Living in an (In)Visible World: Lesbians' and Queer Women's Spaces and Experiences of Justice and Oppression in New York City, 1983--2008
Item
-
Title
-
Living in an (In)Visible World: Lesbians' and Queer Women's Spaces and Experiences of Justice and Oppression in New York City, 1983--2008
-
Identifier
-
d_2009_2013:044033e80bf1:11609
-
identifier
-
12171
-
Creator
-
Gieseking, Jen,
-
Contributor
-
Cindi Katz
-
Date
-
2013
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Geography | Social psychology | LGBTQ studies | Womens studies | justice | lesbian | oppression | queer | space and place | women
-
Abstract
-
Lesbians and queer women are often labeled "invisible" in and beyond the academy within a politics of visibility used to describe lgbtq people and their movement. This dissertation is a historical geography of contemporary lesbian and queer society, culture, and economies in the lgbtq "mecca" of New York City. This project draws upon 22 focus groups with 47 self-identified lesbians and queer women who came out between 1983 and 2008, as well as almost a year of archival research of documents spanning the same period. From this project, I argue that lesbians' and queer women's productions of urban space take the unique form of constellations, whereby material and imagined places, experiences, and bodies understood as lesbian and/or queer serve as the nodes between which participants draw connections to work around and against patriarchal and heteronormative systems of oppression. This feminist-queer theoretical contribution affords a way to argue against labeling lesbians and queer women as "invisible" while questioning and getting beyond visibility politics as the best solution for securing lgbtq justice and justice for women. Drawing from the needs and desires of participants, I suggest a politics of visibility, recognition, and participation as the next step in promoting more just futures for lesbians and queer women.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
2009_2013.csv
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
-
Program
-
Psychology
