg from people you are
staying with. (Woman in Haliburton with complex physical and mental
health issues)
My son has diabetes, and I need to go to Oshawa [150 km south] for a
doctor who knows what he is doing. I went to the local clinic when my
son was having an episode, and they werent listening. Having money
for gas has been a problem. (Haliburton)
When my baby was born, she had to be in Sick Kids [Hospital in Toronto]
for about 5 months. We couldnt afford the parking there. We got a pass
for a couple of weeks from a nurse and that was it. We brought food, but
it wasnt enough, and the food around there is too expensive. (Oshawa)
In small towns and suburbs, overcrowded emergency rooms (a primary source
of health services for many homeless women) and lack of money for public transit
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fares (assuming that there is public transit) are common concerns for women
seeking access to health services (Ambrosio et al., 1992, Zabos & Trinh, 2001). One
older woman in our focus group spoke about how:
I got a lift to physio, but it took me two hours to walk home. (Oshawa)
Four low-income women in the focus groups who were not on government
benets said they could not afford medications or preventive services, the
benets trap described by a number of feminist researchers (Little, 2002, p. 110):
I cant afford money for cold medicine, so I miss work and then lose more
money. (Oshawa)
I dont have money to pay for prescriptions and food, rent and electricity,
so Ive stoppedmy [prescribedanti-depressant] medication. (Two women
in Oshawa)
No dental care and my teeth are rotting. (Several women in Oshawa)
I get no help with nutrition as a diabetic. (Oshawa)
As Canadian research has shown, some women refuse to see physicians because
of a past negative experience (Ontario Medical Association, 1996). Others report
that medical staff are judgemental and refuse to treat symptoms and health issues
adequately (Ambrosio et al., 1992, Zabos & Trinh, 2001, Ensign & Panke, 2002,
Kappel Ramji, 2002). This was echoed by two women in the focus groups:
When the public health nurse does her Healthy Baby visits, you are just a
number. They dont want to get to know you, there is no compassion, no
real help. (Haliburton)
The emergency room humiliated me when I brought in my son without a
health card. (Oshawa)
North American studies have shown that homeless women, particularly new
migrants and visible minority women accessing health services, report linguistic
barriers and cultural biases (Attala & Warmington, 1996; Kappel Ramji, 2002),
while some people with histories of disruptive behaviour are barred from services
(Ambrosio et al., 1992; Hatton, 2001; Novac, 2001; OWHC, 2002). A few women in
the focus groups described turning to alcohol or illegal drugs as a coping
mechanism, which in turn, increased health and housing stresses:
If I go to a shelter, Im worried that exposure to others will start me using
again. (Kingston)
If you even mention Street Health, agencies assume you are on drugs.
Hospitals think you are a junkie, and dismiss you. (Kingston)
Follow-up is difcult for homeless women, who may not be able to afford or
access tests, pay for prescriptions, follow special diets or store medication at the
correct temperatures. Medical follow-up is very difcult for women who live in
temporary accommodations and do not have access to a telephone or mailbox.
Frequent moves exacerbate the scattering of medical records, and the constant
necessity to repeat symptoms and keep track of previous treatment suggestions
(Hatton, 200; Hwang, 2001; Novac, 2001; Wenzel et al., 2001; OWHC, 2002a).
Homeless womens need for non-acute medical care is often balanced against
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more immediate needs, such as food and shelter, leading to chronic problems
being neglected until they become emergencies (Luck et al., 2002). Almost every
woman in the focus groups had a story of how she ignored ill health or medical
instructions, simply because there were other nancial or time priorities.
Finding a Way Out of Invisibility: Homeless womens experiences and ideas
on integrated services
One US summary of barriers to homeless women accessing services describes
three common themes: not knowing, runarounds and constantly starting over
again (Hatton, 2001; see also Jezewski, 1995). Given the frequent recurrence of
these themes in the literature, almost every report on health services for homeless
people stresses the importance of integrating health services in order to reduce
barriers to access and provide continuous and coordinated prevention-orientated
health services. However, there is no agreement about the meaning of the term
integrated. In my review of the literature, integration was dened in at least four
ways: (1) interagency coordination, (2) co-location of services, (3) case manage-
ment approaches and (4) holistic health.
Interagency coordination involves integrating service delivery among agencies
serving homeless people. Methods range from coalitions that exchange
information and undertake advocacy and/or needs assessments on issues of
common concern, to service delivery teams that coordinate services and may
undertake cross-training or develop interagency protocols and shared funding
mechanisms, to management information systems that may track clients
through shared record keeping, from intake assessment to patient records
(Randolph et al., 1997). Interagency coordination can occur in any geographic
setting, from the centres of large cities to rural areas.
Although interagency coordination has been a common recommendation of
recent policy reports, the most comprehensive evaluation of integrating health
services for homeless people suggests that it is not a magic bullet. From 1994 to
1998, the ACCESS project funded 18 centres in 15 US cities serving hard-to-house
men and women with severe mental illness to determine the effectiveness of
strengthening linkages between agencies providing psychiatric care, and those
that provided medical, substance abuse, housing and income support and
employment assistance to their clients (Randolph et al., 2002). There was no
signicant impact on the housing or health outcomes of the clients in intervention
sites, although the evaluation did nd that cities with more community social
capital, as measured by citizen involvement in organisations, projects, volunteer
work and interaction with neighbours, also had stronger network strength
(i.e. more effective coordination between agencies) and better housing outcomes
for homeless individuals. The citys housing affordability, as measured
by the proportion of households paying less than 30% of their income on
housing, was also signicantly correlated with positive housing outcomes
(Rosenheck et al., 2001). The ACCESS evaluation suggests that a focus on agencies
formal linkages and policies may be less effective than a broader and possibly
more diffuse community development approach. None of the women in the focus
group specically addressed interagency collaboration.
Co-location, also known as the service hub concept, concentrates on the
geographic co-location of services for homeless people (Dear et al., 1994).
Community economic development workshops andother employment generating
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activities can be located next to or as part of a battered womens shelter or agency
serving homeless people. Hospitals can have social services nearby, while shelters
can have visits frommobile health units. Service hubs can be provided in suburban
andsmall townlocations as well as the centres of larger cities. Inrural areas, the aim
might be virtual co-location through a telephone network of organisations.
There was certainly some unprompted support for the service hub concept by
women in the focus groups, either in one location or in the form of mobile health
units:
Provide one-stopshopping: a combinationof health andsocial services all
inone building. OW[Ontario Works, i.e. government income support and
benets], food, clothing, health care all together. This would avoid the
stigma of having to access the services individually. You could walk in the
door and no one seeing you would knowwhat service you were there for.
It wouldcut downongas costs, andwouldbe easier withkids. This type of
facility would need to be available in different towns. (Haliburton)
A mobile health and outreach service for street youth and others who are
homeless, with primary health care, needle exchange, hygiene basics,
advice, info and referrals. (Kingston)
The need to integrate health services for children with help for parents was also
brought up by most of the focus group participants who were single mothers:
I wish there was counselling for kids at the same time as counselling for
parents. (Oshawa)
There needs to be more suicide prevention for teens. My daughter
needed to spend 3 months in a psychiatric hospital before she was
assigned a therapist. (Oshawa)
The CMHA [Canadian Mental Health Association] is going to help nd
housing for my son with schizophrenia, and then I can nd housing for
myself. I had to leave a lot of messages over a couple of weeks, though,
before they called back. (Oshawa)
At-home help for single moms; help them out with their kids, help them
to keep their kids. Help keep them from getting evicted. Provide a
caregiving service, to allow moms some time to take care of themselves.
(Kingston)
In the case management approach, the emphasis is on the individual homeless
person, where integrated services are facilitated by an individual case worker,
such as a social worker, a primary care provider (a doctor or nurse who provides
regular health care to the person) or a team. Shelters for battered women routinely
use a case management approach, as do mental health services and drug
and alcohol addiction recovery centres (Attala & Warmington, 1996; Rosenheck
et al., 2002). For instance, a pregnant woman who has been battered by a spouse
might require assessment and treatment of physical and emotional injuries,
continuous prenatal care (including screening for injuries which might have
occurred to the fetus), referral to housing and legal services and income support
information (Weinreb et al., 1995). Case managers may help by providing referrals
to specic services or people, transit fares and detailed directions, advice on
behavioural risk reduction and informal counselling (Hatton, 2001). There may
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be condentiality and privacy issues related to the case management approach,
especially in smaller communities. Two women in the focus groups specically
mentioned being assisted by a case management approach:
Ive been here since the health centre started 7 years ago. My family
doctor moved here, and I followed her. My husband had just left, my
baby had severe chicken pox, and I was alone with my three kids. The
doctor came to my house. I was really depressed, but I didnt know about
depression. I got help and a prescription from the therapist here. The
therapist and the doctor consult together, with my permission. (Oshawa)
My child was taken in care by the CAS, and I had to attend a parenting
course here to get her back. Now we are attending couples counselling.
(Oshawa)
A fourth element to integration has been identied by homeless women
themselves: the importance of integrating womens physical, mental, emotional
and spiritual needs in a holistic health model (Kappel Ramji, 2002). Health
services are seen as one strand of a comprehensive web of services that can seek to
reverse the vicious circle of homelessness. For instance, women may become
homeless because of low income exacerbated by a marital breakdown, which in
turn may be related to violence in their past or present lives. Yet lack of decent,
stable, safe and affordable housing may lead to poor physical and emotional
health, which in turn may prove to be a barrier to actions that might improve
income prospects, such as employment or education. Obtaining housing may be
the rst step to better health prospects. North American research consistently
shows that the further along a woman is in the good housing continuum
(sheltered as opposed to unsheltered), the more likely she is to obtain adequate
and appropriate health care (Nyamathi et al., 2000; Lim et al., 2002). Alternatively,
adequate and appropriate health and other social supports provided on the streets
or in shelters can help women nd more long-term housing options. In contrast to
the three other approaches, which stress organisational structures, procedures
and locations, the notion of holistic health is based on respectful listening and
choices provided to individuals.
Women in the focus groups stressed the importance of better informational and
geographic links between services. However, their emphasis was on the quality of
care provided. While staff in several walk-in clinics, including the one in
Haliburton, were described as insensitive to womens needs and inconsistent in
their services, other health care services, including the Oshawa Community
Health Centre, were praised for their knowledgeable and empathetic staff:
I found out about [other services] through the health centre. They are
good at referring to other services. Even when I dont know what to ask
for, the health centre tells me about stuff. (Oshawa)
You can always call the health centre. When I was in spin-cycle stage,
I knew someone would call me back. (Oshawa)
In other words, the women found predictability, security, a sense of caring and
useful information at the Oshawa Community Health Centre, a nding that
echoes other studies of the community health care centre model in Canada and
Australia (Warin et al., 2000). The discussion on integrated health service tended to
reinforce this holistic and woman-centred model. A common theme in the focus
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groups was that services should respond to womens stated needs. Womens
Wellness, a weekly programme where the theme is chosen by the participants, was
praised by several Oshawa focus group members:
Womens Wellness made a huge difference to me. I felt it was okay to take
care of myself. I got another message from Welfare!
Flexibility, empathy, and the need for a harm reduction approach were stressed:
Show consideration, show empathy, give us choices, make it so we can
get ahead and out of this situation. (Haliburton)
Talk to the clients. Find out what they want and need. Dont assume to
know better or judge them if they dont want what you think is best.
Have respect for the clients. (Kingston)
Protect condentiality. Recognise a clients right to get help
anonymously. I dont always want to give my name. Sometimes I just
use my street name. (Kingston)
Women told stories of how their lives had been transformed through appropriate
health care, which they dened as responsive, empathic, continuous and holistic:
When my mother died in March, I was really depressed. I stayed at
[name deleted] in [small town], which is a residence for the mentally
challenged, but they let me stay for a while. They had 24-hour
counselling there, and it really helped. (Oshawa)
I was living on the street, and I was sick but I was afraid of doctors and
hospitals. I got sick and went to a shelter. They brought me to the hospital
where I was diagnosed with thyroid and diabetes. I ended up staying in
the [name deleted] for more than a year. Now Im living in a shared
house with a Christian family. They are very kind. (Oshawa)
It is worth noting that in both these cases, the rules were bent: in one case, a
woman was not eligible to stay in a residence, and in the other case the length of
tenure exceeded the regulations.
Conclusion: Locating invisibility and devising responses to it
As Kearns points out, home is commonly a site where people feel in place
(Kearns, 1991). If a secure home does not exist, or there is violence in the home,
then where are the sites that people can begin to feel in place? And what is
invisibility if not a condition of being not in place?
Women in the focus groups described struggling to survive within these
interstices of spatial and policy invisibility. Physical and mental health problems
resulted from the enormous stress of not having enough money to cover housing
and other costs. Focus on survival meant little time to take care of the self. Fear of
being stigmatised and of possibly losing child custody kept several focus group
women from revealing the extent of their housing problems. Weak public transit
infrastructure, social isolation and low-quality social services combined to create
further barriers to seeking help. Walk-in clinics and hospitals, often the sole
options outside the big city, were seen as emergency-focused and not providing
any continuity of care. Some health care professionals were described as acting
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as barriers to women nding the help they need, and there was little choice as to
health services in the suburban, small town and rural sites.
The possibilities of healing space (Bondi, 2003) are not limited to locations in
the big city. When speaking about integrated health services, a focus on whole
family and the whole individual woman was a common theme in the three focus
groups, along with a client-centred approach that stresses choices and respect, and
continuity of care. In other words, integration was sought within the individual
bodies of women and within households, rather than at the policy level of inter-
agency collaboration or service hubs. Community-based services, including
health services, can be a space of at least temporary safety for otherwise invisible
women: women who are marginalised, excluded, and isolated within the
dominant discourse of neoliberal abandonment of social supports (Staeheli, 2003).
The Oshawa Womens Health Centre served as a model for this kind of integrated
health services, where womens needs were heard and responded to, instead of
being met with standardised services and a call of next. It is difcult to
quantitatively measure the positive economic and social impacts of these good
services, how they can save lives and improve health outcomes. However, the
potential of integrated health services combating the individual and societal
invisibility of homeless women should not be underestimated.
Homelessness is an issue which cannot be contained within the boundaries of
the big city, just as health cannot be contained within the boundaries of
traditional medical services. At the edge of what is still a barely visible policy
issue, the experts reside in shelters, motel rooms, and trailers, on couches and in
sleeping bags. The question is how to tap into their considerable powers of
observation and survival, in order to provide the best services in all settings.
Acknowledgements
The Ontario Womens Health Council funded the research on which this article is
based. I would like to thank my research associates, Deborah Hierlihy, Alison
Hamilton and Stephen Hwang, for their help in formulating several ideas in this
article. I would also like to thank Liz Bondi, Linda Peake, Ruth Fincher, Fran
Klodawsky and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on preliminary
drafts.
Note
1. See the Ontario Womens Health Council website at www.womenshealthcouncil.on.ca
References
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Acosta, Olga &Toro, Paul (2000) Lets Ask the Homeless People Themselves: Aneeds assessment based
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Ambrosio, Eileen, Baker, Dilin, Crowe, Cathy & Hardill, Kathy (1992) The Street Health Report: A study of
the health status and barriers to health care of homeless women and men in the City of Toronto (Toronto, Street
Health).
Attala, Jan & Warmington, M. (1996) Clients Evaluation of Health Care Services in a Battered Womens
Shelter, Public Health Nursing, 13(4), pp. 269275.
Bondi, Liz (2003) Unlocking the Cage Door: Counseling, care and space, Social and Cultural Geography,
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En la interseccio n de invisibilidades: mujeres canadienses,
la falta de vivienda, y salud afuera de la ciudad grande
Resumen E
ste art culo explora el concepto de invisibilidad en relacion a

mujeres, la falta de vivienda y salud en Ontario, Canada. Mientras que
representaciones comu n de la falta de vivienda continu an enfocar a hombres con
enfermos mentales y/o problemas de adiccio n, las cifras de mujeres sin viviendas
seguras y asequibles se acentu an. Los estereotipos de gente sin hogares tambien
tienen un componente espacial, con la suposicio n equivocado que la crisis de la
falta de viviendas asequibles es concentrado en los centros de ciudades grandes.
Hay un tercer aspecto de la invisibilidad: la tendencia del modelo medico
tradicional de la asistencia sanitaria a no tomar en cuenta los entrelazados
impactos f sicos y emocionales de estres entre mujeres que constituyen la mayor a
de la gente escondida sin vivienda. Mientras que mujeres, en cifras cada vez
mayor, se enfrentan a la perdida de vivienda en los suburbios, ciudades pequen as,
y areas rurales, la cuestio n pol tica social queda principalmente invisible afuera
del terreno de servicios locales que luchan para cumplir las necesidades de
mujeres. Las entrevistas con mujeres que faltan viviendas en Haliburton (un area
rural), Kingston (un pueblito), y Oshawa (un suburbio), demuestran no solo las
experiencias de invisibilidad sino las posibilidades de integrar la asistencia de
salud para combatir esta invisibilidad personal y social.
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Onthe Dialectics of Differencing: Disabledwomen, the state
and housing issues
VERA CHOUINARD
School of Geography and Earth Sciences and Womens Studies, McMaster University, Hamilton,
Canada
Abstract In this article, I discuss how neoliberal state policies and practices and
processes of negative differencing have contributed to growing economic and housing
insecurity for citizens in need, in particular disabled women in need of provincial income
assistance in Ontario, Canada. I argue that their increasingly insecure relationships to
housing and home can be explained as outcomes of dialectical processes of differencing
through neoliberal regimes of state rule. A key advantage of this approach is that it
emphasises how growing economic and housing security for more afuent citizens is linked
causally to increasing insecurity and misery for others. I begin by discussing how diverse
relations to housing and home can be conceptualised as outcomes of dialectical processes of
differencing in advanced capitalist societies. Next, I illustrate this approach by discussing
how changes in state regulation of housing and income assistance programmes in the
province of Ontario have worked to advantage more afuent citizens at the expense of
disabled and other citizens in need. This is followed by a detailed analysis of regulatory
processes shaping how women receiving provincial income assistance are negatively
differenced and situated in relation to housing and home. Here I draw on interviews with
women receiving provincial income support through the ODSP (Ontario Disability
Support Programme).
Introduction
In this article, I discuss how neoliberal state policies and practices have
contributed to growing economic and housing insecurity for citizens in need, in
particular disabled women in need of provincial income assistance in Ontario,
Canada. I argue that their increasingly insecure relationships to housing and
home can be explained as outcomes of dialectical processes of differencing
through neoliberal regimes of state rule. A key advantage of this approach is its
emphasis on how growing economic and housing security for more afuent
citizens is causally linked to increasing insecurity and misery for others.
This approach is illustrated through an analysis of regulatory processes shaping
how women receiving provincial income assistance are negatively differenced
Correspondence: Dr Vera Chouinard, School of Geography and Earth Sciences and Womens
Studies, McMaster University, Hamilton L8S 4K1, Canada. E-mail: chouinar@mcmaster.ca
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 401417, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808528
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and situated in relation to housing and home. Here I draw on interviews with
women receiving provincial income support through the ODSP (Ontario
Disability Support Programme). As I show, these womens precarious
relationships to housing and home have been fundamentally shaped by their
relations with the neoliberal state and the dialectical processes of saming and
differencing which this involves.
Conceptualising the Dialectics of Differencing in Relations to Housing
and Home
As feminist scholars have helped to demonstrate (e.g. Young, 1990; Fincher &
Jacobs, 1998; Kobayashi & Peake, 2000), peoples relationships to housing, other
resources and places in advanced capitalist societies are fundamentally shaped by
dynamic processes which construct them as the same as some members of
society and fundamentally different from others. This dialectics of differencing
involves processes which are material, relational and representational or
ideological: the complex socio-spatial production of the lives and identities of
some members of society as the privileged positive same of marginalised
negative others. These are contradiction-laden processes in which privileges of
some members of society, such as increasing housing security, are linked to the
growing insecurity and misery of others (e.g. displacement of low income tenants
through gentrication). Processes of differencing also give rise to contradictions
between material realities of peoples lives and their consciousness of and
identication with how these place them in society and space. This is in part
because differencing involves emotionally laden processes in which people
are deeply invested in particular ways of understanding their places in the
world (see Boler & Zembylas, 2003). For example, as scholars such as Klodawsky
et al. (2002) have pointed out, marginalised groups such as the homeless tend to be
represented (and treated) as fundamentally, negatively different from the homed.
As the positive counterpart to the negatively differenced homeless, being homed
is associated with other positive attributes or ideals of citizenship in neoliberal
capitalism: being independent, responsible, productive and so on, while being
homeless is associated with the failure to embody a way of life consistent with
such normative ideals (e.g. dependent, unproductive). The results in differences
between marginalised and more privileged groups becoming exaggerated and
rendered more absolute.
These processes involve tensions between how relationships to housing are
lived, represented and identied with and how they are materially reproduced.
This has signicant consequences. First, it means that causal links between
growing housing security and wealth for some members of society and rising
homelessness and housing insecurity for others are more easily overlooked. After
all, the worlds of the securely and insecurely housed and homed are assumed to
be fundamentally distinct. Secondly, such tensions mean that, even as possibilities
of becoming homeless or in insecure housing situations grow, many of the homed
cling to notions that they are so positively different that they could never become
at risk of homelessness. And thirdly, such tensions contribute to contradiction-
laden processes of reproducing neoliberal capitalist citizens: encouraging
identication with being securely homed despite situating many in debt-ridden
relationships to corporate capital through owner-occupied housing and in
increasingly insecure relationships to rental housing. These help to ensure lifelong
402 V. Chouinard
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aspirations and struggles to be the productive citizens neoliberal capitalism
demandseven as phenomena such as growth in low-waged service work make
realising such ideals more problematic.
These dialectical processes of differencing are at work at geographic scales
ranging from the personal and local to the global, and manifest in the operations
of various social institutions. For the purposes of this article, I focus on the role of
the neoliberal state in reproducing conditions of access to housing, home and
rights of citizenship which privilege some while rendering others, such as many
disabled women, vulnerable to housing insecurity, homelessness and margin-
alisation in society and space. Housing insecurity and marginalisation in local
communities, in turn, become bases for perpetuating representations of disabled
women as negatively other than able, independent and productive citizens. The
state contributes to this process of negatively differencing disabled citizens
through, for example, delivering social assistance in ways that reinforce
experiences of marginality (e.g. frequent and harsh monitoring of income and
assets). For disabled women who must depend upon the state for income support,
such processes of disciplining dependency encourage struggles to maintain an
identity and appearance of being the same as other valued citizens. In what
follows, I illustrate how disabled people in general and disabled women in
particular in Ontario, Canada, have been caught up in dialectical processes of
differencing through their lived relations with the state that help to render their
relationships to housing precarious and insecure.
Differencing through the Neoliberal State: State regulation, disability and
relationships to housing and home
In Canada, and elsewhere, we have seen the rise of a capitalist state geared
increasingly to facilitating the movement of capital while residualising what
remains of the social programmes of the post-war Keynesian welfare state. Often
referred to as neoliberal forms of state restructuring, signalling renewed
commitment to laissez-faire visions of economic and social development in
which the market rules as the mechanism for redistributing social wealth, these
changes have involved fundamental shifts in state regulation of the lives of those
at the margins of society and space. These include a return to more punitive
assistance programmes, notably measures to restrict access to support and efforts
to establish workfare, both intended to curtail demands upon state resources and
to discipline individuals into the lowest paying sectors of the labour market (Peck,
2001). They also include a return to more residual, charitable notions of the states
obligations to assist people in need: drawing distinctions between the deserving
and undeserving poor based on whether or not an individual is deemed capable
of paid employment and demonstrates a commitment to nding and keeping paid
work. It is important to stress that these are tendential changes in how states rule:
the precise form which neoliberal states take are historically and geographically
specic (for further discussion see, for example, Chomsky, 1997; Evans & Werkele,
1997; Ralph et al., 1997; Bourdieu, 1998; Haque, 2000; Peck, 2001; Jessop, 2002).
An important aspect of these forms of state restructuring in Canada has been
the reform of income and other forms of state assistance to disabled citizens.
Particularly from the mid-1990s, federal and provincial levels of the state moved
to further restrict access to disability income and employment support notably
through administrative reforms of the Canada Pension Plan disability benet at
The Dialectics of Differencing 403
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the federal level (Torjman, 2002) and, in Ontario, through the establishment of the
Ontario Disability Support programme in 1998 (the counterpart to general welfare
through Ontario Works).
One consequence of tighter restrictions on eligibility for disability income
support has been that more disabled citizens in need have had to turn to general
social assistance programmesprogrammes being residualised in signicant
ways. In Ontario, where the Conservative government came to power in 1995 on a
platform that included battling supposedly rampant welfare fraud, this included
record cuts in social assistance rates (of 21.6%; Ralph et al., 1997). These combined
withinationfrom1995 onwards to result inrapiderosionof the purchasingpower
of social assistance payments. For example, from 1994 to 2003, single parents with
one child saw the real value of social assistance fall by 41.5% (from $18,103 in 1994
to $10,607 by 2003) (real income gures from National Council on Welfare, 2004,
table 4.1, percentages are authors calculations based on the same source).
