Cultural Geography

gay and lesbian travelers, and experiencing a

queer unity in diversity through traversing the

globe as ‘gay’. But clearly there is much more that

could be done from a queer perspective at this

scale (we offer a few modest suggestions below).

Another space, whose scale (and, perhaps, sub-

jectivity) is arguably high and low, all and none at

the same time is that of cyberspace. Winckapaw

(1999) has considered the important role of the

internet in shaping and empowering new lesbian

subjectivities and resistances, as has Bornstein

(1998). This area could be fleshed out much more

by considerations of such phenomena as sex

cruising in chat rooms, the forging of networks

and communities in and between rural areas by

online queers, transnational human rights and

other activism, and the role of cyberspace in

reshaping gender, sexuality and sex play.

QUEER GEOGRAPHIES

AND BEYOND

Despite the promise evidenced by all of this

engagement with queer theory and a wide variety

of spaces and places, there are limits and dangers

to note. These include the political and personal

ennui of constantly queering each other’s work,

the construction of what amount to new ortho-

doxiesdespite a self-conscious political opposition

to orthodoxy, or, alternatively, an unwillingness

to acknowledge anypolitical commitments at all,

which can lead to power vacuums.^8

In addition, work on sexuality and space in

geography remains largely peripheral even within

cultural geography. This is because the discipline’s

traditional corpus has been largely untouched by a

queer sensibility. Such subfields as cultural eco-

logy, cultural diffusion, geographies of language,

religion, travel and tourism, recreation, and even

landscape interpretation (among others) still

largely ignore the issue of sexuality (much less

incorporate elements of a queer epistemological

critique) in their approaches (but see Jackson,

1989; Mitchell, 2000).

In working to address these twin (and some-

what contradictory) problems, we would suggest

beginning modestly, by opening geography’s

own closet door. There is a sociology and a

politics to the production of geographic knowl-

edge that involves personal relationships, desire

and power. Anyone who has participated in aca-

demic culture for any period of time knows this.

As in all endeavors, who desires whom (or

what), who acts on this, who doesn’t, and how

these relationships and desires are negotiated

make a huge difference, not just to the way in

which academic work proceeds but to what gets

produced and legitimized (or delegitimized) as

well. For example, Smith (1987) brings to light

very sensitively the link between homophobia

and Cold War geopolitics in the power struggle

between Isaiah Bowman and Derwent Whittlesey

at Harvard in the 1940s that ultimately led to the

closing of that and most other Ivy League depart-

ments of geography. Still, this piece of the

puzzle clearly needs to be explored more deeply,

so as to more clearly specify the ways in which

sexualized threats to nationhood and ‘national

security’ are constructed discursively andmate-

rially. Similarly, while Elder et al. (forthcoming)

discuss in somewhat more detail the heterosexed

history of Geography as a discipline, their inter-

pretation tends towards the psychoanalytical. A

more materialist analysis would complement and

strengthen their argument immensely. And

Gillian Rose (1993), in her deep critique of the

discipline’s masculinism, also links this to its

heterosexism – though it has been argued that her

own perspective could also benefit from a more

careful queering (Binnie, 1997).

Of course, engaging in this kind of discipli-

nary soul-searching and dirty laundry airing is

more easily said than done, and as we have said

can lead to a kind of ennui and dispiritedness. A

host of ethical and political dilemmas immedi-

ately present themselves once this history starts

being researched, which may then be applicable

to understanding both the benefits and the limits

of queering geography’s content as well as its

history as a discipline. The most obvious is the

issue of ‘outing’ – when, to whom and how to

reveal matters that may be at once profoundly

personal (and potentially hurtful) andcrucial to

understanding the history of the discipline.

Related to this is the issue of separating salacious

gossip from legitimate (and important) biograph-

ical and historical detail. And of course even the

asking of certain questions can be harmful to any

community – including a community of scholars –

whose dynamics might be done more harm than

good. The point here is that queering, as an

activist scholarly enterprise, is by no means

unproblematic. Of course, similar ethical and

political dilemmas arise whenever a project of

critically examining power relations unfolds, but

in the context of western cultures, where so much

social power is exercised through sexually

charged anxieties and hostilities, we would sug-

gest that particular care must be taken.

In terms of more topical agendas, we would

ask all cultural geographers to recognize the cen-

trality of sexuality to all aspects of culture.

Sexuality is an always present aspect of the

human experience. As such it is always implicit,

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