Some changes in state regulation of the lives of both disabled people subsisting
on general welfare and those who managed to qualify for disability income
support were gendered in nature. Of particular note was the introduction, in 1995,
of a strict spouse in the house rule, which did away with the 3-year grace period
during which an individual could cohabit with another adult without the state
scrutinising their relationship to determine whether or not it was spousal in
nature and disqualied them for social assistance. While it is not known how
many disabled women were deemed ineligible for continued welfare or disability
assistance under the new rule, it is known that over 10,000 welfare recipients, 89%
of them women, were deemed ineligible just 6 months after the introduction of the
rule (Little & Morrison, 1999, p. 123). While this rule was constitutionally
challenged and ruled by the Court of Appeal of Ontario to be overly broad in
capturing relationships which were not marriage-like, some of the interviews
conducted for the present study indicate that state staff continued to apply the
rule in practice as late as 2002. Moreover, when the provincial government
abandoned its appeal of the courts ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada
(October 2004), the province brought in a revised denition of spouse for social
assistance purposes which arguably amounts to the prior spouse in the house
rule (see Mosher & Hermer, 2005, pp. 2326).
Disabled women denied welfare or disability income assistance under this rule
face very difcult decisions. If they reapply for assistance as a couple many become
nancially dependent upon men (who are usually treated as the heads of
households and thus designated recipients of assistance cheques). The alternative is
toterminate the relationshipandreapplyas a single person(Little &Morrison, 1999).
Disabled women and men were caught up in these processes of state regulation
and differencing in contradictory ways. Those who secured provincial disability
benets were exempt from the deep cuts to assistance instituted in 1995 being
treated, at least in government discourse, as part of the deserving poor.
However, in practice, the state moved to limit disabled womens and mens ability
to survive on even disability income support. Income assistance levels were
frozen in 1993 and declined in real value from 1994 to 2005 (when the province
brought in modest increases in rates of 23%). In 1993, a single person receiving
disability income support received (in constant 2003 dollars) $13,748. By 2003, the
real value or purchasing power of provincial assistance for a single person
deemed disabled had declined to $11,466 or by 16.6% (National Council on
Welfare, 2004, table 4.1; percentages are authors calculations based on the same
404 V. Chouinard
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souce). For those people with illnesses and impairments who did not succeed
in qualifying as disabled for purposes of assistance, the struggle to maintain
shelter and to survive was an even more desperate one.
Developments on the housing front have been grim for disabled citizens
receiving social assistance and struggling to meet shelter needs and maintain a
home. In 1995, the Harris government announced that it was getting out of the
housing business and cancelled completion of 390 cooperative and non-prot
housing projects. Existing public housing units were to be privatised
and restrictions on the rents that private landlords could charge were eased
(Dare, 1997). In 1998 the provincial government removed rent controls on vacant
housing units. From1995 to 2003, the average rent in Ontario increased by 26%, an
increase which outpaced the 18% rise in Ontarios consumer price index
(Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, 2005). Critics argued that rapid increases in
rents resulted not only from deregulation of rents on vacant units but also a 1998
Tenant Protection Act which, by eroding existing tenant rights, allowed landlords
to use evictions to evade rent increase guidelines. From 1998 to 2002 eviction
applications by landlords increased by 25% and more than 118,000 tenants were
evictedwithout hearings before the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal (Stang, 2002).
In what ways is it useful to conceptualise such regulatory changes in terms of a
dialectics of differencing in society and space? First, it is clear that the changes set
in motion by the Harris government were aimed at rewarding higher income tax
payers at the expense of low-income people and especially those dependent upon
the state for social assistance. Deep cuts to social programmes, including those
vital to disabled people such as paratransit and homecare, enabled the provincial
government to deliver on its election promise of a 30% cut in provincial income
taxes. For the wealthiest citizens such tax cuts delivered even greater economic
and housing security. Deregulation of the private rental housing market allowed
landlords to raise rents while a freeze on non-prot housing meant that low-
income households would have no alternative but to pay escalating rents if they
wished to avoid slipping into homelessness. Clearly, the state was active in
sustaining a dialectics of differencing through which the gulf between the haves
and have-nots grew in terms of economic and housing security.
But the dialectics of differencing set in motion by these regulatory changes and
practices involved more than exacerbating differences in material conditions of
life and access to affordable housing. For complementing the delivery of material
rewards to those citizens who best fullled normative ideals of neoliberal
citizenship (such as nancial independence of the state through paid work and
success through accumulation of wealth through the market), was the
engagement of state institutions in relational and representational processes of
disciplining those in need of state assistance. These resulted in even those disabled
citizens who succeeded in qualifying for more generous levels of assistance as part
of the deserving poor being subjected to regimes of state rule, which treated and
represented them as negatively other than the ideal neoliberal citizen. Through
deep cuts to and freezes on social assistance, tighter eligibility criteria, harsh and
invasive monitoring of recipients lives and a workfare programme which,
however ultimately ineffectual in shifting people into the paid labour force, none
the less succeeded in conveying strong messages that people able to work
belonged off the welfare rolls, both disabled and able-bodied citizens in need of
state assistance were constructed as deeply othered individuals. Such changes in
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regimes of state rule have increasingly constructed dependence upon any form of
social assistance as a crime (Mosher & Herman, 2005).
Detailed analysis of the regulatory relations and practices associated with the
Ontario Disability Support Programme reveal some of the complex, even
paradoxical, ways in which recipients were constructed rhetorically as part of the
deserving poor while in practice being subjected to many of the same harsh,
negatively differencing relationships experienced by those on welfare. As noted
above, eligibility rules were tightened making it more difcult for people with
illnesses and impairments to qualify as sufciently disabled to receive ODSP
support; thus ensuring that more disabled people would be forced to subsist on the
substantially lower levels of income support provided through Ontario Works.
As inthe OntarioWorks programme, disabledrecipients of ODSPwere encouraged
to strive for independence from the state in a variety of ways. For example,
applications for ODSP support which disabled people managed to complete
independently (of state staff, if not family or friends) were rewarded through fast-
tracking. State practices also encouraged disabled people to nd paid employment
and employment supports without state assistance through the signing of
individual employment contracts. Other relational and practical changes, such as
more impersonal management of cases (Chouinard & Crooks, 2005), harsh and
intrusive monitoring of income, assets and spousal relationships and diminished
access to information about eligibility for various types of ODSP assistance, made
experiences of receiving income support more demeaning and troubling.
Clearly, even those disabled citizens who succeeded in qualifying as disabled
for purposes of income support experienced the state as increasingly difcult site
of negative differencing. Through regulatory relations, procedures and practices
governing the delivery of ODSP assistance, the state fuelled processes of negative
differencing which treated and represented recipients as negatively other than
those better able to conform to neoliberal ideals of citizenship.
Like Ontario Works, the ODSP was ostensibly designed to encourage
independence, ability and employment. In practice, many programme character-
istics encourageddeepeningdependencyandmarginalisation. This is, indeed, one of
thesignicant contradictions of neoliberal states andtheir relations of ruling: whilein
principle committed to encouraging more marginalised citizens to emulate the
neoliberal ideal (e.g. independent of the state, homed, engaged in paid work), the
residualisation of social programmes combined with harsher modes of disciplining
those dependent upon state assistance have the contrary consequences of pushing
those in need further to the margins of society and space. The state thus encourages
poor disabledrecipients of ODSPtoaspire tofulll the ideals of neoliberal citizenship
while in practice creating material conditions of life and relationships with the state,
which make the prospects of doing so increasingly remote.
In what other ways have the procedures and practices of the ODSP programme
contributed to negatively differencing disabled citizens? Intake procedures,
notably taking inquiries about assistance through a central Ontario Works calling
centre, mean that many disabled individuals are never referred to the ODSP
application process (e.g. cognitive impairments may be difcult to detect through
telephone interviews) (Income Security Advocacy Centre, 2003). Those who are
referred to the ODSP application process still face serious procedural barriers to
qualifying. Some have referred to this as part of a process of denial by design
(ibid.). First there is what some describe as a mountain of paperwork to complete:
self-activity reports and complicated, costly medical evaluations. Persons with
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certain types of impairments, for instance those who are blind or developmentally
delayed, must struggle to complete this paperwork independently by turning
to family and friends for help. In such cases, incentives to aspire to be more
independent and able actually have dependency heightening consequences.
Similarly, as the costs of medical documentation are daunting for poor disabled
individuals (there is no state assistance for these) applicants often turn to family,
friends or even legal clinics for help. Such barriers work to ensure that many
disabledpeople dropout of the applicationprocess andndthemselves forcedtobe
members of the undeserving poor struggling to survive on general
social assistance. In 20001 an estimated 40% of people whose cases were referred
to the Disability Adjudication Unit did not end up submitting applications (ibid.,
2003, p. 11).
For those who complete the application stage, abstract and impersonal
assessment of cases and tendencies to interpret substantially limited to mean
severely disabledtendencies reecting neoliberal residualisation of social
programmesmean that many applications for ODSP support are unsuccessful.
From 1998 to 2001, 50% of those applying to the programme were denied
assistance (ibid., 2003, p. 16). Such procedural barriers and a complex, costly and
difcult appeals process mean that many disabled people fall through the cracks
and end up struggling to survive on Ontario Works. Although the number of
disabled people in this situation is not known, a survey of disabled clients of food
banks in Toronto found that 60% of disabled clients were not receiving ODSP and
70% of these subsisted on OW support (Daily Bread Food Bank, 2003). Appeals of
denials of ODSP assistance are lengthy, difcult and costly, with the stress likely to
aggravate the health and housing affordability problems with which many
disabled applicants are dealing.
Even for those who win ODSP support, life on this form of state assistance is
marginalising and often humiliating. Although more generous than OW welfare,
ODSP income assistance is inadequate to cover housing and other costs
(e.g. medication). In 2003, for example, the maximum shelter allowance for a
single individual on ODSP was $414, $315 less than the average cost of a bachelor
apartment in Toronto (Daily Bread Food Bank, 2003, p. 3).
Regulatory relations and practices aimed at disciplining recipients of ODSP into
greater economic independence from the state, in accord with neoliberal ideals of
citizenship, have the paradoxical effect of building disincentives to engage in paid
work into the programme. ODSP recipients are locked into a specic income each
month. Those who do paid work are only allowed to keep 25% of the income
earned; the rest is deducted from their monthly allowance. Monitoring of income
levels and assets is often harsh and intrusive in accord with regulatory aims of
weeding out recipients suspected of welfare fraud. At meetings held every 23
years recipients must provide detailed personal and nancial statements,
including bank statements, credit checks and discussion of possible spousal
relationships, in order to re-prove that they have not committed fraud by failing
to declare household income.
As in Ontario Works, disciplining ODSP recipients takes gendered forms; in
particular through close scrutiny of possible spousal relationships. Assistance
payments may be halted immediately if state staff suspect relationships that
provide additional incomefor instance, if someone reports that a recipient is
living with a partner. These threats not only help to make economic survival and
maintaining shelter precarious, but also pressure women not to enter into
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relationships which may put their income assistance at risk. State regulatory
relations and practices through the ODSP are gendered in other ways: for
example, expectations that recipients seeking employment will develop an
employment plan and nd employment supports independent of any assistance
from the state place disabled women in especially disadvantageous positions in
the search for paid work. Not only do disabled women face especially severe
barriers to employment in Canada (e.g. Fawcett, 2000) which the ODSP does
nothing to address, being least likely to be hired and among the rst to be red in
provinces such as Ontario but they are also, for example, given the prevalence of
chronic illnesses associated with uctuating abilities to do paid work among
women, especially likely to need assistance in nding and keeping paid work
(e.g. encouraging employers to accommodate their workplace needs).
To illustrate how such regulatory relations, procedures and practices work to
perpetuate dialectical processes of differencing which help to keep disabled
women in extremely marginalised places in society and space, I now consider the
lives of women who have struggled to claim and survive upon ODSP support.
I focus, in particular, on how relationships with the state contribute to precarious
relationships to housing and home.
Disabled Womens Experiences of the State, Housing and Home
I now consider how differencing through relations with the state and with others
in local communities have helped to shape the lives of disabled women struggling
for or receiving ODSP support. This discussion draws on 10 in-depth interviews
conducted by Valorie Crooks from September 2001 to August 2002. Ten women
were recruited through the Disabled Womens Network and snowball sampling.
Interview guides probed these womens experiences of receiving support: from
trying to obtain assistance, to information about eligibility for assistance to
relationships with state staff and to experiences of practices such as monitoring
income and assets. Interviews were open-ended, allowing women to emphasise
aspects of receiving support which had most altered their lives and to raise issues
not covered in the interview guide. In an effort to ensure comfort, interviews were
conducted in a place of the womans choosing. Although the interview guide did
not probe these womens experiences of changing relationships to housing and
home this is an aspect of these womens experiences which most elected to
discussindicating how important was the struggle to maintain housing and
home in their lives. In the following discussion, to ensure condentiality, the
names used are pseudonyms chosen by the women interviewed.
Some aspects of the dialectical processes of differencing which these disabled
women experienced are, arguably, quite similar to those we would expect to nd
among marginalised women in general (e.g. single mothers receiving welfare). So,
for example, the women interviewed struggled on an ongoing basis with levels of
income assistance insufcient to meet basic needs and to maintain shelter and a
reasonable quality of life within the home. In other ways, however, processes of
differencing in which they were caught up were more distinct to struggles to live
as a disabled woman in Ontario. For example, almost all the women interviewed
spoke about difculties affording medicines and in some cases dental careneeds
covered at best only partially by ODSP. In this sense, their regulatory relations
with the state failed to recognise fully how being ill or impaired creates additional
basic costs and needs beyond those of the able-bodied population. In other ways
408 V. Chouinard
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their experiences of differencing were distinct. For example, inadequate shelter
allowances created situations in which many of these woman had to live
in housing which did not accommodate their needs (therefore aggravating
disabling conditions with which they were dealing) and/or had to forego
necessities such as medicine and nutritious foods in order to pay for shelter costs
above those affordable on ODSP income assistance. In these respects, the womens
shelter poverty was exacerbated by the struggle to survive with particularly
acute health needs. These women thus found themselves negotiating contradic-
tions and tensions between being a disabled woman with particularly pressing
housing and health needs, and having distinct aspects of their needs overlooked.
They also found themselves negotiating disabled identities in contradictory
waysnotably struggling to be recognised as disabled for purposes of ODSP
support and to disguise those identities from family and friends, due in part to
experiences of the state which reinforced ideas that there was something
shameful about disabled women who depended upon the state for assistance.
Marlenes story illustrates how the regulatory procedures and practices of the
neoliberal state constructs some disabled women who claim provincial disability
income support as other than deserving and disabled women. It also illustrates
how policies which reinforce gendered differences and dependencyin
Marlenes case forced dependency upon a male breadwinner marginalised
within the local labour market by low wages and lack of benetsmake it
impossible to pay for essentials such as medication and rental/shelter costs.
Marlenes protracted struggle to qualify as disabled for the purposes of income
support combined with forced dependency on a male partner, brought her several
times to the brink of suicide and homelessness.
A woman with multiple impairments and illnesses, including lupus, arthritis,
restless leg syndrome and depression, Marlene gave a moving account of her
harrowing struggle to qualify for ODSP support. No longer able to do paid work,
Marlene discovered that there was no interim support available to her while she
went through multiple applications and appeals of her case. She explained that
this was because her husband earned $50 more per month than the programmes
cutoff for interim support:
We werent eligible for that because my husband made $50.00 more a
month. So youre either in or youre out. Theres no leeway there. Theres
no gray area . . . We were not eligible for any help at all. He has no drug
plan, no dental care. So the two of us were living off a very low pay
cheque with no benets.
Marlene argued that working poor people such as herself fell through the cracks
of the system, with too little money to survive and yet interim assistance denied as
they go through stressful, costly appeals of decisions denying ODSP support. By
classifying her as a female dependent of her low income male partner the state
pushed her to the limits of her capacities to survive and maintain shelter and
home. The helplessness and sense of abandonment that Marlene felt is evident in
her comment that:
I still have a phone call taped and I can remember calling up to the ODSP
ofce because I read about this interim assistance and the phone call said
Im sorry - your husband makes more than the $50.00 cut-off amount
Ill never forget these words: There is no help for someone like you.
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Unable to afford medication and medical care she desperately needed, Marlenes
health deteriorated: her weight dropped, she went without dental care, glasses,
antibiotics and antidepressants. Lack of medication, the stress of struggling for
income support, and despair at her life circumstances brought her to the verge of
suicide on several occasions and also to the brink of homelessness. Appeals of
decisions against awarding ODSP income support were costly and stressful
costly medical documentation was required and money also had to be spent on
luxuries such as internet access if she was to succeed in qualifying for ODSP
support. As regulatory procedures and practices continued to construct her as
disentitled to disability income support, Marlenes dependence upon others for
nancial assistance grew. Marlene noted, for example, how lucky she was that a
kind friend paid for internet access for 6 months so that she could research her
case. Forced independence from the state thus had dependency heightening
consequences in her life.
The negative differencing to which women such as Marlene are subject in the
course of struggling against their categorisation as non-disabled and undeserving
of state assistance, have far-reaching, demoralising consequences.
Marlene summed up the impacts of her protracted struggle for ODSP support
by saying that it had stripped her of her dignity and that They [ODSP
administrators] hadmurderedmysoul prettywell. . . Thats the wayI wouldput it.
Marlenes protracted struggle against her exclusion from the ranks of the
disabled, deserving poor brought her and her male partner to the brink of
homelessness. The strain of ghting state treatment of her case with minimal
income and resources almost caused her marriage to fail. Unable to do paid work
and without an income independent of her male partners such an event would
have certainly precipitated a slide into absolute homelessness. The low income
she shared with her male partner and lack of health benets meant that
maintaining shelter, let alone a home, was always a struggleforcing Marlene to
make difcult choices about whether to pay for essentials such as medications or
her rent. Ultimately a slide from relative to absolute homelessness was only
narrowly averted by nancial assistance from friends. Here again modes of state
regulation and differencing from the deserving disabled woman had, contrary to
neoliberal aims of ensuring that even marginalised citizens struggled to conform
with ideals of citizenship such as independence, the paradoxical effect of
heightening Marlenes dependence upon others and making her more rather than
less likely to become homeless. As Marlene explains:
Its [appealing ODSP decisions] too long of a process. If you go in there
and youre already destitute you know, this is how people end up out on
the streets. We would have ended up out on the streets if it was not for
some wonderful friends that paid our rent, bought medication for me.
We wouldnt have made it, we would have been out on the streets,
theres no doubt about it.
Marlenes story illustrates how struggling to qualify as a deserving, disabled
women for purposes of ODSP support can tax low-income households to their
limits and make their survival contingent on help from family and friends. Forced
independence from the state can also bring such households to the brink of
homelessness. Clearly, in such cases, the neoliberal state plays a critical role in
making disabled women and their households negatively different not only from
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valued, independent, homed, able and productive citizens but also than those
disabled citizens deserving of state assistance.
The other women interviewed did not endure as protracted a struggle to qualify
as Marlene went through. Still, their stories are also ones of barely surviving and
being subject to processes of state regulation and differencing which placed them
in marginalised and tenuous relations to housing and home.
Linda, who lives in Toronto, spoke with anger about the growing gap between
rents and ODSP shelter allowances. A victim of male violence, Linda pointed out
that inadequate state assistance for shelter costs was probably forcing many women
disabled by violence to stay in abusive situations in order to avoid a slide into
absolute homelessness. In such situations, women can only be said to be homed in
the most marginalising, diminishingandindeeddangerous ways. InLindas words:
the fact [is] that they [ODSP] dont pay enough for Toronto rents. Its
crazy. They keep people trapped in situations where theres abuse
happening because people cant afford to move . . . And thats really
angering. Im sure a lot of women are trapped in abuse because they cant
get out nancially. The rent here is, you know, $1200 for a one bedroom
now. You should only pay [according to ODSP rent allowances], like,
maximum $500 per month on rent or something. Theres no way.
Sheila talked about how her deteriorating health, as a result of degenerative disc
disease, osteoporosis and bromyalgia and the stress of caring for a disabled
child, coupled with the end of her marriage and simultaneous loss of a job,
precipitated a slide into absolute homelessness:
I had been working for my husband and then the marriage split up.
I didnt have a job to go to and emotionally and physically I was really
heading into a big decline plus I had a blind child to look after . . . and,
you know, like the whole thing. Um, Im living in a shelter, there was no
way, the stress and everything just took its toll on me physically and that
was it.
Now, as an ODSP recipient, Sheila is housed but in conditions that do not meet her
physical needs. To date her struggles to secure an accessible unit have failed, as
she explains:
You know my place, well you were here, I mean theres a lot of stairs and
Ive been trying for four and a half years to get into a one oor handicap
unit and Im still in the same spot [on the waiting list] I was four and one
half years ago.
Terrie also experienced a slide into absolute homelessness from which she only
gradually recovered through obtaining disability income support: I went from
living in. . . my fathers home, I was living with my father to living on the streets to
a couple of group homes to living with my daughters father. Now, on ODSP, she
is sheltered but inadequately housed in terms of housing quality: I am not in
adequate housing because I cant afford it. Im living in a second oor walk up . . .
Its very below standard. But at least it is close to affordable. I only pay $100 over
what Im allotted for shelter.
The struggles of Sheila and other disabled women to secure housing
that is adequate, affordable and accommodates their illnesses and impairments,
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in the face of an acute shortage of such units, illustrates another way in which
disabled women may be sheltered but only housed and homed in the most
minimal and often disabling ways.
Jean, a visually impaired woman, is co-owner with her sister (also visually
impaired and receiving ODSP) of a house inherited from their parents. Jean spoke
about how difcult it was to maintain their shelter and home on limited incomes,
particularly as it was hard to get the state to assist with essential repairs
(e.g. plumbing or electrical). Their housing situation, like that of all women
interviewed, was one of relative homelessness where paying for the costs of
shelter meant doing without other basic necessities. Both she and her sister,
Michelle, talked about being without money for essentials such as food by the end
of the month. Angel summarised how income assistance too low to cover the cost
of rent and other essentials kept her in a similarly sheltered but housing poor
situation:
You get enough, if youre lucky, for your rent, your bills if that.
Like. . .I cannot pay off all my bills. I have had an outstanding phone bill
for two years! . . . by the time I pay my bills I get a little bit of groceries,
Im broke . . . I cant dream, of getting a new pair of boots or a new coat . . .
in 20 years Ive never had a new coat.
For the women interviewed, life on ODSP meant struggling to survive and
maintain shelter on a daily basis. But their lived relations with the neoliberal state
and the processes of negative differencing which they experienced through those
relations and changing relationships with family and friends, altered their
experiences of housing and home in more subtle ways. Not only did low incomes
restrict their capacities to participate in social activities in their communities
(on this see also Crooks, 2004), they also meant that it was difcult to maintain
their homes as places of social interaction and support. The home thus loomed as a
very important place in these womens lives and yet often increasingly became a
place of isolation and solititude. Sheila commented upon on how the only social
activity she could afford to engage in was having friends over but her abilities to
entertain were severely constrained. When asked if the fact that she was able to go
out less often on ODSP meant that she invited friends over more often, Sheila
responded: Um somewhat. As long as theyre not staying for a meal. Yeah, yeah
thats about all you can do. Her words indicate how the struggle to maintain
housing as home for women on ODSP is a difcult and precarious one and one
which, too often, results in poor quality of life.
For many of the women, the processes of differencing contributing to growing
socio-spatial isolation in the home went beyond the harsh realities of minimal
incomes. Several commented on how the shame they felt being a woman
dependent on ODSP, feelings fuelled by often harsh and intrusive treatment by
state staff and/or fears of negative assessments of their situation by family and
friends, contributed to greater isolation in the home and the deterioration of social
networks. Linda spoke about how income constraints curtailed her social
activities outside the home and how this in combination with diminished self-
esteem had resulted in a pattern of isolation in the home:
I feel ashamed . . . of being dependent on government and I feel less
valuable, a less valuable human being. Im not paying taxes and, you
know, Im just not doing what they [state staff and society] say
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contributes to the systemby paying taxes and having a job. I think people
knowing I dont have a lot of money [also results in greater isolation] . . .
some people have just not wanted to deal with me. Theyve cut me out of
their lives, um, because I cant afford to go to shows or whatever that
they do.
Despite state discursive constructions of these women as part of the deserving
poor, regulatory practices such as close and intrusive scrutiny of their personal
affairs, including relationships with men, helped to communicate that they were
less worthy of respect than independent women. Diminished self-esteemand the
constraints of being poor contributed to growing social and spatial isolation and
the loss of friendships and support networks which, paradoxically, would have
helped to make these women less rather than more dependent on the state.
Diminished support networks meant that, should a crisis occur, for example in
their health, these women were likely to be more rather than less dependent upon
the state for help. By severely constraining these disabled womens capacities to
maintain the home as a place of social activity and support, nancially and in
terms of self-esteem, the state was helping to reproduce negatively differenced
citizens with limited social lives and support networkscitizens who were
housed but homed in only the most marginalising sorts of ways.
In principle, the ODSP has been designed to encourage disabled people able to
do paid work to do so. However, in practice barriers to employment built into the
programme help to reinforce disabled womens marginalised location within local
labour markets. These include a failure to provide attendant care in the workplace
when needed, and nancial disincentives to work (single recipients who work can
keep only 25%of earnings above $160). Further, because the ODSP does nothing to
address the particularly severe barriers to employment that disabled women face
the prospects of nding and keeping a job remain remote. Interestingly, gendered
disciplinary practices which punish women for being in relationships with men
can also discourage employment-seeking. Terrie, for example, decided that it was
not worthwhile to try to work after her assistance was suspended when state staff
suspected that her boyfriend had been working more than Terrie had declared.
Jean noted other regulatory barriers; notably a failure on the part of at least some
state staff to take an individuals impairments and skills into account in advising
them on job prospects. She noted that she was encouraged to do manual jobs, such
as box packing, which were impossible with her low vision. Jobs which she would
have been able to do, such as telemarketing, were not among those that staff
directed her to.
Although the regulatory relations in which these women were caught up
reproduced material realities of life which negatively differenced them from
valued and positively homed citizens, there was one ironic way in which the
regulatory procedures and practices of the state succeeded in rendering them
positively the same as ideal able-bodied neoliberal citizens. This was in terms of
the womens desire to maintain the appearance of independent, homed and
productive citizens engaged in paid work. In various ways, the women
interviewed commented on how the shame and stigma associated with being a
disabled woman receiving state assistance, a shame often reinforced by harsh and
judgemental treatment by state staff, family and friends, led them to disguise the
fact that they were receiving help from the state. By not disclosing that they were
ODSP recipients and/or pretending that they were doing paid work, the women
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struggled to project an identity and image of sameness which belied the harsh
processes of differencing to which they were subjected, their precarious
relationships to housing and home, and the reality that the disciplinary regime
through which the state regulated their lives meant that their prospects of
conforming to neoliberal ideals of citizenship remained remote. Such struggles to
forge identities positively other than those based on lived relations with the state
is one indication of how deeply distressing and contested subjection to the kinds
of differencing discussed in this article can be. As I have indicated, an important
facet of such differencing was being situated in permanently precarious
relationships to housing and home. Although in at least two cases ODSP support
allowed women to overcome absolute homelessness, they remained housed and
homed in only the most limited ways.
Conclusions: From differencing to inclusion?
In this article, I have discussed some of the ways in which neoliberal state
regulation of peoples lives and relationships to housing and home involves
dialectical processes of differencing which advantage some citizens while
deepening the marginality and oppression of others. In particular, I have argued
that in Ontario state policies and regulatory practices have worked to enhance the
economic and housing security of more afuent citizens, while placing growing
numbers of disabled citizens in need of income assistance in more precarious
economic and housing situations. Disabled women struggling for and receiving
ODSP support are among the subjects of these dialectical processes of negative
differencing. These contribute to ongoing relative homelessness (broadly dened)
and place them at risk of absolute homelessness. These processes included
gendered processes of differencing which discipline women with illnesses and
impairments into nancial and shelter dependency upon male partners.
There are signicant advantages to understanding phenomena such as rising
homelessness and housing insecurity as outcomes of the kinds of dialectical
processes of differencing discussed in this article. Analytically, it alerts us to causal
links between the socio-spatial forces producing housing security for some and
growing housing insecurity for others. It also encourages us to consider how
disabled women struggling to qualify for disability income assistance become
subject to processes of saming and differencing which shape their relationships to
the state and housing in signicant waysdetermining, for example, whether or
not they will be treated as a disabled woman, a member of the deserving poor, and
single or eligible for assistance that could stave off a slide from relative into
absolute homelessness. Finally, this approach encourages us to consider
contradictions between the material, relational and ideological outcomes of
such forces shaping peoples lives; how it is, for example, that state regulation can
simultaneously push disabled people further to the margins of society and space
and yet instill desires to be more like the ideal neoliberal citizen.
This approach has signicant political advantages. By encouraging us to try to
better understandhowthe socio-spatial production of the lives of the economically
secure and homed are intertwined with the growing insecurity and misery of
others, it reminds those of us who are securely homed that housing insecurity and
homelessness are our problems, too, and not merely theirs. It thereby holds out
the promise of workingtogether to address the deepening marginality andhousing
insecurity that groups such as poor disabled women face.
414 V. Chouinard
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How might we begin to do this? In Ontario, as elsewhere in Canada, there is a
pressing need to increase access to affordable non-prot housing which, through
rents geared to income for low-income households and the low end of market
rents for moderate income households, offers protection from the inationary
forces at work in the private housing market. Equally important is the production
of more non-prot units geared to the needs of people with illnesses and
impairments.
Clearly, income and employment assistance programmes which keep disabled
women and others in precarious relations to housing and home and unable to
participate in society also need to be reformed. This includes raising assistance
levels beyond the 6% being implemented by the Liberal McGinty government
from20057 in Ontario and providing adequate allowances for crucial needs such
as medication. It also includes reforms to ensure that no disabled women living in
low-income working poor households, such as Marlene, will be thrown into crisis
and near homelessness as a result of struggling for state assistance. Interim
assistance to women whose basic needs for essentials such as medicines are
particularly high is crucial, as Marlenes case demonstrates so clearly. Further,
barriers to applying to and qualifying for ODSP need to be removed so that fewer
disabled women and men are forced to subsist on the lowlevels of income support
provided through Ontario Works. Such measures need to be complemented by
comprehensive job creation, training and support programmes; including
initiatives designed to help those disabled women and men who are able to do
paid work to nd and keep jobs which accommodate their needs and reect the
training, skills and abilities they have. Ideally these jobs should be paid at above
minimum wage levels. As I have argued, such programmes are particularly
crucial for disabled women who are disproportionately likely to experience
discrimination in local labour markets.
Challenging the dialectical processes of differencing which help to keep
disabled women and men in precarious relationships to housing and home
requires, most fundamentally, struggles to disrupt and dismantle neoliberal
regimes of state rule. Building political support for such an ambitious goal will not
be easy. However, an important starting point is encouraging diverse citizens to
recognise how deeply contradictory and destructive current ways of regulating
the lives of citizens in need, such as disabled women, arereproducing
deepening misery, deprivation, marginality, housing insecurity and dependency
through measures intended to make people more rather than less like the ideal
neoliberal citizen.
As the disabled womens stories shared in this article indicate, it is high time for
a change.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Valorie A. Crooks for her expert research assistance
and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding
this research.
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Crooks, Valorie A. (2004) Income Assistance (the ODSP) and Disabled Women in Ontario,
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Las dialecticas de hacer diferencia: Mujeres discapacita-
dos, el estados y asuntos de vivienda
Resumen En este art culo, discuto como los procesos, practicas y pol ticas
neoliberalistas estatales de la produccio n negativa de diferencia han contribuido
al crecimiento de inseguridad econo mica y de vivienda para ciudadanos
marginalizados, especialmente mujeres discapacitados que requieren asistencia
econo mica provincial in Ontario, Canada. Argumento que las relaciones cada vez
mas inseguro a vivienda y hogar para estas mujeres se pueden explicar como
consecuencias de procesos dialecticos de hacer diferencia a traves de regimenes
neoliberalistas del estado. Una ventaja de esta enfoque es que enfatiza como la
aumentacio n de seguridad econo mica y de la vivienda para ciudadanos auentes
esta entrelazado con indiferencia al crecimiento de inseguridad y desesperacio n
para otra gente. Empiezo discutiendo como las diversas relaciones a viviendas
y hogares se pueden conceptualizar como consecuencias de procesos de hacer
diferencia en sociedades capitalistas avanzadas. Luego discuto, ilustrando esta
enfoque, como los cambios de reglas estatales de viviendas y programas de
asistencia econo mica in la provincia de Ontario han ayudado mas los ciudadanos
auentes a costa de los ciudadanos discapacitados y en necesidad de ayuda. E
sta
discusio n se sigue por un analisis detallado de los procesos que determinan como
las mujeres que reciben asistencia econo mica se hacen diferente negativamente
y se situ an in relacio n a vivienda y hogar. Aqu utilizo entrevistas con mujeres que
reciban asistencia provincial econo mica por el ODSP (Ontario Disability Support
Program, Programa de Asistencia para Discapacitados de Ontario).
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Care and the Lives of Homeless Youth in Neoliberal Times
in Canada
FRAN KLODAWSKY*, TIM AUBRY** & SUSAN FARRELL
*Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Canada

**Canada School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Canada
Canada Health Care Group, Royal Ottawa Hospital, Canada

Abstract Socio-spatial insights from feminist theories of care are examined in relation
to the complex, difcult lives of some homeless youth in Ottawa, and their embeddedness
within multiple scales of public policy construction and implementation. As lengthy
interviews with 78 female and 78 male homeless youth in Ottawa revealed, both care and
self-sufciency gure strongly in these young peoples lives. It is our contention that care
is generally not part of current senior government agendas geared to marginalised youth
and that as a result, there is a gap in funding that supports efforts of community
organisations who work with homeless youth. We suggest that one way in which to
understand this gap is by recognising that senior government programming for
marginalised youth is geared problematically to narrowly dened employability issues.
Furthermore, we assert that this results in local organisations being left to bridge the gaps
between these one-dimensional characterisations and the complex gendered, racialised and
situated lives of marginalised youth. In this article, we draw upon our preliminary
ndings from on-going research with homeless youth in Ottawa to expand on these
arguments, in conjunction with theoretical insights drawn from selected ethics of justice
and ethics of care arguments. We assert that there are important socio-spatial implications
to be considered. Incorporating care into the framework of senior government policies
implies that there is an onus not only to provide sufcient funds but also to direct those
monies in such a way that the gendered and racialised contexts within which homeless
youths are living manifest qualities of both care and justice. This article suggests that the
role of appropriately located, multifaceted social services may have a signicance that has
not been appropriately recognised.
Introduction
I have a curfewI feel so special! Before it was just come home before the
sun comes up. (Female youth, Panel Study on Homelessness in Ottawa,
2002)
An ethics of care demands that interdependence be seen as the basis of
humaninteractions; inthese terms, autonomy andindependence are about
Correspondence: Fran Klodawsky, Department of Geography, Carleton University, 1125
Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6, Canada. E-mail: fran_klodawsky@carleton.ca
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 419436, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808577
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the capacityfor self-determinationrather thanthe expectationof individual
self-sufciency. It recognises that vulnerability is a human condition and
that some people are constituted as more or less vulnerable than others, at
different times and in different places. (Williams, 2001, p. 487)
In these opening quotations, we signal our interest in engaging with insights from
feminist theories of care to consider the complex, difcult lives of homeless youth,
and their socio-spatial embeddedness within multiple scales of public policy
constructionandimplementationduringa periodof neo-liberalisation(Peck, 2001).
The rst statement is that of a girl who was asked to explain whether she found
anything positive about living in an emergency shelter. Her mention of a curfew,
because it signalled to her that someone cared enough to notice, is a small but
powerful example of what Fiona Williams means when, in the second quotation,
she talks about an ethics of care demanding that interdependence be seen as the
basis of human interactions. There is quite a gap between the dominant discourses
about marginalised youth in Canada that assume youths lack of mainstream
activities has to do with a lack of willingness and ability to seek and nd paid
employment (Martin, 2002), and this young womans comment. Here we suggest
that socio-spatial insights from certain feminist ethics of care discussions
help to highlight a conceptual gap in understanding situations of homeless
youth on the ground.
Williams linking of the philosophical notion of care to politics and to social
policy is also central to our interest. In this regard, a second related goal of this
article is to situate the challenges that local governments and communities face by
locating these organisations within broader political economy structures and
processes. It is our contention that care is generally not part of current senior
government agendas geared to marginalised youth and that as a result, there is a
gap in funding that supports efforts of community organisations who work with
homeless youth. We suggest below that one way in which to understand this gap
is by recognising that senior government programming for marginalised youth is
problematically geared to narrowly dened employability issues. Furthermore,
we assert that this results in local organisations being left to bridge the gaps
between these one-dimensional characterisations and the complex gendered,
racialised and situated lives of marginalised youth. In this article, we draw upon
our preliminary ndings from on-going research with homeless youth in Ottawa
to expand on these arguments.
This article consists of three main sections. The rst introduces the study upon
which this discussion is based, conveys some of what we learned about the youth
we interviewed and situates this learning within the Canadian political economy.
We highlight the signicance of family conict in homeless youths lives and
report some preliminary evidence about the signicance of the approach of a
particular community agency (hereafter called the Agency) that attempts to
provide both care and more instrumental support related to independence
strategies. In the second section, we turn to a consideration of ethics of justice and
ethics of care arguments, drawing especially on literature that considers the
bodies of the poor and the marginalised. The argument that we develop names a
tension and a complementarity between justice and ethics in the lives of those at
the margins. In addition, we draw parallels between these arguments and the
observations in section one, about the intertwined interest in self-sufciency and
care among homeless youth in Ottawa. In the concluding section of the article,
420 F. Klodawsky et al.
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we bring earlier discussions together to argue in favour of certain types of policy
and programming modications that take into account some socio-spatial
particularities of care.
Young and Homeless in Ottawa
Here, we explain the context within which we interviewed 156 homeless youth in
Ottawa between October 2002 and April 2003. The interviews took place as part of
a collaborative research effort funded by local government (formally, The City of
Ottawa), and led by academic researchers with the active support of a coalition
of community agencies (Aubry et al., 2003). A Panel Study on Homelessness was
constructed to fulll several goals. The rst was to explore systematically the
extent to which homeless people in Ottawa were diverse in their characteristics
and in their reasons for being homeless. The second was to examine the complex
pathways that resulted in some people becoming homeless, as well as to enable
follow-up interviews (in 20045) to provide longitudinal insights into who would
be more or less likely to exit homelessness over time. A nal motivation was to
provide municipal ofcials and front-line workers with insights into the relations
between the various subpopulations of people under study, their use of health and
social services and their experiences of homelessness. Considerable effort was put
into developing a research methodology that would be scientically rigorous,
with results that would not easily be dismissed by those typically unimpressed by
small qualitative studies.
1
There also was a clear interest on the part of municipal
ofcials and service providers to have access to a systematic analysis that would
be insightful with regard to the multidimensional nature of peoples experiences
of homelessness, and what this implied for programme development and
implementation. As a result, the questionnaire included 157 close-ended
questions consisting of standardised self-report measures. Scattered throughout
the questionnaire, however, were opportunities for those being interviewed to
elaborate qualitatively on their responses and for the interviewers to take notes of
these responses.
The questionnaires were administered by 11 interviewers, who conducted one-
to-one interviews with the respondents, usually in a private setting at the shelter
or centre where the person had been recruited for the study. Many homeless
people expressed their appreciation that someone seemed to be interested in their
situations, although many also found the 90120-minute interviews to be
demanding. Certainly, both interviewers and those being interviewed were often
tired at the end of each session. Ten dollars was given to each individual who
participated in the process, to recognise their contribution to the study.
In total 412 individuals, including the 156 youth discussed here, were
interviewed. Respondents were drawn from 14 different shelters and three drop-
in programmes. The sampling plan was organised to maximise the overall
diversity of those we spoke to. As a result, we heard from about 80 people in each
of ve equally sized groups: adult females, adult males, female youth, male youth
(where youth was dened as between 16 and 19 years of age) and adults living
with at least one child under 16. Only the results of the data collected from the
156 youth participants are reported in this article. Prior to data collection, on-site
visits at each of the shelters gave us a chance to explain the reasons for the study
and to enlist the help of shelter staff. These visits were an invaluable opportunity
to present the draft questionnaire and receive input on how to improve it. Just one
Homeless Youth in Neoliberal Canada 421
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of the many positive outcomes was learning about the extent to which shelters for
women and for families consisted of newcomers to Canada, some of whom would
require cultural interpretation if they were going to answer the questionnaire
(Klodawsky et al., 2005).
2
The shelter employees assigned to this project were
responsible for approaching residents, introducing the study to them, requesting
their participation according to closely detailed ethical guidelines and
communicating with the Panel Study coordinator.
Interviews with youth were conducted typically by trained interviewers who
were close to them in age, of the same gender and with previous experience
working with marginalised youth. The homeless youth included young people
who either were living in an emergency shelter or using drop-in services that
catered to homeless youth.
3
They were recruited through population sampling.
In other words, everyone eligible to be interviewed was invited to participate until
we reached our goal of interviewing 80 female youth and 80 male youth. In the
end, we spoke to 78 female youth and 78 male youth. Among them, 22% of the
males and 20% of the females identied their cultural identity as at least in part
aboriginal.
4
Given that the aboriginal population in Ottawa is under 2%, the
preponderance of aboriginal youth in our study poignantly reinforces the widely
recognised fact that they are an especially marginalised group in Canadian
society.
5
It also provides a rationale for our interest in explicitly examining both
the racialised and gendered experiences with these youth.
Interviews touched on myriad aspects of youths lives, including socio-
demographic characteristics, 3 years of housing history (location, living
arrangements, reasons for leaving), perceived level of social support from friends,
family and service providers, physical and mental health status, use of health and
social services, substance use problems and experiences of childhood stress
(Aubry et al., 2003). Here, we focus on elements of the interview that relate to the
themes of this articleon one hand, youths past experiences of and current
opportunities to receive care and on the other, youths readiness to achieve self-
sufciency through work and/or education. In the paragraphs that follow, we
present both qualitative and quantitative evidence about these realms. At the
outset, however, it is important to state what will quickly become quite obvious:
the most striking differences between these marginalised youth and more
mainstream youth are not, contrary to some popular conceptions, attitudes
towards the value of self-sufciency or even schooling, but rather the extent to
which these youth have experienced difcult family situations. It is this factor
more than anything else that explains their current status as homeless youth, and
their lack of current involvement in school and work. It is also this factor that has
inspired our effort to examine marginalised youth in relation to the concept of care.
Pervasiveness of Family Conict and Violence
Many youthboth aboriginal and non-aboriginalhad encountered violence,
abuse and disruption in their family homes. Especially high proportions of young
women (43%) and aboriginal youth (50%) had been sexually abused, but over half
of all youth had witnessed abuse or been abused physically. Substantial
proportions of youth also reported having to leave their family home and
live instead in a group home (46% of males and 35% of females), in foster care
(37% of males and 24% of females), in a correctional facility or in a detention centre
(62% and 33%). More than a quarter of the young women reported an unplanned
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pregnancy and the birth of a child. One-sixth reported a miscarriage as the result
of assault or injury and eight of the female youth respondents, including three
with aboriginal cultural identity, said they were pregnant at the time of the
interview.
Given the above it is not surprising that, in many cases, youths own
explanations for being homeless are closely tied to their experiences of family
conict. In response to a question asking study participants for the main reason for
their current homelessness, eviction by parents or guardians or familial or
parental conict was cited by 60% of male youth and 54% of female youth. As
well, 56% of female youth and 48% of male youth perceived childhood stressors
reecting signicant family problems as contributing to their homelessness.
Indeed, the responses of youth to an open-ended question asking how stressful
events in their childhood had contributed to their becoming homeless, illustrate
that many are quite clear about the close connections:
If what I dont want to mention hadnt happened, I wouldnt be all
screwed up and Id want to live at home. (Female non-aboriginal)
A child who is abused and neglectedwho breathes second hand smoke
and watches dad deal drugs has no chance. Never wanted to live with
them but everything is my faultI ruined Christmas for not wanting
someone who raped me at the house. (Female aboriginal)
Fucked me uphard to think straight, not like normal teens who move
out of house and get good jobs. (Female aboriginal)
I never felt loved and Ive always had to survive on my own. (Male non-
aboriginal)
Arguments between me and my step-father escalated into me being
kicked out of the house. (Male non-aboriginal)
I was exposed to a lot of violence at a young age. My bad temper is one of
the consequences and its caused me to lash out at the people I care for,
especially my mom. I became impossible to live with. (Male aboriginal)
Employment Histories
Given the extent of their interpersonal difculties, the work histories of these
youth are intriguing because they seem so normal. While only a small percentage
(15%) were working for pay at the time of the interviews, most reported working
in the past80% of males and 62% of females overall.
6
Employment in fast food
and in retail sales and service was reported most frequently for all categories of
youth but gender differences also were clear. Females were somewhat less likely
to report any job experience but among those who had worked, caring for children
was a common experience. Males were much more likely to report having worked
at manual labour, in landscaping or moving furnitureactivities that are typically
more lucrative than fast food or sales or child care. Also noteworthy were their
responses to a question asking them about their hopes for nding a job in the
future (or keeping the one they had, for those who were employed). Fully 56% of
males and 54% of females overall and all but one of the aboriginal youth were
either very hopeful or hopeful of having a job in the future. These ndings are a
notable contrast to the construction of unemployed youth as suffering from a lack
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of work ethic, a culture of poverty or criminal tendencies. Unfortunately, they
also understate the considerable barriers that youth without parental supports
and advanced education face.
Since the mid-1970s, Canadian youth generally have been much more likely to
experience unemployment than have other Canadian workers. In 1998, they
comprised just 16% of the labour force but 29% of the unemployed (Gunderson,
Sharpe & Wald, 2000, p. S97). Taken together with mounting evidence about
growing income polarisation overall, it is very clear that marginalised youth face a
greater relative economic disadvantage now than in the 1970s because on one
hand, mainstream youth are staying in school and gaining more qualications and
training, and on the other hand, changes in the labour market have meant a
considerable shrinkage of decently paid work opportunities for those with less
education (HRDC, 1999; Lowe & Krahn, 1999; Wong & McBride, 2003).
Intertwined with these changes has been a growing tendency among 1824-
year-olds to remain in the family home as costs relative to earning power increase
(Lowe & Krahn, 1999; Marquardt, 1999).
7
At the same time, the number of
children and youth removed from families by and in care of child welfare agencies
has increased dramatically in provinces across Canada in lock-step with the
withdrawal of funding and other supports to services that help families with
children (Trocme et al., 2005). While the absence of sufcient numbers of well-
paying jobs is outside the control of either parents or their children, clearly, youth
with access to emotional and material familial supportsin other words, care
have considerable advantages over those without such access. As a result,
community organisations are being called upon to respond to youth with an
increasingly complex mix of emotional and self-sufciency challenges.
Education Histories
In contrast to employment, youths education-related responses varied
dramatically on the basis of gender and ethnicity: non-aboriginal female youth
were much more likely to be in school than were others. Twenty-ve females
(33%) and eight males (10%) were currently in school, but the participation rate of
aboriginal youth (9%) was substantially lower than among those who did not self-
identify as aboriginal (25%). These tendencies reect other research outcomes.
Canadian studies indicate that young women have generally been more likely
than their male peers to complete secondary school and enter post-secondary
training. These differences have been attributed to a series of cooperative
feminine behaviours that are more compatible with the mainstream middle-class
attitudes that help predict school success (Fenwick, 2004). Ironically, however,
among those without a high school diploma, female wages continue to be
especially low in relation to males with similar levels of formal education.
Indeed, Drolet concludes that girls without high school education confront
especially large wage gaps in relation to similarly situated males (Drolet, 2001,
p. 13). Other reports suggest that such females employment prospects
are somewhat less volatile than those of their male peers (Beaudry & Green,
1998, p. 21), and it is generally accepted that teenaged males without
high school education have the highest unemployment rates of any group of
youth. Especially high unemployment rates also have been reported among at risk
youth with disabilities, aboriginal youth and those who live in rural areas
(HRDC, 1999, p. 2).
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The homeless youth in Ottawa who were not in school articulated a remarkable
consistency in the explanations they gave. Financial considerations were often
noted, but the most frequently mentioned explanations were emotional, having to
do with feelings such as boredom, worries, inferiority, or fear of violence. These
types of reasons were given by both aboriginal and non-aboriginal youth:
I hate school. (Female, non-aboriginal)
Had missed a lot and was behind. (Female, non-aboriginal)
Because I was lazy and lacking motivation. (Female, aboriginal)
Afraid(duetoviolence) at school. Felt unwelcomedandtakenadvantageof.
(Male, non-aboriginal)
Got kicked out for getting into ghts all the time. (Male, non-aboriginal)
Always waking up too late and always getting kicked out until I said
forget it. (Male, aboriginal).
Despite such reactions, most out-of-school youth (over 70% overall) indicated a
strong interest in returning to school. When asked what it would take, several
youths responses reected the need to rst be in stable housing:
A stable living environmentplace to go to school from. (Female non-
aboriginal)
A place to live, food in my stomach, money in my pocket. (Male non-
aboriginal)
Needs xed address and wants to go back. (Female aboriginal)
For other, especially female, youth plans were already under way to return to
school:
Im registered to go back in January. (Female non-aboriginal)
I have already signed up for grade 11 correspondence courses. (Female
non-aboriginal)
Will go to university as a mature student next year. (Female aboriginal)
Wants to get back on trackis trying to register at alternative school.
(Female aboriginal)
I am currently on a waiting list for McNabb Alternate School. (Male non-
aboriginal)
I have an appointment withWong and McBride an alternate high school
on Monday February 3
rd
. (Male aboriginal)
The Role of Community Agencies
Our data indicated that one community agency in particular stood out in the lives
of the youth we spoke to. The Agency
8
targets its numerous activities specically
to youth in difcult circumstances. Its mission statement clearly signals a
philosophy that simultaneously recognises the structural barriers that limit youth
possibilities, but also indicates support for proactive and inclusive efforts to stretch
those possibilities as fully as possible. The intertwined recognition that care and
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increasing self-sufciency are both signicant is carefully articulated in their
mission statement, as reproduced below. Italics have been added where we felt
that this recognition was most explicit:
[the Agency] serves youth aged 12 and older. We focus on youth with
difculties affecting their physical and/or emotional well-being and
development.
We support youth in making positive health and lifestyle decisions
We undertake our mission in partnership with youth, to ensure their
voices have impact within the Agency and within the community.
We recognize that youth, in moving toward independence and self-
sufciency must struggle with important challenges related to their basic needs
and to their need for afliation and afrmation. Many youth with whom we
have contact identify the need for support to resolve complex issues, such as
issues related to parenthood or sexual orientation. We believe that young
people make choices regarding drug use, criminal behaviour, violence,
prostitution and street life because their options are limited. They often
struggle with low self-esteem and self-blame, and a history of family instability,
conict and abuse. These young people are vulnerable to exploitation, and they
are often distrustful of systems which are imposed on them.
We are committed to creating a safe, non-judgemental environment in which
young people, when they express themselves, are recognized and valued as
individuals. We believe that a key element of our work is to broaden the range of
choices for young people. We do so by providing current, accurate information
about the options available to young people regarding their basic needs and
lifestyle choices.
The choices made by young people are inuenced by their gender
and their cultural, racial, and religious traditions. We respect these
differences and the inuence they exert in shaping a young persons life.
Our commitment to equality means we treat young people as individuals,
according to their needs and respectful of their wishes . . .
We believe that responsibility and accountability are empowering and are
essential elements of individual growth. We encourage youth to accept
responsibility and be accountable for the choices they make.
We are accountable to the young people we serve, the community,
and our funding bodies. We are committed to a continuous review of the
quality of the work we do. This review includes both formal and
informal feedback from youth.
We are committed to ensuring that our services are accessible. We
believe that accessibility in enhanced when our staff and services reect
the diversity of the community we serve. It is equally important that our
service delivery sites are located close to areas where youth meet, and
that these are physically accessible and welcoming to youth.
We are committed to practicing our values within our own
workplaces. We empower our staff by dening the responsibility and
accountability of every member of the community of the Agency and by
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creating a workplace where there is respect for differences, equality and
accessibility.
Thus, according to this statement, the practices of the Agency involve socio-spatial
spaces and approaches that actively seek to weave together a variety of
opportunities for care and for boosting self-sufciency. Their programmes and
activities include: drop-ins, housing services, employment services, advisory
committees, youth and family counselling, school-based programmes for youth at
risk, HIV education and anti-homophobia workshops, professional training and
opportunities for youth involvement. In addition, they are closely involved in
local and extra-local networks of community organisations that work against
exclusion, homelessness and poverty.
Among the youth we interviewed, two particular spaces and the services therein
stood out. The rst was the downtown drop-in, one of several operated by the
Agency in geographically dispersed locations to provide crisis intervention and
supportive counseling, information andreferral.
9
Questions about the drop-in were
asked as part of a series of inquiries about youths use of four sets of social services
(drop-ins; citysocial services; employment services; housingservices). While it is not
surprising that drop-ins were by far the most popular service identied, given that
our sampling strategy involved recruitment there, what stands out in the interviews
is the level of enthusiasm with which youth discussed this facility. Youths reactions
were qualitatively distinct from their mention of any other service.
10
Not only were
they more positive, but uniquely, they described it as a place where multiple needs
were met. The drop-ins were oftenthe conduit for access to labour market orientated
services but theyalso andsimultaneouslyofferedcare. Inother words, the integrated
approach offered by this multiservice agency seemed to support, simultaneously,
youths vocational and emotional needs.
They give me shelter and food. They help me nd a job. They give me
necessities such as tampons, hairbrush, etc. (Female, non-aboriginal)
Information, phone numbers for available housing and funding. (Female
non-aboriginal)
If I have a problem, can talk to staff. Can connect her to resources she
needs. (Female aboriginal)
Lets me meet people who are supportive. (Female aboriginal)
A place to eat and hand out is provided by drop-ins. The people who
work there help me feel good about myself. (Male non-aboriginal)
Keeps me off streets, not panning, keeps me out of jail. (Male non-
aboriginal)
Friendlythey make you feel peaceful. Ive been coming here for
6 yearslikes it. (Male aboriginal)
They gave me food and helped me nd a job. (male aboriginal)
The second signicant space was the young womens emergency shelter, where
substantial numbers of female youth had stayed. Females reactions to the young
womens emergency shelter were much more muted than they were to the drop-in,
reecting youths dominant message that the emergency shelters were
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unacceptable living spaces. Yet, the young womens emergency shelter also
elicited relatively more positive remarks than did any other shelter where youth
had stayed:
Good to be off the streets, have someone to talk to. (Female non-
aboriginal)
Keeps me from getting colds (which Id get on the streets). (Female
aboriginal)
Has been sick less often since living here. (Female aboriginal)
Positive: eating three times a day and sleeping better. Negative: started
smoking again. (Female non-aboriginal)
She eats here and shes not stressed because shes not being abused by
men. (Female non-aboriginal)
An Emerging Picture
Marginalised youth in Ottawa are diverse in many ways: they are female and
male; aboriginal and non-aboriginal; Canadian and foreign-born. But they also
exhibit some characteristics that distinguish them from housed youth, according
to comparisons between the Panel Study youth respondents and the responses of
housed youth to the National Population Health Survey and other available
evidence (Aubry et al., 2003). The most dramatic differences have to do with their
experiences of family conict and violence: these appear to be more frequent and
to result in less access to familial supports and a greater likelihood of becoming
homeless. It is likely that these factors help to explain why so few youth are
currently working or in school. However, our study also reveals the extent to
which these marginalised youth share mainstream values. Most have had jobs in
the past and some are hopeful about nding work in the future. Many of those
currently not in school would like to resume their studies.
Despite these commonalities, racialised and gendered differences are also
apparent, having to do with experiences of violence (highest among aboriginal
and female youth); living outside the family (highest among male youth); school
involvement (highest among non-aboriginal female youth), and experiences with
better-paying jobs (highest among male youth). As a result, developing policies,
programmes and services for marginalised youth is a challenging undertaking,
involving recognition of the potential impact of a wide range of situated
psychological, sociological and macro-economic matters.
Despite the challenging nature of what is called for, our preliminary evidence
suggests that the Agencys approach of simultaneously providing care together
with supports for boosting self-sufciency has some merit that deserves further
consideration and perhaps, programming and policy support. Currently, a tension
exists between expanding services in ways that respond to government initiatives
tied to human capital arguments, and constructing an approach to service
provision that supports new understandings about best practices (Bellefeuille &
Hemingway, 2005). One challenge raised by this tension is directly related to care,
and involves choosing between developing a continuum of supports that
integrate emotional, social and instrumental issues in ways that are sensitive to
gender and race, or seeking funds that emphasise much more directed
vocational counselling and support services. Community organisations are
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sometimes caught in the middle, between efforts to fully address the full range of
needs of homeless youth but dependent upon funds that are geared to
employability initiatives.
In the next section of this article, we further examine this tension by drawing on
philosophical arguments derived from ethics of justice and ethics of care
perspectives, and considering how their insights might apply to marginalised
youth such as those we interviewed in Ottawa.
Ethics of Justice, Ethics of Care and Marginalised Youth
Critical responses to shifts towards neoliberalisation often have been informed by
an ethics of justice. This orientation has been concerned about the signicant
erosion of individual rights and the sometimes draconian measures used to force
individuals into workfare programmes despite the fact that suitable jobs simply
may not exist (Evans, 1995; Lightman, 1995; 1997; Shragge, 1997; Shragge &
Fontan, 2000). Although it is certainly not a new trend, governmental policies that
promote the idea that individuals should depend on wages earned through
employment without much government support, have undeniably become an
increasingly prominent thread of labour market policies in the 1990s (Evans &
Wekerle, 1997; Shragge & Fontan, 2000). This orientation is the result of various
efforts since the mid-1980s, to align social and economic policies with one another
and with conceptions of what liberal market economies require in order to remain
competitive internationally (Teeple, 2000). In parallel, there have been shifts in the
construction of welfare programmes to incorporate more explicit and directive
welfare-to-work stipulations (Evans, 1995; Lightman, 1995; Marquardt, 1999;
Shragge, 1997; Mosher et al., 2004).
In Ontario, where an avowedly neoliberal and authoritarian populist regime
was elected provincially in 1995, even the term social assistance has been removed
from the provincial lexicon and replaced with Ontario Works. Eligibility for this
programme explicitly ties nancial need with an agreement to participate in
employment activities (Government of Ontario, 2005) and reports have
acknowledged the punitive ways in which oversight of these agreements have
been conducted, especially for young single mothers (Mosher et al., 2004).
11
At the
federal level, nancial supports for youth employment initiatives have been
located under the umbrella of the Youth Employment Strategy (YES). Its primary
goal has been to support Canadian youth as they move into the world of work
through programme delivery mechanisms that occur primarily through third
parties. The 2002 Throne Speech reiterated this commitment and also redirected
the strategy to further develop skills for those who face the greatest barriers to
employment (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, 2003). According to
Federovitch (2001, p. 177), the federal governments employability message rst
and foremost has been to change the focus of workers from How can I qualify for
benets? to How can I obtain more work, stay employed and have a brighter
future? (see also Wong & McBride, 2003).
Critical geographers and others have expressed concerns about the injustice of
measures that severely restrict and manage the freedom of movement of poor or
unemployed bodies, or regulate behaviours in order to promote self-sufciency
(Dean, 1998; Hermer & Mosher, 2002; Mitchell, 2003; Mosher et al., 2004). Debates
about whether those who use government benets should have the same rights
as wage earners have raised questions about the validity of anti-begging bylaws,
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and the fairness of draconian measures against welfare fraud (Lightman, 1997;
Dean, 1998; Frenschkowski, 2002; Hermer & Mosher, 2004; Mosher et al., 2004).
While fully recognising the signicance of such concerns and their connection to
debates about ethics of justice, we also want to assert their shortcomings and the
complementary need for a focus on care.
Nancy Duncans (1996) arguments about the opening up of private places to
legal scrutiny have begun this process and in doing so, she anticipates and extends
Don Mitchells (2003) arguments about the rights of homeless people to represent
themselves in public spaces. She emphasises the need for justice to be accessible to
individuals in a variety of spatial realms:
I do not endorse spatial or political anarchism. There is clearly a need for
effective government at a range of scales . . . However, the ideal geography
would work to minimize: household autonomy as opposed to the
empowerment of its individual members, place-based identity and
privilege, local control which has highly uneven consequences for social
justice across communities, nationalism, and other territorializing and
conning exclusionary processes. The creation of progressive geographies
wouldrequiredeterritorializationthecreationof open-ended, proliferating
and inclusive sites of empowerment and resistance against exclusionary,
reterritorializing processes: place essentialism and homogenizing identity
politics or coerced assimilation. (Duncan, 1996, p. 142)
Duncans emphasis here, rst and foremost, is on interactions between individual
bodies and the state. According to Duncan, there should be a suspicion of reifying
particular spaces or groups of individuals in any manner at the expense of
emphasising the autonomy of individual bodies. Duncans analysis is inspired, in
part, by her consideration of abused women who have suffered greatly because
the households in which they have lived have typically been regarded as a private
sphere that is off-limits to public scrutiny or intervention.
But this example also provides a basis for identifying the socio-spatial limits of
an ethics of justice as an all-encompassing guide for the sphere of politics. Among
those who emphasise interactions between individuals and the state, there has
been a neglect of notions of interdependence with regard to human interactions
and the contexts within which they occur. One way of thinking about
interdependence is to recognise the spatio-temporal impacts that being battered
or abused has on a woman, child or youths life. Post-traumatic stress disorder has
been acknowledged as such an impact wherein the trauma of being battered is
experienced again and again even when the batterer or abuser is no longer present
(Briere, 1992). There now is considerable evidence that specic kinds of caring and
knowledgeable interactions with sympathetic others are required before battered
womens or abused youths mental and physiological autonomy is able to be
restored (Foa et al., 1991; Wilson et al., 1995). Such healing often benets from or
indeed requires certain spatialised living arrangements, such as transition shelters
or second stage housing or safe houses. As Tronto (1995) and others have noted,
caring for depends on the quality of interpersonal interactions, taking into account
the contexts in which they are provided:
Caring for involves responding to the particular, concrete, physical,
spiritual, intellectual, psychic, and emotional needs of others . . . These
types of care are unied by growing out of the fact that humans have
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physical and psychic needs (food, grooming, warmth, comfort, etc.) that
require activity to satisfy them. These needs are in part socially
determined; they are also met in different societies by different types of
social practices. (Tronto, 1995, p. 103)
Tronto implicitly recognises that diversity, complexity and particularity are part
and parcel of what caring for requires, and that the socio-spatial contexts within
which care takes place are also relevant to its successful practice. Williams
engagement with Morriss arguments about independent living is an effort to
make these connections explicit by linking them to particular types of bodies in
the context of specic socio-spatial arrangements (Williams, 2001). She points out
that Morris (a feminist disability activist) makes a distinction between
independence as self-sufciency, which she, in common with other feminist
ethics of care theorists such as Tronto (1995) and Sevenhuijsen (1998), reject, and
independence as having the capacity to have choice and control over ones life, as
is implied in the independent living movement. In other words, in order for
independent living to be actualised, it must be constructed so that persons with
disabilities have control over the organisations and resources required to achieve
maximal independence in their communities, regardless of the individual
capacities of residents (Boyce et al., 2001, p. 19). Thus, for Williams (2001) the
moral signicance of caring for is not only about the object of care (as in the case
of caring about) but also about the context and the quality of care. The example of
independent living does not serve to undermine arguments such as those of
Duncan (1996) and Mitchell (2003); rather, it is intended to illustrate their partial
nature. An ethics of justice requires an ethics of care if those on the margins are to
be able to experience social justice in the places that they live.
Another relevant dimension of feminist ethics of care arguments has to do with
the ways in which they challenge liberal notions of equality. Haylett (2003) has
outlined the implications of this challenge by deconstructing taken-for-granted
meanings of welfare reform and the profound limitations of thinking welfare
in relation only to paid work . . .. Furthermore, she asserts that:
The founding mothers of a feminist ethic of care conceived that the
work of care was not only an activity but also an orientation or disposition,
underpinned by values that are different to those associated with paid
work, and that are psychologically invested. Here the work of care is a
practice in which acting, feeling, thinking and judging are intertwined
(Ruddick 1989, p. 13; also Gillligan, 1982; Tronto, 1993) . . . This focus
coincides with the historical discourse of basic needs through which
welfare provisions developed, namely the idea that the state had some
responsibility in guaranteeing the basic needs of its citizens . . . it is
something to which individuals have an unconditional claim, and
importantly can be extended to include the caring work that is needed
for human social development. In this respect, an ethic of care has a
wider social bearing than the valuation of interpersonal care
relationships; care is regarded as a species activity that includes
everything that we do to maintain, continue and repair our world so
that we can live in it as well as possible (Fisher & Tronto; 1990, p. 40).
Haylett, 2003, p. 806)
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Hayletts (2003) observations about the implications of care ethics that go
beyond the interpersonal and the rational are directly related to some of the
broader concerns of this article. One such concern has been to question the
adequacy of attention to care in current policies and programming geared to
marginalised children and youth, and more generally, the adequacy of current
supports for nurturing marginalised youths citizenship rights for self-
determination, above and beyond their self-sufciency responsibilities.
Yet, it is also the case that we do not want to dismiss as superuous the interest
in self-sufciency that both youth in Ottawa and the Agency expressed, and that
indirectly relates to some of the ethics of justice arguments mentioned above.
As we noted in the rst section of this article, the extent of youths work
experience and their hopes for work success in the future suggest that
governmental shifts towards active labour policies are not out of sync with
youths own efforts and dreams. This correspondence may reect an aspect of
active labour policies that has not often been discussed in the critical literature but
that is, according to Jacobs, one credible argument in favour of policies such as
workfare. He notes that ensuring that citizens feel a sense of control over their
lives is so critical in a democratic society that compulsory workfare is morally
justiable in some cases, just as education, another fundamental guarantor of
democratic citizenship, is compulsory up to a certain age (Jacobs, 1995, p. 30; see
also Shragge & Fontan, 2000, p. 135).
Conclusions
One goal of this article was to highlight the signicance of care (and its absence) in
the lives of marginalised youth, and to juxtapose these insights against dominant
understandings of the importance of employment independence in public policy
geared to at-risk youth. Another goal was to highlight some consequences of
senior government policy making that neglects the complex gendered and
racialised bodies of homeless youth in favour of abstract images of one-
dimensional workers. A third goal was to delve behind these assumptions in
order to ask whether governmental responsibility should focus entirely on the
goal of self-sufciency, or whether it should also acknowledge issues having to do
with care, particularly in dealing with the needs of marginalised youth.
There are important socio-spatial implications that stem from our examination
of these matters. Incorporating care into the framework of senior government
policies implies that there is an onus not only to provide sufcient funds but also
to direct those monies in such a way that the gendered and racialised contexts
within which homeless youths are living manifest qualities of both care and
justice. This article suggests that the role of appropriately located, multifaceted social
services may have a signicance that has not been appropriately recognised. The
services that homeless youth favour were not singular targeted facilities that
narrowly promoted work readiness but rather those places where multiple needs
might be addressed in a somewhat open-ended and multifaceted manner,
respectful of youths own understandings of their needs and capacities.
Promoting self-sufciency through job search and additional training were
certainly among the messages that youth received and, indeed, most youth were
aware of the need to nd employment and hopeful that they ultimately would be
successful. For some, however, psychological issues stood in the way and care in
place appeared to be a necessary element in the healing that many required.
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There is a wide gap between this conclusion and the current orientation of
senior governments towards marginal youth, where the focus has been on their
(narrowly constructed) roles as potential workers to the neglect of other aspects of
their lives. One argument against this approach is that these other issues do not
disappear as a result of neglect but rather become part of the disconnect between
senior government policy construction on the one hand, and local governments
capacity to implement appropriate approaches on the ground. Another is that
there is profound waste in reductionist policy initiatives that appear separate from
one another but actually deal with the same or similar populations, in realms as
diverse as: child welfare, education, health care, social service and criminal justice.
A third issue is that this problematic isolation is simultaneously sectoral, spatial
and temporal. A holistic approach to addressing homeless youths multiple
concerns is likely to require both appropriately situated shelter and services, and
longer-term outreach supports in order to ensure that gains made at one point
are not undercut later on.
Finally, this article raises questions about the nature of the bodies that are
imagined in senior governmental discourses and policy construction, and how
these bodies relate to the concrete lives of homeless youth in cities such as Ottawa.
Is the role of the federal government to acknowledge some collective
responsibility to address the traumas experienced by many of these youth?
Various organisations have made just such an argument, based on the growing
evidence of the long-term impacts of abuse experienced in residential schools and
juvenile detention centres (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996;
Bessner, 1998). This study extends these arguments to focus on a diverse group of
homeless youth and to consider their gendered, racialised spacetime
implications. In so doing, it also raises questions about the links between abstract
social policy and its embedded social service and shelter implications.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Janet Siltanen, Linda Peake, to the Carleton--Ottawa University
rescaling group, and to two anonymous reviewers for their very useful feedback
on earlier versions of this article.
Notes
1. The literature search revealed that small-scale, qualitative studies were typical of previous
Canadian research.
2. In the end, Panel Study interviewers conducted interviews in English (358), French (31) and
Somali (15). The services of cultural interpreters were used for 15 other interviews (Somali, four;
Arabic, three; Russian, one; Ukrainian, one; Lingala, one; Cantonese, one; and Spanish; four).
3. Homeless youth not using shelters might either be living on the street, couch surng or staying
temporarily in some other type of residence.
4. We categorised an individual as having aboriginal identity if one of the rst four identities
declared, was aboriginal, in response to the following question: To which cultural groups would
you say you belong?.
5. Among the youth, only 3% stated they were not Canadian citizens. Based on other cultural
identities reported by respondents (including African, Afro-Canadian, Asian, Egyptian,
Ethiopian, Haitian, Jamaican, Latin American, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese), ve male
youth (8%) and 13 female youth (16%) were interpreted as being members of visible minorities.
6. We attribute the lack of current work involvement to the adverse circumstances for being
employed that homelessness generates.
7. For example, the Social Planning Council of Ottawa reported an 11% increase between 1996 and
2001 in the proportion of 1824-year-olds living at home (2003).
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8. Various quotes about the Agency are taken from the agencys website but we have chosen to keep
the anonymity of the agency.
9. The downtown focus was entirely a result of our sampling approach, as the Agency was one of
several places where we recruited youth to respond to our survey.
10. Overall, 81% of males and 70% of females used the drop-ins, whereas the use of other services
ranged between 19% and 37%.
11. Similar targeting has occurred in the United Statessee Mink (1998) and Rose (1995).
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Cuidado y las vidas de jo venes que faltan viviendas en
tiempos de tendencia neoliberalista en Canada
Resumen Se examinen perspicacias socio-espaciales que viene de teor as
feministas de cuidado en relacio n a las vidas complejos y diversas de jovenes sin
hogares en Ottawa y a su jacio n (embeddedness) en escalas mu ltiples de la
construccio n e implementacio n pol tica publica. En entrevistas largas con 78
jovenas y 78 jovenes que no tienen hogares en Ottawa se revela que el cuidado e
independencia se destacan en las vidas de las/los jo venes. Sostenemos que
generalmente el cuidado no es parte de las agendas actuales del gobierno superior
que orientan a jo venes marginalisados, y como consecuencia existe una brecha de
nanciamiento para apoyar organisaciones que trabajan con jo venes sin hogares.
Sugerimos que una manera para entender esta brecha es reconocer que los
programas del gobierno superior se orientan a cuestiones de empleabilidad
limitado. Ademas armamos que resulta que organisaciones locales tienen la
responsabilidad para tender puentes entre la brecha de caracterisaciones
unidimensional y las vidas complejas, genericadas (gendered), racialisadas, y
situatadas de jo venes marginalisados. En este art culo utilisamos conclusiones
preliminares de investigaciones continuas con jo venes que no tiene viviendas en
Ottawa para extender los dichos argumentos en conjuncio n con perspicacias
teoreticas de argumentos espec cos de las eticas de justicia y las eticas de
cuidado. Armamos que hay implicaciones socio-espaciales importantes que se
necesitan tomar en cuenta. La incorporacio n de cuidada en el marco de las
pol ticas desgobierno superior implica que no solo hay una responsabilidad para
aprovisionar nanciamiento suciente sino que dirigir los fondos en una manera
en que los contextos racialisados y genericados de las vidas de jo venes
marginalisados manifestan las calidades de cuidado y justicia. E
ste art culo

sugiere que el papel de servicios multifaceticos que se ubica adecuado tengan una
importancia que no se reconocen apropiado.
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Corporate Bodies of Desire: An investigation into the
Women of Enron
JAYME WALENTA
Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Abstract This article explores how the corporate body and its desire for capital scripts
workers bodies through heterosexual desire. I draw on the case of Enron, the Texas-based
energy company currently embroiled in legal action for fraudulent accounting practices.
These practices are tied to a corporate culture that, in the desire for revenue accumulation,
hid debt and misinformed employees and stockholders. Drawing from mainstream media
accounts of the Enron scandal, I examine the role of gender in the exposure of Enron. First,
I look at how media narratives frame the exposure of Enron by a female journalist and a
female whistleblower. Then, following the uncovering of Enrons fraudulent nancial
strategies, the August 2002 issue of Playboy Magazine featured the Women of Enron
revealing their own assets. My second task is to analyse this Playboy spread in the
context of the Enron fall. Through an investigation of the exposure of Enron by these two
sets of women, the good girls and the bad girls, I draw out the parallels between Enrons
desire for capital with a desire for the female body. Further, I make note and comment on the
conspicuous absence of the male body in these narratives.
Introduction
In April 2002, 4 months after the Enron Corporations declared bankruptcy,
Playboy posted a press release seeking Enron women to pose nude under a
Women of Enron spread. The advertisement requested interested women to
provide a headshot and a bikini shot in addition to proof of former or current
employment with Enron. This was Playboys rst issue
1
featuring women of a
company involved in a corporate scandal. After receiving over 450 applications
and conducting 300 interviews with former and current female Enron employees,
Playboy selected 10 women for the spread (Houston Chronicle, 2002a).
Just months earlier, two women were being credited with risking their careers to
expose Enrons fraudulent accounting. Bethany McLean, the lead uncovering
journalist during Enrons downfall, and Sherron Watkins, the Enron whistle-
blower set into motion the events leading to at the time the largest corporate
bankruptcy in history. These two sets of women, the good girls exposing Enrons
false assets, and the bad girls exposing Enrons eshy assets, comprise the
subject of this article. I analyse their positions in the fall of Enron to ask how
Correspondence: JaymeWalenta, Department of Geography, Universityof BritishColumbia, 1984
West Mall, Room 217, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada. E-mail: jwalenta@interchange.ubc.ca
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 437453, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808601
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cultures of capital constitute bodies in the corporate context. How does the
corporate body of Enron and its desire for capital script workers bodies through
heterosexual desire?
The Canadian legal scholar Joel Bakan begins his book, The Corporation, by
describing how the corporation or corporate body is an imaginary constituted
through legal frameworks.
2
This body entity, he explains, is granted rights as a
citizeninthe eyes of the lawunder the UnitedStates constitutions 14thamendment
enabling it to attain the status of corporate personhood. Bakan goes on to explain
that because the corporation is not an actual person, it cannot be prosecuted and
imprisoned for wrongdoing. This way, the corporation manages to shirk the issue
of legal and social accountability for its actions. Instead, these responsibilities are
laidontothe corporations humanbodies. Inthis article, I drawfromBakans notion
of the rm as a legally diffuse entity to understand the corporation as
geographically de-centred, as existing in a proliferation of sites simultaneously.
These sites include both the physical buildings and ofces of the rm as well as the
bodies of its workers. With this fragmented notion of the corporation, I extend
Bakans discussion by exploring the heterosexual scripts implicit in corporate
cultures of capital, specically the scripts of womens bodies in exposing Enron.
I ask what these scripts mean for how capital cultures actually work.
The article begins by looking at the ways geographers and others have dealt
with the intersection of heterosexual desire and capital cultures. Then, I discuss
my research methods and provide general background on the rise and fall of the
Enron Corporation. Following this, I examine the heterosexual scripts implicit in
the dual narratives of Enrons exposure. First, I explore the positioning of female
bodies in the role of whistleblower (Watkins) and uncovering journalist (McLean)
by mainstream media. I link their bodies to a scripting of the female body as a
corporate housekeeper, a moral body situated as both ethical and honest. Next,
I use a textual and visual analysis of the Playboy spread to understand how the
body is constituted in the eshy exposure of Enron. These two analyses help me to
demonstrate the parallels between capitalist desire and heterosexual desire in the
Enron context.
3
Because I argue that the narratives of exposure are constructed
through gendered explanations, I make note of the conspicuous absence of male
bodies in each narrative. My conclusions ask what this dichotomy of sexualised
female bodies (the good and the bad girl) means specically for narratives of
corporate fraud. Ultimately, I suggest that both sets of women, through the
sexualisation of their bodies, come to offer extra-legal means of protection for the
corporate body in its time of crisis.
Gendered Subjects at Work
Few geographers write about the intersection between heterosexual desire and
cultures of capital, and certainly even fewer have considered the sexed-
constructions of the corporate body. A notable exception is the work of Katherine
Gibson and Julie Graham. On a global scale, they write that the whole of the
capitalist economy is scripted in discourses of heterosexual desire (Gibson-
Graham, 1996). Rather than being mere words, Gibson and Graham show that
these hetero-normative accounts make a difference in the successes of capital.
They draw upon metaphors such as virgin territory and market penetration to
show the effects of such naturalised scripts on the ground (Gibson-Graham, 1996
p. 124). Their larger focus on language and discourse in capitalism opens up
438 J. Walenta
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questions about how such narratives situate gender and position labouring bodies
inside the rm.
Linda McDowell (1997) and Arlie Hoschchild (1983) remind us that in any
study on the culture of service sector work, the scale of the body cannot be
ignored. Similarly, Judy Wajcman (1998) points out that the workplace is a central
site for the sexualisation of gender.
4
More specically, Rosabeth Moss Kanters
work (1977) suggests that how men and women are viewed in society in
heterosexual terms spills over into the corporate context. From her extensive
interviews with a service-orientated corporation in Men and Women of the
Corporation (1977), she identies four conventional roles that men assign to
women that help to maintain familiar forms of social-hetero-normative
interaction. These traditional notions of femininity include (1) the mother
and/or the Madonna, (2) the seductress or whore, (3) the pet, encouraged to be
girlish and nally (4) the iron maiden, a tough womens libber (Kanter, 1977,
pp. 233236). Many feminist scholars have gone on to further Kanters work by
situating the gendering of womens bodies as sexualised beings explicitly within
the production processes of capitalist rms.
For example, Pei Chia Lans work is concerned with how bodies and identities
are constructed as integral to the labour process (Lan, 2003). Lan investigates
cosmetic salespeople in the beauty industry who work in department stores in
Taiwan. She nds that workplaces such as the cosmetics counter are rampant with
images of desire andfemininitywhichsalespeople, especiallywomen, are expected
to embody. Thus, their bodily labour as hyper-sexualisedwomenis requiredfor the
very protability of the industry. The work of Leslie Salzinger on the maquiladora
factories on the MexicoUS border further expands on the interconnections of
sexuality and desire as intrinsic parts of capitalist production (Salzinger, 2000,
2003). Salzinger notes howthe designof a factory inher study andits labour control
processes produce sexualised subjects: men in management upstairs who gaze
upon female workers below on the factory oor. Women are encouraged by their
peers and the labour process to perform a highly sexualised femininity, one that
includes wearing miniskirts and high heels to work. Such a workplace constitutes
women as desirable objects and men as desiring subjects, where women are
productive precisely because they are seen (and see themselves) as sexually
desirable. Each of these works notes the importance of sexuality in the production
process. Furthering Kanters typology above, andbuilding fromLanandSalzinger,
I suggest below that the publicly narrated accounts of the Enron debacle produced
sexualised subjects, the good and bad girls of Enron. Also, I maintain that these
subjects are central to how we understand both the exposure of Enron and the
positioning of women more broadly in the corporate context.
Research Methods
The analysis in this article is divided into two sections. First, I investigate who
was credited with alerting the public to Enrons mismanaged nances. To do this,
I began by looking at US congressional witness lists and testimonies given at both
the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Senate Committee on
Commerces investigations into the collapse of Enron in February 2002. The
testimonies decidedly target Sherron Watkins as the lone voice who sought to
warn Enron [that it] was in danger of imploding in a wave of accounting
scandals and Bethany McLean as a reporter with Fortune Magazine [who] rst
An Investigation into the Women of Enron 439
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raised questions about Enrons nancial condition (US House of Representatives,
2002; US Senate, 2002). The release of testimonial witness lists on 15 January 2002
placed McLean and Watkins in the media spotlight. Given the focus on each in
the congressional investigations, I turned to media accounts of the debacle
examining articles which specically proled the women. I employed a content
analysis to evaluate the underlying meanings of the womens positions in the
narrative of Enrons fall. I looked at major national and international papers and
one regional newspaper to determine how many such articles existed and in
what ways the women were characterised in the year following the exposure,
from 15 January 2002 to 31 December 2002.
5
Many of these primary materials
referred me to other journalistic accounts in magazines and books written on the
Enron debacle. In all, I examined over 300 newspaper and magazine articles, 26 of
which are devoted specically to the womens role in the scandal (six cover
McLean and 20 prole Watkins), and three books which broadly cover the Enron
debacle.
6
The second part of the analysis focuses entirely on the August 2002 Playboy
Magazine spread entitled The Women of Enron. In this section, I conduct a textual
and visual analysis of the nine-page spread to ascertain the representations of
female bodies. I specically draw attention to the womens surroundings, their
costumes and jewellery and their positions in the photographs to demonstrate
explicitly the parallels between a corporate desire for prot and heterosexual
desire. To do this, I bring in literatures on the gendered notions of spectatorship, in
particular Griselda Pollock (1988) and John Berger (1977).
The Rise and Fall of Enron
Enron was formed in Houston, Texas in 1986 by Chief Executive Ofcer (CEO)
Kenneth Lay. Like other oil and gas rms, Enrons business was pipeline
ownership and the delivery of energy. However, the mid-1980s were a period of
signicant economic restructuring in the energy industry, and in the shift from a
mass producing space-economy to exible specialisation, rms had to adapt to
remain competitive (Schoenberger, 1997). So, in 1989 when Jeffery Skilling, a
consultant to Enron, approached Lay with a vision to move Enron into energy
trading, the board of directors agreed and he was brought on to head the new
trading division (McLean & Elkind, 2003). In the 1990s Enron became the rst in
the industry to trade natural gas, revolutionising the business. They expanded
into electricity, broadband and water, diversifying their investments at an
international scale. Each expansion and investment was rewarded with a rise in
the value of Enron stock, which at its peak was at $90 a share (Bryce, 2002). In 1999,
Fortune magazine had named Enron The most innovative company of the year 7
years running (ibid.). By 2000, Enron looked more like a rm of the new economy
than a traditional asset heavy energy rm.
Key to Enrons strategy of aggressive growth was its change in accounting
practices. As an energy trader, Enron asked the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) for permission to change its method of accounting from
accrual to mark-to-market. Mark-to-market is a strategy common for nancial
rms, and not generally recommended for industries such as oil and gas. But
nevertheless, the SEC agreed. McLean and Elkind (2003) clearly describe the
signicance of this transition:
440 J. Walenta
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When you use conventional accounting, you book the revenues and
prots that ow from a contract as they come through the door. But
under the mark-to-market method, you can book the entire estimated
value for all ten years on the day you book the contract. Changes in that
value show up as additional incomeor lossesin subsequent periods.
(McLean & Elkind, 2003, p. 39).
By changing the way assets were recorded in the company books, Enron could
make their contracts appear protable from the outset. The company was able to
book revenue from a contract immediately, presenting an illusion of income
despite the scal reality.
Over time, Enron became notorious for its business culture. In her own book,
Enron whistleblower Sherron Watkins makes reference to the rms culture as
treacherous, aggressive and over the top (Swartz & Watkins, 2003, p. 15). It is
widely speculated that this culture fostered the fraudulent accounting practices
that led to Enrons bankruptcy (Bryce, 2002; US House, 2002; US Senate 2002;
McLean & Elkind, 2003). One of Enrons key deceptions lay in the transfer or
hiding of risk into SPEs (Special Purpose Entities). For example, if Enron had a
poorly performing asset in Brazil on its accounting ledger for 300 million dollars
(now worth only 20% of that value), it would sell that asset to an SPE for the full
value and book 300 million dollars in revenue. In order to purchase that asset from
Enron, the SPE would need to get loan money from a bank. The bank gladly
loaned the money to the SPE once it learned that Enron would back any
transaction up with a promise of Enron stock. This guaranteed a full return on
investment to the banks even if the Brazil asset was resold for less value than 300
million. The remainder would be covered by Enron stock. In this case, there is no
legitimate transfer of economic risk from one entity to another, only the hiding of
debt from public eyes.
These business practices were exaggerated over time by both investment
bankers and Enrons own auditor Arthur Andersen (under the pressure of Chief
Financial Ofcer (CFO) Andrew Fastow), eager for the companys business
(McLean & Elkind, 2003). But the bases of Enrons nancial reports were suspect,
and eventually investors, reporters and employees began questioning Enrons
value. In the course of a month from October to November 2001, the nature of
Enrons nances began to unravel. Shareholders sold their stock, and banks
involved with Enron demanded payments on their loans. Because the companys
assets were unprotable, Enron was left with no money and a poor credit rating,
preventing them from borrowing (Stiglitz, 2003). The company was forced to le
bankruptcy on 2 December 2001. This marked the largest corporate bankruptcy in
US history, resulting in losses in excess of $50 million in share costs (Washington
Post, 2002a).
Since the fall of Enron, many have speculated about the cause of its collapse.
Some argue that the blame lay in the strong and ill-managed personalities of the
rm, the arrogance of Skilling and Fastow and Lays neglect, which led to
the aggressive culture, the lack of business ethics and fraudulent accounting
(US House, 2002; US Senate, 2002; Bryce, 2003). Others, like Skilling, say Enron fell
simply because there was a run on the bank, and in the end there was not enough
money for creditors (US Senate, 2002). The investigations into the collapse of the
company ended on 25 May 2006 when Skilling and Lay were found guilty on
fraud and conspiracy charges. They face more than a combined 300 years in prison
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and await sentencing scheduled for 23 October 2006 in Houston, Texas (Houston
Chronicle, 2005). Already several former employees have been indicted, including
Arthur Andersen, Enrons auditor and former CFO Fastow. Portions of the
company continue to exist today solely in a bankruptcy restructuring capacity,
selling off assets to pay creditors and shareholders.
The One Virgin in the Whorehouse: Enrons good girls
Following Enrons bankruptcy on 2 December 2001, the US Senate and House
Committees on Energy and Commerce launched investigations into Enron to
detect corporate fraud, their reason being that no company so large should fold so
quickly. These investigations revealed several voices, both in and out of the rm,
warning executives of Enrons troubles. In particular, two womens names came
up repeatedly in the context of these warnings. Bethany McLean, a writer with
Fortune, and Sherron Watkins, an Enron executive, are both cited as the serious
initiators for the exposure of Enron (US House, 2002; US Senate, 2002). Below,
I trace their stories in those months leading to and just after Enrons exposure, and
ask how their bodies were produced in relation to male bodies in dening the role
of whistle-blower and lead uncovering journalist.
In March 2001 Bethany McLean, a journalist writing for Fortune, published a
story that critically questioned the value of Enron (Fortune, 2001). Until then,
reporting on Enron had been mostly favourable. Investors and reporters were
interested only in stock price and at the time, Enrons stock price [then $80 a
share] convey[ed] legitimacy (New York Times, 2002a, p. A11). By simply asking is
Enron overpriced?, she threw the then CEO Skilling into a fury. He hung up in a
telephone interview with her after calling her unethical and immediately sent
three Enron executives to New York to convince Fortunes head editors that she
was wrong (US Senate, 2002).
Though the article was published, Enrons efforts to silence McLean worked
initially. She ceased looking into the company and resumed her coverage on Enron
only closer to the bankruptcy, when other reporters began paying attention to
McLeans questions in October 2001, specically Wall Street Journals Rebecca
Smith and John Emshwiller. After her name was released in congressional
documents, McLean was interviewed on NBCs Today Show about her role in
detecting Enrons false reporting. She was given a consulting contract with the
network, appearing to discuss current Enron events and its complex nancial
concepts (USAToday, 2002b). McLean also signed a generous book contract with a
co-worker to write about Enrons fall (New York Magazine, 2002).
Months after McLeans article appeared, on 15 August 2001, Enron executive
Sherron Watkins wrote an anonymous letter to Chairman Ken Lay. In it she said,
I am incredibly nervous that we [Enron] will implode in a wave of accounting
scandals (Watkins, 2001).
7
Further, she raised concerns about Enrons aggressive
accounting practices, the abrupt resignation of CEO Jeff Skilling the day before,
and the welfare of investors and employees whose stock was now only $38 a share
(Swartz & Watkins, 2003, p. 370).
Watkins wrote more memos to Lay a few days later, this time identifying
herself, which detailed the precise ethical problems she had with Enrons
accounting. The others were longer and included hypothetical scenarios which
Enron might consider for disclosing its accounting oddities and rebuild investor
condence in the rm and stock. She met with Lay, lawyers and other executives
442 J. Walenta
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in late August and September to argue for changes in company practices and
make a case for gradual public disclosures (Swartz & Watkins, 2003). During this
time, Lay debated whether or not to re her. According to Watkins, she was asked
once by Lay himself to keep quiet until matters had been resolved (ibid.). On
February 14, 2002, Watkins testied in front of the Senate and House committees
investigating Enron regarding her memos to Lay and knowledge of Enrons
nancial affairs. She was kept on staff at Enron until November 2002. Now she
speaks publicly about corporate ethics and received a contract to write a book
about her role in exposing Enron (Texas Monthly, 2003).
In both Watkins and McLeans cases, each is credited with exposing Enron, one
from the inside (Watkins) and one from the outside (McLean). And, in both
instances, they were not the only people asking critical questions of Enron.
According to the proliferating literatures on Enrons fall, including Watkins own
account, others are documented, and specically men, as having made complaints
about business practices to higher-ups in the rm before Watkins (USA Today,
2002a; Wall Street Journal, 2002; Swartz & Watkins, 2003). Two examples
highlighted in Watkins own whistle-blowing letter to Lay were Enron
executives Cliff Baxter and Jeff McMahon. In her letter, Watkins describes them
as having complained mightily to the then COO Skilling and other Enron
ofcials about Fastows dubious accounting. However, their complaints were
ignored (Watkins, 2001). Cliff Baxter resigned from Enron in May 2001, and
following the rms exposure and the impending investigations, he committed
suicide on 25 January 2002 (Observer, 2002). In the case of McMahon, Watkins
testied that in March 2001, McMahon had outlined ve changes he thought
should be taken if he were to remain treasurer [at Enron] (Watkins, 2001).
Again ignored, McMahon was demoted to a second tier position as the company
treasurer (USA Today, 2002a).
In those stories documented by the media, books and congressional testimonies,
men who expressed concern regarding Enrons practices were silenced through
reassignments or by resigning. Watkins managed to avoid either fate. Moreover, of
the 20 articles I examined which proled Watkins and her role in the Enron fall,
only two make mention of McMahon and Baxter as peripheral whistleblowers.
Since Watkins testimony she has been gloried as the Enron whistleblower (see
New York Times Magazine, 2004 and Texas Monthly, 2003). Chosen as Person of the
Week by Time.com in January 2002 (Time.com, 2002), she was later named Person
of the Year 2002, sharing the spotlight with two other whistleblowers, all female,
Cynthia Cooper (Worldcom
8
) and Coleen Rowley (FBI). When the three women
were asked if they thought there was a connection between whistleblowers and
women, Watkins responded, I do think theres something to being a woman . . .
I am really uncomfortable with making general statements. But, men are more
reluctant to put their friends in jeopardy. I dont necessarily want friendship in the
workplace. Also, society doesnt ask women what you do for a living. Your ego or
self worth isnt as tied to what you do (Time Magazine, 2002, p. 60).
McLeans own narrative unfolds in a similar way to Watkins. Her story in
Fortune was pre-datedby that of male Houston-based journalist, John Weil, writing
for the Wall Street Journals regional ofce in Texas in September 2000. Weils article
focused more broadly on Texas energy companies and their accounting practices,
but devoted four paragraphs specically to Enron (New York Magazine, 2002).
Enronathon, anarticle inNewYork Magazine, tries to piece together who really was
the rst reporter to ask the critical questions of Enron. In a marathon of reporting on
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Enron, the article traces three separate journalistic accounts: Weils (September
2000), McLeans (March 2001), and two reporters from the Wall Street Journal,
Rebecca Smith and John Emshwiller (October, 2001). Weil is reported to feel that he
should be given the credit for crossing the nish line rst, while Smith and
Emshwiller are certainit was their story whichcausedthe critical speculationabout
Enrons nances. The article concludes with a judging section in which McLean is
credited with being the rst one to raise really specic questions (New York
Magazine, 2002, http://www.nymag.com/page.cfm?page_id 5756). Not sur-
prisingly, of the six articles I examined on McLeans role, none make mention of
men as journalistic contributors to uncovering Enrons fraud.
The absence of the male body as the exposing body in these narratives is striking.
While men were certainly involved in questioning the principles of Enron, the
media gloried the women of the Enron scandal as ethical beings. Moreover,
following the release of Watkins and McLeans names to the media, a series of
news articles were written questioning whether women are more intrinsically
ethical than men in the corporate environment.
9
Lynne Bowes-Sperry, of the
Academy of Managements Gender and Diversity, is quoted in one article saying
that Men tend to use principles of justice, and women tend to use principles of
caring, so women . . . do things more for the good of the family, or in this case the
company (Detroit Free Press, 2003, p. D1). In what follows I expand on this idea of
women, and not men, as ethical bodies in these corporate fraud narratives.
Scripting Womens Bodies as Corporate Housekeepers
Adam Tickell, in his article on the response of print media to the collapse of Barings
bank, makes note that media do not merely report the facts of any particular case,
they present partial interpretations which contribute to the discursive under-
standings of an event (Tickell, 1996, p. 19). In the case of Enron, media coverage on
the event aided in framing the exposure of the rm as gendered, as accomplished
through female bodies. But, more importantly, the media wrote about these women
in particular ways. Below, I suggest that media coverage of the Enron scandal
constituted McLeans and Watkins bodies through three distinct narratives; the
rational yet sexually desirable body, the truthful body and the maternal body. These
narratives I argue were vital in singling out women as the exposers over men.
Media coverage on McLean tend to frame her as feminine through a combined
narrative of heterosexual attractiveness and accounts of her analytical ability. The
reporters age, appearance and voice all become subjects of description scripting
her body. She is described by the Washington Post as having an impossibly soft
voice, and the New York Times makes note of her photogenic smile (New York
Times, 2002a; Washington Post, 2002a). The most striking portrayal of McLean as a
sexualised body is in the New York Magazine Enronathon piece. The text is
accompanied with a small cartoon of the reporter standing on the Enron E, which
is turned on its side. Wearing a blouse and pants, a blonde, very curvy McLean,
with red lips, stands in the centre of the E holding a bouquet of owers and
waving. Around her on the ground are four men (possibly fellow journalists)
gazing up at her. The articles following quote captures the moment: While
McLean was being anointed as a journalistic sex symbol in a story hitherto
dominated by a balding Ken Lay, folks at the [Wall Street] Journal felt they were
robbed (New York Magazine, 2002).
444 J. Walenta
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These sexualiseddepictions framing McLeans body are accompaniedby notes on
her analytical ability. Readers learn where she went to school, at Williams College,
majoring in both Math and English (New York Times, 2002a, p. A11) and how she
worked at Goldman, Sachs before joining Fortune (Washington Post, 2002a). These
notes onMcLeans logical abilities work to justify andexplainher insight into Enron,
workingtodisprove Enrons original attackonher as incompetent and. . . a looker
who didnt know now to read a balance sheet (Guardian, 2002, p. 8). Of particular
note in this narrative is the fact that the sexualised body runs alongside a rational
body. Feminist scholars such as McDowell (1997) have pointed to the ways in which
men are often disembodied in the workplace. They are portrayed as rational, or
rather appear to lack emotion or a sexuality.
10
On the contrary, women in the
workplace seem incapable of escaping embodied accounts of their body. McLean is
no exception. Her descriptions include both an embodied sexuality (her hair colour,
smile, voice, marital status) and accounts of her business knowledge.
The notion of a truthful body underlay the majority of the descriptions of
Watkins in the media (18 of the 20 articles on Watkins). A body lauded for its
courage, ethics and moral values, these characterisations of Watkins have their
root in Congressional testimonies where Watkins is described as a loyal employee
who sought valiantly. . . to save the company (US House, 2002). She played by the
rules and contributes to the integrity of commerce (ibid.). Watkins is further
noted in several journalistic accounts for her small town values and her strict
Lutheran upbringing that stressed you do your best (Observer, 2002, p. 20) (see also
Business Week, 2002; Financial Times, 2002a; Washington Post, 2002b; Texas Monthly,
2003). The Houston Chronicle describes her as having a good moral compass
(Houston Chronicle, 2002b); and Time Magazine named Watkins Person of the Year
because of her ability as an ordinary person to speak up and she ought to be
applauded for making sure that truth was something that was never taken off the
books (authors emphasis)(Time Magazine, 2002, p. 8).
This portrayal of Watkins as the bearer of truth slips into a discourse on ethical
behaviour. In one account, the whistle-blower is shockingly described as the one
virgin in the whorehouse (Forbes.com, 2002). The combined effect in these
depictions is Watkins elevated status to hero, and former Enron employees have
reportedly printed t-shirts with her face above the text our hero (Guardian, 2002;
Observer, 2002; Washington Post, 2002b). Portraying Watkins as a truthful body
guided by Christian values helps to explain her motivation for speaking out
against Enrons unethical accounting.
The nal narrative characterising Watkins in the media is the portrayal of her as
maternal. Exactly half the media accounts I examined place Watkins in this role.
She is described as a high-powered executive mom (Washington Post, 2002b; see
also Observer, 2002). Her heterosexual body is further evidenced by the mention of
her loving husband and the recent birth of her daughter Marion (Observer, 2002).
The media points out Watkins devotion to her daughter, highlighting how much
she enjoys motherhood (Financial Times, 2002a). The Washington Post ends
its prole on Watkins noting that at that time, Watkins biggest crisis was common
in the life of a mom with a 2 year old. She was tryingrepeatedly, futilely
to convince Marion that cookies were not a breakfast option (Washington Post,
2002b, p. C1). Finally, not only does Watkins serve as the mother to her daughter
and spouse to her husband, Forbes magazine paints a picture of her testimony to
Congress as a Valentines date with Senators where Watkins served as Americas
sweetheart (Forbes.com, 2002).
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These three narratives are crucial tounderstandingwomens roles inthe corporate
context, and more specically in cleaning up corporate fraud. They connect the
public scripts of womens bodies to a position as corporate housekeeper. Drawing
fromSallie Marston(2000), Westernwomenhave traditionallybeenpositionedas the
bearers of domestic labour, keeping things clean and organised. These abilities
dened a good wife, mother and citizen (i.e. wholesome and ethical). Keeping
things cleanwas consideredpart of ones moral dutyas a woman. Inthe past, women
translated their domestic abilities across scales as the home (and homemaking) was
seen not as a private undertaking, but as a public function [where] the private and
public became linked through the interaction of sound domestic management and
responsible municipal housekeeping (Marston, 2000, p. 238). Early twentieth-
century examples include womens involvement in reform for conservation and the
environment. Inthose cases, womens sexualisationas moral bodies enrolledthemin
a responsibility tokeepwaterways andair cleanbecause of the direct affect onhealth
in American homes (Hoy, 1980). In this way, part of being feminine in the traditional
and, Marston would argue, patriotic, sense is to extend ones housekeeping abilities
beyond the private realm into the public. This includes speaking out to keep
municipalities clean, organised and efcient.
This municipal housekeeper or good girl script that held governments
accountable at the turn to the twentieth century runs parallel to the contemporary
narratives of ethics and fraud that position Watkins and McLean in the Enron
story. I do not mean to suggest that these women physically cleaned up Enron. Nor
do I think that the municipal housekeeping metaphor can be mapped cleanly onto
their bodies. Rather, I am suggesting that their reied proles as the exposers
shedding light on Enrons fraud and bringing the question of ethics to the forefront
are rooted in the same hetero-normative values that positioned earlier women as
municipal housekeepers. Watkins and McLean are corporate housekeepers
because they, too, are considered through their actions to be ethical and moral in a
traditionally feminine sense. While the men of the Enron narrative were not
credited with rst leaking the story or rst blowing the whistle, female bodies
were. I suggest here that part of the reason lay in the corporate housekeeper script,
a script that reconstitutes female (not male) bodies as hetero-sexed and ethical.
Revealing their Assets: Enrons bad girls
The August 2002 Playboy issue highlights Enrons culture, its image and the ways
in which these two moments constitute each other through desire and deception.
Through its text andphotographic images, the spreadbrings together discourses of
sex and the eshy body with discourses of nance and the corporate body. The 10
women in the spread express a femininity that relies on an understanding of the
female body as sex object. In what follows, I consider the opposing script inEnrons
exposure that of its bad girls. While these bad girls of Enron offer a contrasting
portrayal of femininity to McLean and Watkins, I maintain like the corporate
housekeeper, they too are positioned in capitalist discourses preoccupied with a
feminine body. My analysis below highlights this point by drawing out a parallel
that the spread brings together; that is, the parallel between heterosexual desire
(represented through a female body sexualised in particular ways) and capitalist
desire (or the desire for money, objects, status).
11
While I limit my discussion to the
space-time geographies of the Playboy spread and its representation of Enron,
446 J. Walenta
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I hope to speak to larger questions about cultural and capital logics around
womens bodies and/or body parts and their sexuality in capitalist institutions.
In writing a textual analysis about corporate women posing nude, like many
feminist geographers (especiallyMcDowell, 1997), myintent is toprovide theoretical
interventions that recongure womens agencyinthe rm. This entails movingaway
fromconclusions that present womenas victims of a patriarchical structure, or places
them as resistors of male power. In a corporate culture where some female
employees complain about being treated like commodities (Bryce, 2002) and other
womenspeakopenlyabout usingtheir sexualitytoswayinvestor decisions (McLean
& Elkind, 2003), there is no one static script of the female worker. Rather, the female
agent inside the rm is fraught with both complexity and ambivalence. As such,
I recognise that the women in Playboy have multiple and conicting reasons for their
decision to pose.
The Playboy Women of Enron spread takes up nine full pages inside the
magazine in addition to the picture on the cover. It includes text on Enron written
by Playboy staff, and both quotes and photographs of the 10 Enrons employees.
Each woman is pictured once, except for the woman on the cover and the last
woman featured, who has her own two pages. Of the women, ve are
photographed among signs of material wealth inside opulent residences, two
women sit in corporate ofces and three are displayed among leisurely activities
such as horseback riding. Together they comprise different aspects of Enrons
corporate culture both inside and outside the rm. Before analysing the images, I
describe the photographs to the reader to give an idea of the contents and positions
of the women. Although note, I choose not to reproduce the images here because I
want to (re)position the female body and the reader in ways that are not presented
in the Playboy spread. In my describing them textually, I no doubt re-present some
problematic aspects of the representations because I frame them as I see them
framed, through a particular heterosexual and capital desire. At the same time, I
write towards a different gaze, one which does not reproduce the sexual intimacy
of the photographs, but parodies by naming and abstracting problematic aspects of
the representation.
12
First, Lori Hodges image encapsulates the combined wealth and sex appeal the
Playboy editors try to create. The former Enron sales representative is standing in a
lighted atrium of a house on marble ooring. She is positioned next to a black
piano that is draped with a long string of pearls. One hand rests on the piano,
while the other is on her hip. She wears only a white ower-embroidered corset,
which covers her from mid-stomach to just below her breasts. Her head is slightly
tilted downward and she stares straight into the camera with a slight smile.
Around her neck is an ornate gold necklace. Her blond hair is down touching her
shoulders, and she wears glass high-heeled shoes. The remaining four women
each featured in their own photographs sit on divans and lay on plush bedding.
Most are draped in pearls or other elaborate jewels, and all are wearing slinky,
strapped high-heeled shoes and many are dressed in richly designed corsets.
One woman even holds a chess piece in a suggestive manner. These women of
wealth and leisure are pictured alongside other women posed in corporate
environments sprawled on desks and sitting in a leather ofce chair.
The last image of the spread features 22-year-old Shari Daugherty. Wealth,
leisure and the corporation are all manifested in this image. Daugherty is posed
stepping out of a silver corvette convertible on the top oor of a parking garage
opposite Enrons headquarter buildings in downtown Houston. The top of the car
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is down, the door wide open. She is framed in the background by Enrons two
round, sleek towers. She emerges from the car, one leg still inside and the other on
the pavement, looking straight into the camera. Her short blond hair is blowing in
the wind partially covering her face. Her lips are slightly parted and she
expresses, according to the Playboy writers, a certain boldness with her stare into
the camera. She stands straight, supporting herself on the body of the car.
She wears a small silver chain around her hips, a thin silver neck choker and an
open pink sweater that extends to mid-thigh.
Representations of these women are not mere snapshots, disembodied and
innocuous. They come loaded with discourses about their content, and how they
will or should be received. All these women are engaged in activities that would
characterise the upper/upper-middle class lifestyle. The images play upon
particular knowledges about beauty, wealth, leisure and success, all of which are
brought in through discourses of hetero-normative masculine desires. For
example, beauty becomes congured through a thin, white (only one woman
pictured is black), well-groomed female body. The women all wear soft make-up,
nothing bright or harsh, and they all have curves, but not too many. The glittering
jewellery and attire, the marble ooring, the plush bedding (all of subdued
colours, mainly shades of brown and cream),
13
and the silver corvette all convey
images of wealth and status, and the womens bodies are used to express this.
Important to note is that the bodies represented in these photographs are
without a doubt digitally altered, making the women appear smoother and
thinner than they actually are. These digital alterations mirror Enrons altered
accounting, also accumulated digitally. Both the bodies of the women and the
corporation are illusions made to appear both more attractive and more real (to the
readers in Playboy and to investors in Enron) than they really are.
14
Additionally,
there are those technologies which contribute to the womans appearance outside
the photograph. These include hair removal, false nails, hairstyling and make-up.
In other words, being beautiful in the Enron corporate context requires not only
the knowledge of what is beautiful, but it also takes time and money.
There is now a vast literature that documents the ways that womens bodies
exist in a regime of representation that produces them as objects for the male gaze
and projection of male desire (for example, Berger, 1977; Pollock, 1988; Jones,
2003). Part of the situating of these womens bodies by the Playboy editors involves
an understanding of the gendered notions of spectatorship. John Berger argues
through interpretations of Western visual art that men act and women appear.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at (Berger, 1977
p. 47). In this way, he emphasises that womens bodies are arranged in images to
display her sexuality to the man who is looking. The picture is made to appeal
to his desires. In the Playboy spread, the Enron women featured all make direct eye
contact with the camera, communicating an aggressive sexuality. Through their
expressions, they offer up their femininity and make it sexually available.
Like the narratives around McLean and Watkins, the male body is again
conspicuous by its absence in the photos. While no men are present in the images,
masculine displays of success are. Such successes are represented through the
silver sleek corvette, the tall skyscrapers, the beautiful women and the large
corporate ofces. Thus, the photographic images in Playboy follow Bergers
argument, that the power relations inscribed in spectatorship position the gaze in
relation to the priorities and pleasures of men. The absence of male bodies in the
448 J. Walenta
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images only reinforces the availability of such priorities and pleasures to the male
viewer.
The displays inPlayboy carve out a wide terrain of desire crossing over boundaries
and blurring lines between categories of sex and capital, where the desire for capital
and the desire for sex are conated into a single image. When the viewer gazes onto
the female body in the Enron Playboy spread, they also gaze into the fruits of capital,
namely the display of luxury commodities.
15
Capital here is represented by the
material wealth of the homes where the women sit/lay/stand. It also appears in the
corporate contexts inthe large ofces where other womenare photographed. And, in
some cases, these symbols of capital are pulled open to reveal underlying sexual
tones, as the magazines cover image relays. The photograph shows a woman
dressed in the emblematic corporate suit, complete with tie, pinstriped shirt and
jacket. This masculine icon of the corporate body is placed on a hetero-sexualised
female body. The cover woman expresses her sexuality through her smile, her blond
hair, but most importantlythroughher breaststhe erect nipples seenthrougha thin
white undershirt. When she pulls open her suit jacket, she simultaneously exposes
both herself and the sexual undertones within Enrons own culture of capital.
In the same way that the spread brings together sex and capital in a single
moment, the desire for the womens body comes to stand in for the desire for
capital. These images encapsulate the desire for a particular hetero-sexedportrayal
of womens bodies through their bodily positions and through their opulent
surroundings and costumes such as the jewels, the marble oors and the corporate
success of leather chairs and large desks. For Enron, this is a wealth that was
accumulated through fraudulent accounting practices that destroyed the secure
nancial future of thousands of people. However, these images neglect to speak to
Enrons fraud and its employees misfortune. Instead, Playboy discloses the
successes of Enrons capital imagined though heterosexual pleasure. Under-
standing why these links pervade in capital culture is part of a larger project
around capitalism and gender, and something I try to touch on in my conclusions.
In Conclusion: Womens bodies as sites of exposure
The above narratives of Enrons good girls and its bad girls demonstrate in part
what a female body can express and what a female body can expose in a corporate
context. Each group of women, the corporate housekeepers and the corporate
seductresses expose different sides of Enron. McLean and Watkins drew
attention to Enrons business practices and the nancial illusions around which
the company and its stock value were built. They were positioned as housekeepers
in part because of their actions, but also because of the hetero-normative
understandings of women in the corporate context. The Women of Enron in
Playboy show another, yet related side of Enron. The spread exposes the
companys opulent side, its greed, its pornographic displays of wealth, class and
success measured by money. The spread also underlines the desirability on the
part of capital for a female body put on display, one which opens itself to sexual
availability. These links, however, are not ephemeral.
At the same time, these women, their bodies and their scripts within capital also
become sites of exposure or points of public interest. They are themselves exposed
and their sexualities positioned accordingly. In the case of Watkins and McLean,
their proles in the media never took on Kenneth Lay as a CEO, and never
addressed the thousands of people now affected by Enrons fall. Rather, media
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focused on Watkins past, how she came to unfold the fraud, her role as a caring
wife and mother.
16
The stories on McLean highlighted her voice and body, nearly
always including a picture. Like the position of corporate housekeepers, the
bodies of the corporate seductresses also acted as sites of exposure, exposing a
eshy body scripted through heterosexuality rather than exposing the men
involved in the fraud. The Playboy spread trivialises the issue of corporate fraud
and deception, and diverts readers attention to the naked female body. These
women as sites of exposure provided one means of distraction, although perhaps
momentarily, that led inquisitive gazes away from real issues of corporate
accountability. In effect, the stories of these women played down the serious issues
of Enrons exposure and fall.
I suggest here that these scripts of female bodies during Enrons exposure shift
the focus of what is being exposed, thus obfuscating corporate guilt and
responsibility. The stories themselves come to be about women and womens
exposure (as corporate housekeepers and as the object of capital and heterosexual
desire). That is, these narratives allow for the story to be about women as sites of
exposure rather than Enrons wrongdoing. Bakans (2004) notion of a corporate
citizen, discussed in the introduction, is protected as any other citizen through
rights such as free speech, protection from search and seizure and the right to
engage in political and charitable activities. Although, as Bakan notes, the law
clearly states that a corporate entity cannot be imprisoned for wrongdoing. Such
laws are reserved for human bodies. These bodily narratives as I argue here offer
an extra-legal means of protecting the corporate body. Even though the corporate
body is granted rights as a person, the legal responsibility is laid upon the eshy
bodies of the corporation. None of these women are under investigation. It is the
white male executives who are. However, neither these mens bodies nor their
fraud is being exposed in the narratives of these women.
Acknowledgements
Versions of this paper were presented at the 2004 Critical Directions in Feminist
Graduate Studies Conference, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
and the 2005 Association of American Geographers annual meeting, Denver,
Colorado. I extendmythanks tothe critical engagement of those audiences as well as
Mona Atia, Jessica Dempsey, Kevin Gould and Andrew Jackson. Further, I was
pleasedand grateful for the feedback of Bethany McLean and Sherron Watkins. I am
also thankful for the insightful comments of the two anonymous reviewers and the
editor. Finally, I owe a great debt to Trevor Barnes, Bonnie Kaserman, JoshLepawsky
and Geraldine Pratt for their extensive comments on previous drafts. All errors
remain my own.
Notes
1. Playboys rst encounter with corporate women was its August 1989 Women of Wall Street
spread, but no single rm was featured. The Women of Enron was Playboys rst take on a single
corporate rm. Since then the magazine has launched a series of themed Women of Company X.
Next after Enron were the Women of 711, the Women of Worldcom (like Enron, also a
company involved in a fraud scandal), the Women of Hooters and the Women of Starbucks.
2. Thanks to Trevor Barnes for alerting me to this.
3. In following Gibson and Graham (1996) and their work on de-centring the system of capitalism,
I maintain that the hetero-normative and capitalist desires I discuss have their own unique
economic geography. This paper is in part an investigation of this geography inside the context of
450 J. Walenta
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two publicly narrated accounts of Enrons exposure. So rather than understanding these desires as
totalities, I try to draw out their specics.
4. Wajcman is a researcher in Organisation Theory (see also Collinson & Hearn, 1994; Gherardi, 1995;
Kanter, 1977).
5. I limited my focus to the following national or international newspapers: Financial Times, New York
Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Toronto Star, Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Additionally,
I looked at the Houston Chronicle, the main newspaper for Houston, Texas, the location of Enrons
headquarters.
6. Many of the newspaper articles cite McLean and Watkins only in passing, referring to them as
either the uncovering journalist or the Enron whistleblower. Consequently, I chose to examine
those texts which specically prole the women and their roles.
7. Watkins worked with CFO Andy Fastow in Enrons accounting division. This position gave her
unique access to nancial information related to Enrons business practices.
8. As of December 2001, Enron was the largest corporate bankruptcy in history. This title was
surpassed by Worldcom in early 2002 when the global internet telecommunications giant led for
chapter 11.
9. Some of these articles include Detroit Free Press (2003), Financial Times (2002b), New York Times
(2002b, c) and Washington Post (2002c).
10. I refer specically to those men who subscribe to hegemonic heterosexual masculine values.
11. There are of course other desires at play which I do not pursue here. One example in particular
would be the desire for whiteness.
12. Thanks to Bonnie Kaserman and Geraldine Pratt for helping me think through this.
13. Just as the womens make-up is applied in soft colours, their surroundings are also in subdued
shades. Beverly Skeggs (1997) explains that loud colours are associated with lower, working-class
lifestyles. She presents evidence that women who work in the lower ranks of corporations often try
to jump classes (i.e. from working- to middle-class). Women will change speech styles, hairstyles
and shift to wearing softer colours or more neutral shades (Skeggs, 1997, p. 110). In this way,
neutral shades convey a sort of corporate belonging and/or success.
14. Thanks to Josh Lepawsky for pointing this out to me.
15. This is not always the case with Playboy. Generally the womans surroundings are connected to
whatever theme she is presented in. For example, the Women of Starbucks features its models in
cafe scenes brewing coffee.
16. There was even an article that positioned her as a former sorority girl from University of Texas
(Time Magazine, 18 January 2002).
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Cuerpos Corporativo de Deseo: Una investigacio n de las
mujeres de Enron
Resumen E
ste art culo explora como el cuerpo corporativo y su deseo para

capital, le escribe al cuerpo de trabajadores a traves del deseo heterosexual. Utilizo
el caso de Enron, la compan a de energ a ubicado en Texas que esta envuelto en
accio n legal para sus practicas fraudulentos de contabilidad. E
stas practicas estan

entrelazado con una cultura corporativa que, en el deseo para mas acumulacio n
de ingresos, escondio deudas y engan o a sus empleos y accionistas. Haciendo use
de interpretaciones de los medios de comunicacio n dominantes sobre el escandalo
de Enron, examino el papel de genero en revelarlo. Primero examino como las
narrativas de los medios de comunicacio n situ a la revelacio n del escandalo de
Enron por una periodista femenina y una trabajadorawhistleblowerde Enron.
Luego, siguiendo el descubrimiento de la contabilidad fraudulento de Enron, la
edicio n de agosot 2002 de la revista Playboy tenia como art culo de fondo Las
Mujeres de Enron mostrando sus propios bienes. Mi segundo tarea es analizar
esta edicio n de Playboy en el contexto del fracaso de Enron. A traves de una
investigacio n de la revelacio n de Enron por los dos diferentes clases mujeresla
buena y la malasen alo los paralelos entre el deseo de Enron para capital con el
deseo para el cuerpo femenino. Ademas, indico y comento en la ausencia evidente
del cuerpo masculino en estas narrativas.
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Book Reviews
A Companion to Feminist Geography
Lise Nelson & Joni Seager (Eds), 2005
Oxford, Blackwell, 640 pp., 85, $124.95 hb, ISBN 1-4051-0186-5
A Companion to Feminist Geography is a volume with hefta tangible manifestation
of the diverse contributions of Feminist Geographers. While the editors wisely
note the hopeless task of cataloguing all the preoccupations of feminist
geographers (p. 8), they successfully showcase a broad range of concerns
explored by an international collection of scholars.
Nelson and Seagers introduction offers a useful, and by now familiar history of
feminist geography. Such reiteration is not problematicquite the opposite. The
ongoing rehearsal of feminist geographys development has at least two
important consequences: (1) we are reminded of the evolution of differences
within feminist geographical thinking and (2) we retrace the processual and
political nature of knowledge-in-the-making.
Following the introductory essay, the book is divided into six sections, subtitled
Contexts, Work, City, Body, Environment, and State/Nation. Each of these
contains ve to nine essays for a total of 38 essays by 49 individual and collective
authors, an impressive array of representation for one text (and, hence, the heft).
While the last ve sections have (somewhat) self-explanatory titles (and each set
offers an excellent beginning to study in these areas), it is the opening four essays,
Contexts, which together sketch a conceptual groundwork that loosely underpins
the sections that follow. As such, it is these four I will focus on in this review.
Gender is the rst context under consideration by Liz Bondi and Joyce
Davidson. Untangling the many theoretical, operational and disciplinary strands
of the vociferous debates about gender is no simple task. Bondi and Davidson
quickly set the context for their discussion: the project of feminist geography has
been as much about rethinking core geographical concepts like space and place as
about rethinking gender and its relationship to space and place (p. 16). Starting
from this premise, their thoughtful reading highlights two inuential ways of
thinking through the complexities of space, place and gender within feminist
geography. The rst of these can be loosely termed the relational approach
to space, associated with Doreen Massey and broadly shaped by socialist and
Marxist analyses. The second is the explicitly subversive (p. 21) tack of
re-imagining, resisting and reworking the limits of geographical knowledge,
a project exemplied by Gillian Roses early work on paradoxical space.
In carefully contextualising each approach, and drawing out the contributing
strands within them, Bondi and Davidson demonstrate the strength of feminist
geographers: fundamentally and productively, feminist geography is a multi-
dimensional project and perfectly placed to contribute to the gender debates.
Audrey Kobayashi provides the second context-setting chapter by critically
reecting on the discourse of whiteness, both within and outside geography.
Kobayashi (together with Linda Peake and others) has long been a signal voice
Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 455475, August 2006
DOI: 10.1080/09663690600808759
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in urging geographers to deconstruct race and to seek ways to overcome
racialisation. In this essay, she outlines an ongoing anti-racist feminist and
geographical project, with attention to three components: in brief, such scholars
are engaging in activism; are using positionality as the beginnings of social
transformation, in contrast to stopping at a descriptive, but ultimately stagnant
reexivity; and are striving to bring racialised discourses to the surface of the
collective (and geographical) imagination (p. 38). Kobayashi urges us to challenge
whiteness not only as a form of othering, but also as a form of inclusion, as an
emotional safety zone, a set of cultural practices that are not only normative, but
through which the appeal of normativity is constituted (p. 37). To incorporate
such a perspective into daily practice and scholarship is a bracing challenge
indeed. Feminist geography has needed such reminders and, as several essays in
this collection suggest, feminist geographers are taking up this challenge in
thought-provoking ways, ranging from Agots analysis of HIV/AIDS and the
African Womans Body to Wolch and Zhangs inquiry into gendered and raced
attitudes towards animals.
Pamela Moss elaborates on the third context: a focus on feminist methodology.
I recently realised anew that to have feminist scholarly training is to be implicitly
trained in methodology. This is because underlying most feminist research efforts
is the belief that how research is conducted is as important as what research is
conducted. Moss organizes her discussion around the issues of power, difference
and specicity. While the rst two are frequently dissected within feminist
geographical discussions of methodology, eldwork and disciplinary boundaries,
the notion of specicity is worked out through Mosss unique formulation of
specic bodies (p. 44). It is not enough, she argues, just to accept partiality as a
state of being; partiality itself needs to come under scrutiny (p. 49). Specicity
ensures this scrutiny by troubling the clarity of any one (partial) view (p. 49).
Moss follows this up by setting out some occasions for specicity, including
encouraging researchers use a specicity as a bodily notion of research to delve
into multiscale analyses.
The last essay in this opening quartet is an examination of transnationalism by
Brenda Yeoh. A rapidly expanding scholarship, transnationalism has sought to
meet the staggering complexity of international migration and settlement ows
with new conceptual maps (p. 60). Yeoh explores the ramications of this work,
suggesting that the transnational framework has been met with ambivalence and
suspicion by feminist scholars, due to the potential for masculinist accounts of
globalisation and related cultural, social, economic and political processes to
re-inscribe women as exotic, subservient, or victimized, or relegated to playing
supporting roles, usually in the domestic sphere (p. 61). However, while
summarising reasons why we might wish to retain this ambivalence, Yeoh also
urges a proactive stance: Transnational activism to improve the lot of women
depends for its success on the ability to negotiate and cross social and spatial
boundaries, and to take full account of the multiplicity of scales at which processes
operate (p. 70). Feminist geographers, Yeoh argues (and Rachel Silvey concurs in
her essay on feminist migration studies later in this volume, p. 138) are potentially
well placed to come to grips with the intersecting politics of space and scale
(p. 70).
Such a volume cannot hope to contain nor, as Seager and Nelson note, is it
possible to constrain (p. 8) the many endeavours of feminist geographers.
However, A Companion to Feminist Geography is just that, successfully addressing
Book Reviews 456
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a number of key issues for this thriving discipline and managing to include
research on domestic labour, sex trafcking, urban spaces, GIS, sexualities,
ecofeminism, contemporary geopolitics, love and violence, to indicate just some of
the work represented. On a practical note, as a new faculty member preparing
teaching materials for a variety of rst-time courses, I have found this volume an
essential resource.
Deborah Thien
University of Northern BC, Canada
Ethics of the Body: Postconventional challenges
Margrit Schildrick & Roxanne Mykitiuk (Eds), 2005
Cambridge, MIT Press, 328 pp., 17.95, $27.00 pb, ISBN 0-262-19523-2, hb,
0-262-69320-8 pb
Ethics of the Body, the sixteenth book in the series Basic Bioethics, presents itself as a
crucial intervention into the relatively new but high prole eld of bioethics. The
editors charge this inuential interdiscipline with being out of touch and call for
the elds radical reconguration. Conventional bioethics, they argue, is unable to
respond adequately to our postmodern bioscience-inuenced world because its
pragmatic approach leaves little room for the meta-ethical consideration of
appropriate theoretical frameworks. As a result, unquestioned models of moral
evaluation permeate the eld, rooted in modernist conceptions of the subject
based in normative assumptions about the rational, unied, stable and
autonomous subject. By continuing to employ this framework, bioethics ends
up ignoring not only bodies themselves but also the signicant rethinking that has
been going on in feminist, phenomenological, poststructuralist and postmodern
theories of the body. These theories are suggested as the most adequate for
addressing the questions bioscience poses. The implication of such an
intervention is potentially enormous due to the practical and immediate impact
bioethics has on health care delivery, reproduction, species distinction, decisions
regarding life and death, embodiment and the concept of the human. The editors
have gathered together many voices froma variety of disciplines that demonstrate
and perform instead of argue for their relevancy. The result is an effective
metonymic representation that piece by piece creates a body of work that
effectively constitutes a radically new bioethics. The contributions emerge from a
variety but not an exhaustive range of disciplines: philosophy, law and political
science are the main representatives joined by individual essays from womens
studies, disability studies, psychology, sociology, bioethics and oncology.
The volume will denitely be of interest to those in the humanities and social
sciences who have been following the Anglo-American development of
poststructuralist ethics since the early 1990s and who will nd these specic
applications compelling. Feminists and feminist geographers will probably be
interested in the variety of theories of the body, particularly the phenomenological
focus onlivedembodiment, the imbricationof ethics withembodiment as well as the
attention paid to specic identities. However, its location in the bioethics series and
its desiredimpact onthe eldmakes conventional bioethicists its intendedaudience.
To this end, perhaps an extensive bibliography should have been provided for
Book Reviews 457
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unfamiliar or initially hostile readers tantalisedbythe argument for employing these
theoretical perspectives. The volume also has the potential to intervene in
discussions of feminist ethics and bioethics. Feminism is highlighted as inuential
for bioethics emergence, andits importance is reectedineveryessayinthe volume,
but this tradition is criticised for its suspicion about postmodernism and its own
conventionality. While applicable in many cases, these charges are none the less
rather sweeping, especially when the volume barely mentions feminist post-
structuralists, especially Donna Haraway, whose work in this area predated by a
couple of decades.
Divided into ve sections referred to as arbitrary, the editors stress that what
really holds them together is their mutual dissatisfaction with constrained
parameters and the desire to be open to thinking differently. The introduction by
co-editor Margrit Shildrick provides a much-needed political and theoretical
framework for understanding the context and urgency of these issues. Her long-
term interest in what she calls anomalous bodies is in evidence and informs the
breadth of the issues covered in the volume which encompass cancer, drug
addiction, intersexuality as well as the more obvious genetic engineering. It is
signicant that disability studies is playing an increasingly important role within
Shildricks oeuvre and also appears in many other entries as a crucial tool for
rethinking bioethics.
In the second section, Critical Differences, Philipa Rothelds phenomen-
ological approach underlines the need for doctors to attend to the bodily
specicity of their patients experiences, especially regarding their different
cultural backgrounds. In one of many essays on genetics, Jackie Scully, like most of
the authors, criticises the elds reinforcement of the concept of the normal body.
Since more than one genetic model exists, she suggest differences among these
models can create the possibility for genetic diversities being interpreted in more
than one way, rather than as deviations from the norm.
The third section, Thinking Through Crisis, turns to the specic bioethical issues
of HIV, drug addiction, madness and borderline personality disorders and cancer.
Marsha Rosengartens essay onHIVis fascinatingfor its use of JudithButlers theory
regarding the performative aspect involved in the materialisation of matter.
She underlines medical sciences participation in the creation of different bodies as a
result of different treatment strategies, as well as its role in changing the virus itself.
Meanwhile, Lisa Diedrichs moving examination of narratives of ovarian cancer
draws on Elaine Scarrys phenomenology of pain as an experience that unmakes the
world and forwards an ethics of failure, as opposed to a heroism, that privileges
learning over absolute knowledge.
The featured essay in The Challenge of Biotechnology takes on two central
issues for feminist bioethics: the inuential ethics of care based on Carol Gilligans
work and reproductive technologies. The prescriptive normative character of this
ethic that supports conventional understandings of family is criticised, as is the
assumption that care for specic others leads necessarily to a more general societal
care. This essay mounts a very important critique which could have been even
stronger if it had cited other work that has noted similar problems. This fourth
section also considers how the subject of genetics is gured in law. Karen
OConnell considers how those people who are viewed as abject are most likely
to be subject to gene manipulation. Isabel Karpin compares the gathering
of genetic information from Icelandic and indigenous populations and suggests
Book Reviews 458
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the liberal humanist discourse of consent used with the latter has led to their
disempowerment.
In the nal section, Rethinking the Materiality of Embodiment, we are offered
an updated version of Rosalyn Diproses inuential 1990 essay A Genetics That
Makes Sense, where Diprose calls attention to the constructed nature of genetics
which does not represent real differences outside itself but actualises differences
through corporeal expression. Katrina Roens essay on intersexuality, which
concludes the volume, argues that medical normalising treatments that seek to
eradicate queerly sexed beings ironically create newly queered beings.
The volume as a whole comprises an innovative contribution to many elds of
study. The most compelling contributions either stressed the importance of
phenomenology for understanding the specics of lived embodiment or under-
lined the dynamic process involved in materialisation and embodiment. My main
criticism is that while the book claims to present a diversity of postmodern
perspectives, its use of postmodern theory is fairly narrow, particularly in terms of
representation. While some essays touched on the topic, none of the essays were
self-reexive about their ownpractices of representation: they usedlanguage as if it
were a transparent medium of communication and the voice was fairly uniform.
The addition of either more experimental entries or conventionally written essays
on creative artists such as Octavia Butler, Lynn Randolph, Eduardo Kac or Orlan,
who have taken on bioethical issues in their work, might help readers to feel rather
thanjust think about the impact of these issues, andto helpus tobeginexperiencing
otherwise. Further, a few entries mention consumerism without providing either a
strong materialist analysis or an examination of how bioethical relationships are
mediated by an ethic of consumerism. Finally, a few essays suggested the need for
alternative models but no developed ones were offered. Nevertheless, these points
are intended as supportive observations and the importance of the volume as it
stands shouldbe emphasised. The urgencyof including these voices ina public and
professional dialogue regarding these crucial ethical issues is evident and we can
only hope that it will have its intended impact.
Margaret Toye
Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and genre in Statius Achilleid
P. J. Heslin, 2005
Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 349 pp., 48.00 hb, ISBN 0-521-85145-
9 hb
P. J. Heslins stimulating book offers a sensitive reading of Statius Achilleid, a text
whose inuence in medieval and early modern literature has been obscured by
modern neglect. The poem was to have covered the whole biography of the hero,
but only the rst book and part of the second were written. The extant portion
deals not with Achilles heroic exploits at Troy, but with the period in his youth
when his anxious mother Thetis disguised him as a girl and hid him on the island
of Scyros. There he rapes and impregnates the princess Deidamia. Eventually, by a
stratagem of Ulysses, he gives away his masculinity when he chooses male
weapons over female ornaments. Assuming his masculine and heroic identity, he
Book Reviews 459
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sets off for Troy with Ulysses. The Achilleid is an intensely literary poem and
Heslins close readings do justice to its subtleties, but both the poem and his study
have much to offer any reader interested in the intersections of gender and genre or
the relationship between anthropological studies and literary treatments of myth.
Heslin begins his study with a chapter on how baroque operas that deal with
Achilles early life on the island of Scyros reect, reinterpret or renounce the
Statian treatment of the myth. Much of the material in this chapter is interesting,
and it makes the point that the Achilleid is not an obscure literary curiosity, but a
nuanced and inuential treatment of the vital debate between natural and socially
constructed models of gender, a debate that is by no means an invention of the
twentieth century. Although its thematic and programmatic resonance is clear
enough, however, I do not feel that this material is fully integrated into the rest of
the book, and the leap to the seventeenth century, ignoring the important inuence
exercised by Statius in the Middle Ages, is disconcerting. The chapter none the less
succeeds in establishing the relevance of the close readings that follow for an
audience broader than students of Latin literature.
Three central chapters provide satisfying examples of the kind of sensitive,
theoretically and philologically informed close readings that Classics does best.
The rst of these, The Design of the Achilleid, makes a case for regarding the
unnished state of the Achilleid as to an extent reective of authorial design.
Heslin does not argue that Statius deliberately composed a fragment never
intended for completion, but he theorizes that the author aimed in the poems
opening sections to create a kind of pilot episode for the epic to come, to engage
the interests of patrons in the larger project. It is an interesting, although
necessarily somewhat speculative, theory and one that draws the readers
attention to issues of patronage central to later Roman literature.
The next chapter, Womanhood, Rhetoric, and Performance, examines the
gender performances of Thetis, Deidamia and the cross-dressed Achilles. Heslin
pays particular attention to the speeches assigned to female characters. Noting
that Greco-Roman culture saw rhetoric as a male sphere of cultural, Heslin
examines Thetis rhetorical performances through comparison with the speeches
of goddesses in Statius epic models, particularly Vergil. Successful female
rhetoric in epic, Heslin argues, employs modes of speech considered appropriate
to women, an apparently artless, emotional style that eschews the formal
rhetorical strategies that are the prerogative of men. Thetis, however, seems to
undermine herself by producing awed imitations of the persuasive epic
goddesses who are her models. By contrast, Deidamia is a speaking woman who
positions her voice correctly among the available literary models (notably Ovids
Heroides). Achilles, too, in his role as a girl, highlights the performative nature of
gender in Statius poem. Ancient rhetoric as gender performance and the densely
intertextual nature of Latin poetry have both been a fruitful elds for theoretical
investigation in Classics; Heslins combination of the two makes this one of the
most interesting chapters in the book for connecting close readings of Latin poetry
to the broader eld of gender studies.
The thirdof the central chapters of the book, Semivir, Semifer, Semideus (half-man,
half-beast, half-god) explores the ambivalent nature of Achilles himself. Not only is
his gender compromised by his masquerade as a girl, his upbringing by the centaur
Chiron and his cancelled potential to have been the son of Jupiter (a possibility that
strangely overshadows the actual paternity of Peleus in the poem) give him a
footholdinthe worldof animals andthe worldof the divine. Heslins examinationof
Book Reviews 460
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Achilles liminality is the occasion for some of his nest close readings. It also leads
into the last two chapters of the book, which address the questionof the relationship,
if any, betweenAchilles cross-dressingandGreco-Romanritual practice. Thechapter
Transvestism in Myth and Ritual examines at length, and ultimately rejects, an
often-proposed connection between cross-dressing and rituals of adolescent
initiation, arguing that the evidence for many of the rituals cited by careless
comparativists is awed or non-existent. Heslins point is well made, and the desire
to demolish assumptions long accepted on insufcient grounds is understandable,
but some of the detailed presentation of negative evidence could well have been
relegatedtoanappendix or a separate article. As it stands, it is anexcessivelylengthy
detour in the development of the books positive argument.
The last chapter, Rape, Repetition, and Romance, along with the Conclusion,
brings together Heslins positive contribution to the connection between the
Achilleid and ritual, a Lacanian reading of gender in the Achilleid, and the problem
of Achilles missing father, Peleus. Heslin connects the asssertion of Achilles
masculinity in the rape of Deidamia during a Bacchic festival to the unveiling of a
Phallus that was part of Dionysiac initiations in Rome. He argues, however, that
the rape does not confer on Achilles the stable masculinity one might expect.
In Lacanian terms, the penis has not conferred the Phallus. Ovid recounts the rape
as an assertion of natural gender, but Statius delays Achilles resumption of
masculinity until, at the instigation of Ulysses, he seizes the weapons that are the
technology of masculinity. In Heslins reading, Statius suggests that natural
gender requires the props of constructed gender. Ulysses, the provider of these
props, is representative of a patrilineal heroic culture, in which Achilles can pass
from the control of his mother and of foster-fathers such as Chiron and take up his
epic identity as his fathers son.
It is a pity that we cannot know where Statius would have gone with his poem,
but Heslins ne study makes a compelling case for the instructive potential of the
poems very lack of resolutions.
Sylvia A. Parsons
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA
Queer Migrations: Sexuality, US citizenship and border crossings
Eithne Luibheid & Lionel Cantu (Eds), 2005
London and Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 198 pp., $60 hb, $20 pb,
ISBN 0-8166-446-59 hb, 0-8166-466-7 pb
Lionel Cantu died before this project was completed, but his co-editor Eithne
Luibheid has donated the royalties to the Lionel Cantu Memorial Award fund and
has also ensured that his chapter was completed, suggesting ways in which this area
of investigationcancontinue. Cantu s ideas about theoftenparadoxical USmigration
and asylum system and the critics of this are taken up throughout the book.
Queer Migrations, however, is not a retrospective work. It is an insightful
investigationinto the diversityof queer migrations that highlight the fragile illusions
of the United States. This is achieved in numerous ways, from deconstructing the
constitution of the United States through its legal immigration system(Randazzo) to
queer readings of the statue of liberty (Rand). From the outset, the Introduction
Book Reviews 461
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engages with a broad range of diverse literatures offering a nuanced but accessible
account of the mainareas that the bookwill address, pointingto the dearthof studies
that integrate migrations with queer contestations. The aim of the book, to address
this lacuna, is achieved and the book opens up further avenues of enquiry that are
important for geographers and others to consider.
The introduction (as well as other points in the book) highlights the uidity of
the nation state. As borders of nationality and sexuality are considered to be
mutually constituted in uneven ways that are never reiterated uniformly, the
image of solidity is (re)presented through diverse discourses, actions and
sanctions. The book was set up as an interdisciplinary project, and geographical
understandings are incorporated well into the Introduction. Despite the notable
absence of those who work in the discipline of geography, this book is relevant
and should prompt geographers to consider how we could contribute to these
issues. This is not to suggest that the book is ageographical. On the contrary, the
book addresses the formation of space at different scales, looking at quotidian
lives (Manalansan), neighbourhoods (Pen a) and nationalities (Somerville),
illustrating the contingency of these spaces and their reiterated formation.
Throughout the book the focus on the queer migrant and discourses and
ideologies of migrationallows anexplorationof the interchanges betweensexuality
andimmigrationstudies. Solomons discussionof Christina Madrozas compelling
discussion of the interplay between trans experiences and migration successfully
blurs the boundaries between activism and academia. Although fascinating
empirically, I wanted to see further theoretical inferences drawn, particularly
around the constitution of nations and bodies and the moments of slippages and
recuperations that render the illusions of xed sexes and borders unstable.
Randozzas chapter was informative and offered some fantastic lecture material in
this area. Nevertheless, I felt that the chapter could recognise more clearly the
nuances of politics and power within organisations and among advocates. This
chapter could have offered further understandings of complex practices and
practicalities, although these issues are addressed elsewhere in the collection.
Throughout the book interactions between texts, actions and their centrality in
creating life-changing moments emphasised the fragility and contingency of
citizenship, legislation and queer migrant lives. Chapters such as Solomons
recognise the exchanges between these judicial texts and the policing of state
borders, that produces paradoxical yet life changing movements and (dis)place-
ments. Somervilles chapter is key in pointing to the diverse constitution of
nations, nationalities as well as lesbian, gay, trans and queer subjectivities; while
reading state laws and specic case studies gives us insights, they should not be
considered universal.
The book offers in-depth readings of the uidity and contingency of cultures
and discourses in the constitution of ideological narratives, symbols and queer
migrant lives. Rands reading of the statue of liberty as butch brought diverse
and complex readings of the statue into being that contested the heteronormative
in ways that acknowledge that sex, gender, money and race have a bearing on
immigration narratives. I would argue that these bring immigration narratives
into being in ways that were, in part, explored in the following chapter, where
Manalansans reading of queer diasporas used concepts/terms/speech acts that
perform the hybridity of queer migrant identities. The perpetual dynamism and
the possibilities of the quotidian were offered insights into the banal that
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challenges us to consider this both in understanding migrant lives and in avoiding
grand narratives of bleak despair or untempered hopefulness.
Ram rezs chapter offers animportant conceptual interventioninthe discussionof
citizenship and balances earlier discussions of legality in this collection.
He introduces the concept of cultural citizenship to counter the notion that
citizenship is based only in legal and ofcial structures of belonging. Using cultural
productions inthe forms of plays, this chapter offeredcritiques of notions of the state
and citizenship. He illustrates that the spaces of the outside are not devoid, but can
be culturally productive in ways that offer critical interventions at a variety of scales.
This collection emphasises that the migrant lives, citizenship debates and
nationalities need further exploration in a queer context. Similarly, queer debates
need to explore the boundaries of the nation as sites where sexualities and genders
come into being, are reiterated and re-established as well as contested, mutable
and subject to transformations. In focusing on those who migrate, these projects
suggest that there is a clear need to explore the other side of this relationship: for
example, how gay communities (both in countries of origin and reception) are
(re)constituted through these mobilities and movements, how the breaching of
borders is not simply policed but how it can be transgressive and transformative
to the project of nation-building, gay and lesbian identity and community
formations and urban lives. Finally, there was surprisingly little included about
womens lives, movements, identities and embodiments, perhaps because
womens lives in queer contexts remain under-investigated.
Overall, the book was accessible and focused closely on specic examples that
highlighted key issues in US citizenship and the problems, barriers and tensions
that queer migrants face. As the editors of the book have suggested, this should be
taken as an all-encompassing volume. In achieving the aim of interdisciplinarity
and showing the importance of studying queer migrants lives, the book begins the
thinking about the interstices between queer, migrations, citizenships, lives,
nations and nationalities. Yet, in offering an important critical analysis of
intersectionalities, the explorations of migrations, movements and border
crossings should not conclude here, and I hope the authors and others will
continue this important project.
Kath Browne
University of Brighton, UK
Uncommon Ground. White women in Aboriginal history
A. Cole, V. Haskins & F. Paisley (Eds), 2005
Canberra, ACT, Australia, Aboriginal Studies Press, 279pp., ISBN0-85575-485-0hb
The discourse of post-Enlightenment Englishcolonisation oftenspeaks ina tongue
that is forked, not false, says Homi Bhabha. Not so in this unique, wonderful
collection of 12 herstories about white Australian women working with and for
Aboriginal women, men, children, families, communities and cultures from the
early to the mid-nineteenth century. The editors achieve their aim to respond
positively to the Indigenous argument that white historians incorporation of
Aboriginal subjects in historical work [is] yet another formof neo-colonialism, and
in so doing contribute a gentle yet powerful model for colonisation narrative.
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In each of the 12 chapters a story of an Australian woman is unfolded by one of
12 Indigenous and non-Indigenous contributors. Connected through their
Aboriginal rights networks at that time the subjects speak to each other, then,
within and across chapters, as they speak to us now from the pages. The fact that
some of the authors are either Indigenous or ancestors of the white women subjects
brings that past close to our present. We are with themthen and there, here and now.
It is not a rose garden, and the complexities and contradictions of white women
working within the imperial paradigm are neither glossed over, nor conform to a
pattern. Three women are from Christian missionary backgrounds. Indigenous
Australian academic John Maynard is inspired by Elizabeth McKenzie Hattons
journey from initial condescending Christian ethics to her holistic, egalitarian
view of Aboriginal rights, from which she challenged Church and State. How her
evolution was achieved is instructive. Christine Vickers Bretts story of her great-
grandmother Jennie Parsons Smith running an orphanage for removed Aboriginal
children reveals Parsons Smiths ne motives and variable awareness of
Indigenous issues. Alison Hollands story of Mary Montgomery Bennett,
Aboriginal rights activist and mission teacher, who identied and linked the
gendered and racialised outcomes of colonial rule during inter-war Australia, is
of a woman ahead of contemporary white feminists.
Two are nurses. Karen Hughes tells of the South Australian nurse Ruth
Heathcock (nee Rayney), who worked very egalitarianly with Aboriginal people
suffering from leprosy in the Roper River and Gulf Country, between 1930 and
1942. Ella Hisocks story, told by Anna Cole, highlights the problems of misplaced
good intentions as a diligent and committed matron of the Cootamundra Home
for Aboriginal Girls in the early 1940s.
The stories of women from the well-heeled sector of Australian society contain
interesting twists. Joan Kingsley-Strack, from Sydneys North Shore, employed
domestic Aboriginal servants supplied by the New South Wales Aborigines
Protection Board, and worked against their maltreatment and exploitation.
The debt Kingsley Stack owed one of these Aboriginal women, and how she tried
to repay that debt, is told sensitively by her great-grand-daughter Victoria
Haskins. That story is matched by Fiona Paisleys portrayal of Constant Ternant
[Tenacious] Cooke who came from a wealthy middle-class Anglican family with
a cosmopolitan outlook, receiving a private education in her home. Cookes
unique skills enabled her to work as a highly respected government employee
while maintaining her very radical activist perspective for Aboriginal rights.
By the 1930s Cooke had pushed well beyond the limits of white womens politics
on race in Australia.
Daisy Batess story is told in two chapters, the rst by Cynthia Coyne, of the
Djukun-Yawuru clan in Broome, Western Australia. It is about Daisys
relationship with Billingee, an Nugumbarl Jukun Aboriginal man, and Bates
pioneering work describing Aboriginal culture. Aspects of Daisys work are
carefully and very positively appraised, and unanswered questions raised.
Jim Anderson complements this perspective by interpreting the more personal
identity needs of the unique Daisy Bates.
Frachesca Cubillo, a Larrakia, Bardi, Wardaman and Yanuwa woman from
Australias Top End region, relates the rst story about Elizabeth Durack. Cubillo
presents insightful understanding of Duracks needs which led the established
artist, from a very well-known wealthy Irish pastoral family, to create the ctitious
artist Eddie Burrup and submit artwork under his name. This chapter is
Book Reviews 464
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complemented by JimAndersons perspective on the more personal identity needs
of the unique Daisy Bates.
Margaret Allen relates the story of South Australian writer Catherine Martin,
who wrote positively about Indigenous motherhood, and raised the topic of the
stolen children when there was little white sympathy or interest in such issues, in
her novel The Incredible Journey, which we are enticed to read.
Pearl Gibbs (Gambanyi) mother was Aboriginal, her father white, and her
passion for Aboriginal rights unquenchable. Stephanie Gilbert narrates Pearls
astonishingly effective work, including Gibbs meeting Jessie Street, president of
the United Association of Women. Faith Bandler argues that it was the work of
Street and Gibbs which led to the success of the 1967 Australian referendum,
which included Aborigines as equal Australian citizens.
This publication provides very interesting stories, and also important
information about the main Australian Aboriginal rights organisations and
main Australian Aboriginal activists from the early to mid-nineteenth century.
The subtle and outstanding feature, however, is the editors achievement of their
aim to respond positively to the Indigenous argument that white historians
incorporation of Aboriginal subjects in historical work [is] yet another form of
neo-colonialism. This is achieved primarily through a focus on process rather
than on a perceived and constructed essentialism of the subjects, and a sensitive
and subtle reexivity without nger-pointing or judgementalism, raising
questions rather than setting issues in concrete. A warm generosity of spirit,
especially by the Indigenous authors, permeates each narrative.
There is thus a softness in the telling which ts with the compassion of white
women from a range of degrees of awareness, reaching out from a white
Australian society which was more deaf and blind to the needs of Indigenous
Australians than today, but also more straightforward about its ignorance. These
instructive stories shine a light through from the colonial Australian past to
possibilities of future progressive cross-cultural relationships between Indigenous
and non-Indigenous Australians.
Jennifer Gerrand
La Trobe University, Bandoora, Australia
Negotiating Identities in 19th- and 20th-Century Montreal (The Montreal
History Group)
Bettina Bradbury & Tamara Myers (Eds), 2005
Vancouver and Toronto, UBC Press, 310 pp., $85.00 CAD hb, $22.95 CAD pb,
ISBN 0-7748-1197-8 hb, ISBN 0-7748-1198-6 pb
Present-day Montreal is a text of its uneven historic ascendancy as the richest,
largest and most diverse metropolis in Canada at the end of the nineteenth
century, bearing the scars of political and cultural tensions, rapid industrialisation
and economic struggle. The city in recent years has, however, been both enriched
and diminished by economic resuscitation. As the demand for residential and
commercial space has increased, population patterns have altered, rents have
risen from their infamous lows of the 1980s and the number of individuals
without permanent shelter is at a new high.
Book Reviews 465
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Against this backdrop, the Montreal History Group has published an anthology
of 11 essays that address 120 years of social history. The organisation of these essays
falls around four themes: homelessness, death, youth and consumption; for the
authors, place, historical moment, and the production of identity are mutually
contingent, but not necessarily determinant, or causal (p. 2). The main offering of
the volume is its exploration of what Bettina Bradbury and Tamara Myers call
intermediate spaces (p. 5): spaces shot through with the conicting agencies and
agendas of differently classed, gendered and ethnically identied groups and
individuals. The authors embrace methodologically and theoretically what
historian Leonore Davidoff has identied as the ragged frontiers of the often-
rehearsed binary of public and private (Davidoff, 1995). They further grapple with
the question of howidentity was shapedand congured in the rapidly expanding
and metamorphosing urban spaces of Montreal between 1830 and 1950.
Broadly speaking, the essays examine collectively the shift from punishment to
reform in philanthropic spaces and institutions; they complicate the cliche of
Montreals two solitudes, particularly with regard to the intersection of class and
religious belief; they reveal the encoding of imperial and patrician imperatives in
practices surrounding death, education and benevolence; and they engage with
spatial locations as constitutive factors in the construction of identity, agency,
consumption and resistance. Urban planner and historian Dolores Hayden has
argued that locating ethnic and womens history in urban space can contribute to
what might be called a politics of place construction, redening the mainstream
experience, and making visible some of its forgotten parts (Hayden, 1995). As the
following few examples will show, the Montreal History Group skillfully make
visible chapters in Montreals history that are either obscure, or completely
without trace.
Mary Anne Poutanen studies the scarce traces of the tenacity and struggles of
vagrant women in early nineteenth-century Montreal, showing how authorities
established vagrancy as a criminal identity in the incarceration of and language
surrounding homeless women (p. 33). Poutanen proposes that the women in
question formed radical communities in which language and religious
differences appear to have been inconsequential. The women lived off farmers
unwatched apples and occasionally slept in shacks of their own construction in
the heart of the old city (p. 29). Civic spatial boundaries were, as Poutanen
demonstrates, as insignicant as language barriers for these women, many of
whom supported themselves through prostitution; for them, the worlds of the
brothel and of the street . . . intersected (p. 29).
In contrast to vagrant women, whose criminal status meant punitive subjection
under civic law, the British sailors for whom the Montreal Sailors Institute
(186298) was formed were perceived by a select few as objects of reform and
assistance. Aclear example of howimperial aims were instrumentalised under the
rubric of a benevolent society, the Institute reveals the unsteady but powerful
intersection of upper-class philanthropy, city space, religious afliation and
sailortown. The sailor, Darcy Ingram explains, was understood at the time to be
central to the imperial economy and as such could not be left to squander his
health in port brothels and pubs (p. 52). Neither public nor private, the Institute
none the less reiterated a domestic and gendered spatial ideology, depending
heavily upon the bodily presence in the Institute of chaste, respectable, middle-
class women, who were to perform a crucial role in the moral reform of the
potentially wayward sailors. The purported benets of reform were not unilateral:
Book Reviews 466
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reformers, Ingram observes, were in turn elevated by their close association with
the Empire itself, via the sailors (p. 70).
The Institutes shift to a more hierarchical organisation at the end of the
nineteenth century is reected in Brian Youngs study of the afuent, Anglican,
McCord family. Their obsession with death reects the familys preoccupation
with establishing physical traces of their legacy on the surface of the city. Through
a rich repository of archival burial culture, Young shows how religion was a far
more signicant social and spatial divider for the wealthier classes than language
at the end of the 1800s in Montreal, proposing that Mount Royal Cemetery was a
form of intermediate space, combining civic and family functions (p. 107). In the
cemetery, he writes, Protestantism and Britishness fused, uniting Montreals
Protestants in their death (p. 107).
In stark contrast to the decades-long history of the McCords, Anna Shea
and Suzanne Mortons outstanding contribution about the remarkable Montreal
Day Shelter for Unemployed Men (193134) sheds light on the operation of
a temporary institution during a grim period in Montreals urban history. The Day
Shelter provided recreation, education, comfort, and most importantly, a legitimate
place to be during the Depression, when homeless, unemployed men risked their
lives on Montreals winter streets. At the Shelter, place, gender and culture
intersected in a variety of empowering activities, both individual and collective. The
Shelters 5000 members engaged in letter writing, voluntary self-regulation,
sporting activities and the performance of plays written by their own members.
Open to men of any ethnic background, and responsivewithin paternalistic
limitsto its members collective will, the Shelter was andis a resounding argument
for the humane and respectful understanding of the urban disenfranchised.
Other essays expand upon and complicate the themes summarised above,
including contributions on Jewish philanthropic organisations, the legal
condition of widowhood, the negotiation of student identity and the rise of
female smokers in Quebec. With such a rich and engaging volume, it seems
ungenerous to call for more. I will take the critics prerogative, however, and
suggest that this substantial collection of original research and meticulous
argumentation would benet from the inclusion of more images, particularly
relational maps. An anthology that hopes to understand the character and
function of intermediate spaces would be strengthened by in-depth spatial
analysis of the individual buildings (Ingram, Shea & Morton, and Sylvie
Taschereaus essay on Montreal shopkeeping families point encouragingly in
this direction). More important, I believe, is to communicate the spatial and
geographic relationship of the sites studied. For readers unfamiliar with
Montreal, maps showing the relative locations of the McCord burial plot, the
Sailors Institutes various lodgings and the orchards of the stolen apples would
lend greater specicity to the essays under review, as well as making concrete
links between the authors arguments and subjects. If it can be said that there
are spatial underpinnings to action, to reform and to resistance, then the
representation of that spatiality is of the utmost importance. With that proviso,
I recommend this publication very highly; to students and scholars of womens
history, social geography, Montreal urban history and histories of philanthropic
and emancipatory institutions, it will be essential reading.
Cynthia Imogen Hammond
Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Book Reviews 467
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References
Davidoff, Leonore (1995) Regarding some old husbands tales: public and private in feminist history,
Worlds Between: Historical perspectives on gender and class, pp. 257258 (Oxford, Blackwell).
Hayden, Dolores (1995) The Power of Place: Urban landscapes as public history, p. xii (Cambridge,
MA/London, UK, MIT Press).
Israeli Womens Studies: A reader
E. Fuchs (Ed.), 2005
New Brunswick, NJ and London, Rutgers University Press, 342 pp., $60/43.95
hb, $25.95/18.95 pb, ISBN 0-8135-3615-4 hb, ISBN 0-8135-3616-2 pb
Israeli Womens Studies offers readers a new vision of feminist studies in Israel.
It provides an integrative look at the kinds of scholarly questions that have
informedover 20 years of scholarly engagement in Israel. Esther Fuchs, a respected
Israeli feminist literary scholar, brings together feminist works by Israeli scholars
who are not often seen next to each other, works by feminist scholars in both the
Humanities and the Social Sciences. This is one of the rst feminist anthologies in
English to bridge this divide. Given this, it is not surprising that this effort at
integration takes place under the guidance of a scholar of literature. Fuchs clearly
takes seriously the literary turn across many disciplines and uses it to shape this
collection. Although the specic essays that Fuchs includes do not all enact this
integrative move in their particular arguments, her efforts as editor make the
broader case compelling. In other words, by putting all these essays together in a
single volume along with an extensive introduction that explains some of the key
elements in this scholarly turn, Fuchs enables her readers to see this volume as an
enactment of precisely this kind of integrative and interdisciplinary practice. With
this in mind, it is not surprising that the rst essay in the collection was written by
sociologist Dafna N. Izraeli, a now classic essay rst published in Signs in 1981,
while the last was written by Yael S. Feldman, a literary scholar in the 1990s.
In addition to its interdisciplinary character, Fuchs also attempts to show the
diversity among and between feminist scholars in Israel by taking seriously their
own complicated positions across many vectors of difference within Israeli society.
Towards this end, Fuchs includes works by and about Mizrahi and Palestinian
Israelis and recent work that is critical of mainstream Ashkenazi feminism in
Israel. She also includes a number of works by Israeli feminist scholars who no
longer reside in Israel. In all these ways, Fuchs offers a rich overview of many of
the intricacies of Israeli feminist scholarship andits relation to feminist movements
within and outside Israel.
Although Fuchs is very interested in appealing to a broad international
audience and not just scholars in Israeli studies, here she is not quite as successful
as one might hope. In order for scholars and students outside of Israeli studies and
even Middle Eastern studies or Jewish studies, to appreciate fully the arguments
in this book they must already have a substantial knowledge of recent Israeli
history. Scholars involved in thinking about gender in this region of the world,
Israels place within the region as well as the place of Israel in womens studies, or
even in Jewish studies, will nd this a provocative collection but might nd it
difcult to use in undergraduate courses, where students have little background.
Put differently, part of what makes this book compelling also makes it difcult to
Book Reviews 468
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use in interdisciplinary contexts. It assumes too much. Students and scholars
in related elds will have to ll in a great deal of information to make sense of the
essays and their relation to recent events in the Middle East and Israel, and
Palestine in particular. Thus, despite Fuchss extensive introduction, each essay
and section of the book could use more contextualization. Towards this end,
I would suggest that future editions of this collection include brief introductions
that at least outline the reception history of the individual essays as well as some
sense of the political context in which they were written. In other words, given the
difculty of translating the complicated history of Israel and its equally messy
social and cultural landscape, it would have been extremely helpful had Fuchs
offered readers some more explicit access to this information. It would also be
helpful to know in what language individual essays were written and when or if
they were translated, the history of those translations and the respective
receptions of what might be various versions of the same piece. In terms of the
broader context, it would have been helpful to know, for example, what was going
on in Israel in 1981 as Izraeli wrote her essay about some of the earliest efforts of
women in the Zionist Movement in Palestine during the early part of the twentieth
century. It would also be helpful to consider what it means that some of the other
pieces were written during the rst Intifada, or that still others where written in
the glow and promise of the Oslo accords. This is the kind of information readers
outside of the eld need to know.
Although Fuchs brings together essays from across many disciplines and over
more than a 20-year span, it is very difcult to mark broader political shifts in
this book as they are reected in Israeli feminist scholarship. Short introductions
could help to address this problem and enable more readers outside Israeli
studies, or even Jewish studies, to more fully engage with this volume. As it is,
readers have to look very carefully at the list of permissions at the beginning of
the book just to nd information about who owns the rights to each of these
essays. Given how much has changed over the past 20-plus years, this remains a
crucial concern. Despite these reservations, however, I want to stress that this is a
groundbreaking collection. It makes clear the need for more scholarship as well
as classes on Israeli culture and gender, the role of feminist movements in Israel
and the importance of feminist scholarship and critique in any analysis of Israeli
culture, history and contemporary social arrangements, much less the
Israeli/Palestinian conict.
Laura Levitt
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Gender, Religion and Change in the Middle East: Two hundred years of
history
Inger Marie Okkenhaug & Ingvild Flaskerud (Eds), 2005
New York, Berg Publishers, 230 pp., 55.00, $75.00 hb, 16.99, $25.00 pb, ISBN
1845201981 hb, ISBN 184520199X pb
Debates concerning the relationship between gendered social roles and the place
of religion in government and in everyday life in the Middle East continue in
academic and public spheres, and this book contributes an important
Book Reviews 469
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interdisciplinary collection of work with which to ground the discussion. Editors
Inger Marie Okkenhaug and Ingvild Flaskerud have gathered a fascinating group
of papers which were presented originally at a conference at the University of
Bergen in 2003. At rst glance, the papers appear to be an eclectic group gathered
at the intersection of three themes: gender, religion and social change. Although
framed by a broad focus on gender, only two of the 12 papers focus on the
construction of male social roles. The other papers vary in their examinations of
issues concerning women and the gendered construction of female social roles.
After a reading of the full text, however, it became obvious that the true
contribution of this volume comes from the diversity of its topics and sites of
study. The individual papers create a multivocal and nuanced dialogue which
draws fromlocal contexts to explore how social change across the region is shaped
by the place of gender in religion, and the role of religion in making gender. These
are issues of concern to scholars and the public today, as so much of the debate
concerning Islam and politics, globalization and cultural particularity in the
Middle East is articulated in gendered terms, with reference to the oppression or
liberation of women.
The papers in this volume address subjects that range widely in history and in
space, including: the new Islamic woman in Turkey; contemporary womens
votive meals in Iran; and the historic symbolism of visions of Mary in Cairo and
Jerusalem. One of the values of this collection is its attention to the complexity of
the region. Moving well beyond any assumptions that Islam is the dominant
factor shaping gender throughout the region, these papers about Gaza, the West
Bank and Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iran speak not only to
the role of Islam in shaping gender roles (Nahda Younis Shehadas paper, for
example, explores the ways in which muftis interpret Islamic law to advocate on
the behalf of women in sharia courts), but also examine the roles of Protestantism,
Catholicism, Anglicanism and Coptic Orthodoxy as well as Orthodox Judaism in
social change. The editors have written a nely crafted introduction which guides
the readers attention to the overlapping themes which resonate throughout the
volume, pointing to social change in gender roles as inuenced by Western
imperialism, patriarchy, modernity and nationalism.
Part of the volumes cohesion comes from the fact that each paper in the volume
speaks particularly well to at least one of the others. For example, Yohai Hakaks
From the Army of G-d to the Israeli Armed Forces discusses the reshaping of
Haredi masculinity as new cadets negotiate with army discourse and practices in
their training. Leah Shakdiel, in An Army of Women Learning Torah, is also
examining the construction of gendered identities in the Israeli Defense Forces, but
focuses on the participation of religious women as part of a newwave of feminism.
Read together, the papers provide a useful examination of howparticipation in the
military forces becomes a site for negotiating the tensions between religiosity and
secularism, gendered identities and nationalism in Israel. Another counterpoint is
played between the papers by Aleksandra Majstorac Kobiljski and Inger Marie
Okkenhaug. Entitled Women Students at the American University of Beirut from
the 1920s to the 1940s and To Give the Boys Energy, Manliness, and Self-
command in Temper: The Anglican Male Ideal and St. Georges School in
Jerusalem, c. 19001940, respectively, these papers address female and male
gendered social roles in foreign-sponsored, Christian schools. Read together, these
papers speak to changes in gender roles as part of the presence of foreign
institutions in the educational system in the Middle East in the early twentieth
Book Reviews 470
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century. The inuence of foreign institutions as well as local elites in the region in
terms of shaping changes in gender roles is also examined in Beth Barons paper,
Womens Voluntary Social Welfare Organizations in Egypt and in Heleen Murre-
van den Bergs Nineteenth-century Protestant Missions and Middle Eastern
Women. These papers illustrate the ways in which philanthropy and voluntary
social welfare work provided new opportunities for women to engage in
independent activities in the public sphere. Two other papers that can be read as
complementary voices on a larger theme relate to gender as shaped through
situations of crisis. Nessa Naguib argues in Stones and Stories: Engaging with
Gender and Complex Emergencies that studies of gender and social change in the
Middle East have largely ignored the constraints of poverty and war in terms of
placing limits on the mobility or agency of women. She describes problems with
water resources in a Palestinian village as one of the many problems women face
under Israeli occupation. Like Naguib, Karin Ask also studies the everyday lives of
women in the context of war. Her paper titled Tradition and Change: Afghan
Women in an Era of War and Displacement examines the traditional religious
practices of Afghan women. These examples are just highlights from a volume of
consistently original, well-researched, and intriguing studies.
The methods and theories employed in the papers in this volume are as diverse
as the topics and sites of study. I especially enjoyed the reexivity and personal
contextualization in the papers by Nessa Naguib, Leah Shakdiel, Yohai Hakak
and Karin Ask. The volume will interest scholars and students of the Middle East,
as well as geographers and other social scientists interested in how gender and
religion together relate to issues of nationalism and modernity and social change.
My only criticism of the volume is that the occasional typos should have been
weeded out in a last round of copyediting before printing. The volume was a
pleasure to review, however, and I plan to use it in preparing materials for an
undergraduate course about the Middle East.
Amy Mills
Department of Geography, University of South Carolina, Columbia, USA
Gender, Water and Development
Anne Coles & Tina Wallace (Eds), 2005
New York, Berg, 240 pp., $89.95 hb, $28.95 pb, ISBN 1-8166-4465-9 hb, ISBN
13-978-1-84520-125-8 pb
Gender, Water and Development presents a compilation of greatly needed historical
and applied studies that seek to tease apart the gendered nature of water access
and control across diverse geographic locations. By analyzing the centrality of
gender to rural water activities and meanings, the chapters question how gender
can be integrated most effectively into understandings and practices of water
development in order to promote equitable water for all. Thus, the book avoids
interrogating the overall effects and usefulness of development projects and
discourses themselves, but rather employs gender analyses to consider how
women (and men) can more effectively inuence the concept and design of water
development initiatives (p. 8). While many of the detailed studies probe
approaches to gender, and the failure of development institutions to effectively
Book Reviews 471
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mainstream gender in their efforts, the books analyses of grounded, empirical
data tends to mean that the overall collection falls short of arriving at new
theoretical ground. Nevertheless, the editors efforts to bring together academics
with practitioners in the eld should be commended, and the book succeeds in
demonstrating the need for more collaborative work and dialogue across
scholarly and policy-oriented divides. The volume provides an instantly
accessible view of the importance of gender within water development for a
broad audience of development scholars, practitioners and policy-makers.
While the book is not organized topically, two key themes emerge across studies
from the United Kingdom, Africa and South Asia. First, case studies of rural water
development projects reveal the insufciency of efforts to add women into
organizational goals and water schemes. Specically, these chapters (Regmi,
Wallace and Wilson, Joshi, Pandey and Moffet) examine the intra-organizational
dynamics that often impede gender understandings within water-related non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as the challenges that these
institutions face to address local inequitable social relations that disadvantage
womens water access and use. For example, Joshi focuses on supranational
initiatives (in this case, led by the World Bank) to incorporate gender into local
NGO work on water. She illustrates how caste and class relations continue to
marginalize Dalit womens water practices in Uttaranchal, India, despite NGOs
success at meeting quantiable water targets through the installation of newwater
infrastructure. As Dalits remain ancillary both within NGO power hierarchies and
local communities, efforts to incorporate women into the project fall short of
altering or improving Dalit womens customary water sources and practices.
Joshis in-depth analysis illustrates the ways that global discourses on
mainstreaming gender into development intersect with structural power
relations within NGOs and in communities, ultimately reproducing gender and
caste inequalities.
Building on critiques of quantity-based goals and evaluations within NGOs,
Wallace and Wilson argue that an overall focus on water amounts may
ironically preclude a water rights approach. In their analysis of WaterAid, a
British-based NGO that purports to reach over 6.5 million people across the
globe with its water provisions, Wallace and Wilson demonstrate how the
NGOs short-term coverage targets trump longer-term efforts to ensure water
equity across gender and other identity groups. The time allotment needed for
adequate gender training of staff and upward mobility of women employees, as
well as gender assessments on the ground, exceeds the 1-year time limit for
installing technical water solutions. The take-home, and critically important,
point made by these authors is that increased quantities of water may do little or
nothing to improve either water justice or the equitable distribution of benets
across communities.
While this point is crucial for opening new ground from which to understand
gendered water, and the multiple constitutions of water inequality, much of the
book ironically seems to be underpinned by a water provision-based approach.
In particular, the books rural focus follows a prominent research tendency to
attend to water in rural regions, as such areas are seen to encompass the
geographies in which services are most lacking (p. 1). In introducing the book,
the editors re-state the United Nations (UNs) evidence that for every person in
urban areas, there are six people in rural areas without improved drinking water
sources (p. 2). Yet, if we understand water equity and justice to be constituted not
Book Reviews 472
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solely by water quantities and qualities, but by the daily social and cultural
relations that shape inequitable water practices for women and men, then
reinforcing a focus on only those areas where water amounts are lacking risks
again minimizing how social difference is connected to water access and use
across both urban and rural locations. In fact, the everyday consequences and
constraints (as well as water quantities per se) from womens time and labor to
procure water in cities in some cases may be worse than for women in more water
scarce rural areas. A sole analytical focus on environmentally water-scarce areas
limits the ways in which scholars and practitioners can conceive gendered water
inequality and the politics of water scarcity itself.
Asecondoverarchingtheme withinthe bookcenters onhowconceptions of water
production (Page) and cultural relationships to water (Page, Strang & Joshi and
Fawcett & Coles) can further illuminate the gendered dimensions of water practices
over time. Byfocusingonwater productionor the social arrangements that govern
water use (p. 58)rather than water consumption, Page reveals the important
historical and cultural relationships women have had to water in Cameroon. Water
production offers an important conceptual tool that goes beyond approaches based
primarily on consumption or technology and reveals womens critical roles as water
producers throughout Cameroons history. It is precisely because of womens
historic production of water that adding women into current development projects
is problematic. Thus, Pages analysis extends burgeoning critiques of women and
development (WID) approaches towater development research, illuminatinghowa
WID approach can effectively erase womens complex history with water resources
by presupposing that women have been excluded.
Lastly, the book contributes an important essay on the effects of AIDS in a water
scarce regioninSouthAfrica(Hutchings &Buijs). This piece is critical inthat it begins
to outline a very under-studied area of gendered water practicesconnecting
genderedexperiences of health and care-giving to gendered access and use of water.
Here, the politics of both poverty and disease intersect with, and are complicated by,
local cultural systems, regional development and pollution of the water supply. This
research not only addresses the understudied connections between water and AIDS
in rural Africa, but elucidates the complex ways that water ows intersect with
migration patterns, livelihoods, state politics and, of course, the everyday gendered
activities of care-giving increasingly required in the face of the AIDS epidemic.
This book takes a critical step in water research as it combines the insights of
both practitioners and academics in detailed studies on the gendering of rural
water management. The analyses of intra-institutional gender hierarchies and
relations are particularly relevant and ll gaps in development research, as does
the conceptual work on social and cultural productions of water. What is less clear
within this compilation is whether water itself is unique in these processes, or if
the challenges that NGOs face in mainstreaming gender into water projects is
applicable and endemic to other (or most) NGO activity around natural resources
and development. Future research can thus address how (and whether) insights of
gendered resource management are exclusive to water and its particular
socionatures, as well as relate and cross-fertilize such examinations with existing
rich literatures on the challenges of participatory development models for NGOs
(see Agrawal & Gibson 1999) and gender and the environment (for example, see
Agarwal, 1992; Rocheleau et al., 1996). An engagement with these literatures will
further illuminate the relationships, contestations, and convergences between
theoretical and policy driven work, and it will advance the contributions of
Book Reviews 473
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gender analyses of water development, enabling the work to reach a wider
interdisciplinary community.
Yaffa Truelove
University of Colorado at Boulder, CO, USA
References
Agarwal, Bina (1992) The Gender and Environment Debate: Lessons from India, Feminist Studies, 18(1),
pp. 119157.
Agrawal, A. & Gibson, C. (1999) Enchantment and Disenchantment: The role of community in natural
resource conservation, World Development, 27(4), pp. 629649.
Rocheleau, Dianne, Thomas-Slayter, Barbara & Wangari, Esther (1996) Feminist Political Ecology
(London, Routledge).
Together Alone: Personal relationships in public places
C. Morrill, D. A. Snow & C. H. White (Eds), 2005
Berkeley, University of California Press, 320 pp., $50 hb, $19.95 pb, ISBN
0-520-24522-9 hb, 0-520-24523-7 pb
I am writing this review midway through a sabbatical year from a cabin high in
the Norwegian mountains. It is winter vacation and most of the country has a
week off to go skiing. Lights are burning in nearby cabins, with signs of life from
voices of kids playing and families talking. The trails are packed with cross-
country skiers and there is a strong sense of urbanity in what many would
consider a wilderness.
What is impressive is how much public life takes place here. People meet and
gather, and there is a strong feeling of community and public life. We meet and
talk with neighbors from the city that we have not seen since the long winter
started months ago. But is this a public place? What can the book Together Alone tell
me about this unique form of urban life transplanted for a few days from the
towns and cities to the Norwegian mountains? While the publicness I observe
here is more being alone together (than together alone), I nd it a good
illustration of the principles presented in this important and fascinating book.
As a landscape architect and urban designer, I am attracted to books about
places. I was happy to be asked to review Together Alone as it clearly fell outside
my typical reading in design and planning, but within my research interest in
public spaces. I was not disappointed. Together Alone, edited by sociologists Calvin
Morrill and David A. Snow of UC Irvine and Cindy White of the University of
Colorado, is a compelling and coherent testament of the importance of social
relationships in public space. More importantly, it provides an accessible and
hopeful view of current theory and empirical studies of an expanded array of
public places.
The book is organized into three partseeting relations, anchored relations and
maintaining relations. Included are discussions of constructs such as differences
between restrictive and permissive settings, durable and transitory places,
eeting versus anchored relationships, andplaces versus realms. The emphasis
throughout is onrelationships more thansettings, althoughthe interactionof the two
is always implied.
Book Reviews 474
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The core of the book is a series of nine studies of relations in public places
conducted by former students of Morrill and Snow, now faculty in social sciences
departments across the country. As such, they benet from a common
methodological approach and a similar perspective on people and place rooted
in traditions pioneered by Lyn Loand, William Whyte, Erving Goffman and
others. They report on ethnographic studies of bars, softball elds, divorce
support groups, strip bars, a university recreation center, teens hanging out, adult
control over children in public and political discussion groups. All see public or
quasi public places as theatres of activity and conict. There are some real gems
here that shed new light on behavior in public places. For example, I found the
study by Harrison and Morgan of teenagers in unrestricted and restrictive places
to be particularly useful for research I am doing on hanging out in public space.
Another chapter on adults control of children in public is particularly useful for
the diverse settings studied, including a zoo, a Greyhound bus station, churches,
bus stops and plazas outside apartment buildings. I also found the extensive
discussion by each set of authors of their methodological experience and
limitations, including their attempt to blend into and not contaminate the study
sites, as particularly fascinating.
These studies are sandwiched between a strong introductory theoretical chapter
and a closing application chapter by editors Morrill and Snow. In their
Introduction, the editors rightly criticize the lack of understanding or attention in
many past studies of the social and physical context in which relationships occur.
The controlled laboratory, they point out, is not the real world and lack the
ecological validity of studying people in real world places. In the closing chapter
they offer a coherent denition of placea geographical locale imbued with
particular meanings and practices regarding access, visibility and use and
distinguishbetweenthe acts of framing andregulating places for humanactivity.
There are some limitations in the volume that reect the slippery nature of the
topic. Most troubling was the lack of attention to culture as an important inuence
on how people experience and attach meaning to public places. For example,
culture is not included in the index and rarely addressed by the authors. There is
also too much emphasis on attempting to categorize both people and places. This
perhaps is more of a reection on the current limits of social science to explain the
complex ecology that is public space. As a designer, I also found it odd for a book
about place to be devoid of illustrations or images of the places studied. In the
future, I would also hope to see more holistic and interdisciplinary research on
how behavior can inform the design and policy of public space. Yet these
limitations do not distract from the power or importance of this work. Together
Alone will serve anyonestudents, researchers or designersconcerned with
understanding and improving the public realm of cities.
Mark Francis
University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Book Reviews 475
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Women's Dialogue Challenges Cyprus Conflict Narratives

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No Permission to Cross: Cypriot womens dialogue across

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*Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Canada

Canada Health Care Group, Royal Ottawa Hospital, Canada

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