if not explicit, in cultural constructs. We think it
crucial, therefore, that cultural geographers be
open to exploring this dimension of whatever
their topical concerns may be. In the context of
spatial interaction, for example, very little if any
attention has been paid to the sexualized aspects
of communication, transportation, trade and
colonial/postcolonial (and other) relations. Yet it
does not require too much ‘thinking beyond the
boxes’ to conclude that sexuality may be very
important indeed in understanding these pheno-
mena. For example, at the nexus of cultural and
economic geography, interest in spaces of
culture industries and the gendered and raciali-
zed dimensions of labor markets are a vibrant
zone of research. Yet sexuality remains largely
ignored here. The idea that there may be occupa-
tional segregation by sexuality in industries such
as travel and tourism is almost taken for granted
in both the contemporary travel industry and
many gay/lesbian subcultures. Not only is there
strong anecdotal evidence suggesting that cus-
tomer services in many industries (not just travel
and tourism) are often staffed by women and gay
men,^9 it is clear from the rise of sex tourism in
places such as Thailand that the segmenting of
markets by sexuality is also growing in impor-
tance. What does this rather explicit sexualizing
(and, potentially, queering) of the travel and
tourism industries mean for our understandings
of what travel and tourism are all about? While
travel and tourism have long been recognized as
vehicles for acting on desire for ‘the other’, this
has rarely been explored in any kind of detail
(though see del Casino and Hanna, 2000). A
queer perspective in particular, with its refusal to
‘fix’ sexualities or sexual identities, would be
extraordinarily useful in tackling this project. At
the same time, researchers in this or similar areas
should be mindful that while a relentless queer-
ing and deconstruction of identities, places, etc.
may be insightful, it can also be very occluding
and dangerous, particularly in the context of
cross-cultural research.
Cultural turns are also bending the often-
quantitative work done in population geography,
especially around issues of migration. Here
again, sexuality has the potential to invigorate
scholarship. Mark Ellis (1996), for instance,
looked at the migration patterns of HIV-positive
people around access to healthcare services.
Michael noted how coming out is often spatiali-
zed as migration (Brown, 2000). The potential
for exploring queer migrations and perhaps even
diasporas, is fascinating.
Similarly, despite the increasingly important
roles played by telecommunications media in
producing and feeding sexual desire^10 there isprecious little research by geographers on this
issue (Winckapaw, 1999, notwithstanding). Such
an endeavor would likely reveal much in the way
of sexual conflicts and contradictions (witness
struggles over control of sexual content on the
internet). And given recent events in Europe
regarding the EU’s and European Parliament’s
controversial (and contradictory) attempts to
influence member states’ laws regarding sexual
minorities, and the broader contexts of economic
unions, ‘free trade’ and globalization within
which these have taken place, it is equally sur-
prising that the whole issue of trade has not been
queered. In addition to the impact of internal
state policies regarding sexuality on trade,
geographers could look at the ways in which
divisions of labor in trade are sexualized (for
example, in ports, on docks, in commodity markets
and exchanges, etc.), discourses and practices of
sexuality in trading institutions (for example,
GATT, OPEC), and sex itself as a commodity
that is traded. Once the sexual logics and prac-
tices underlying these phenomena are made
clearer, the project of understanding these logics
will be that much easier.
Sexualized power relations are also clearly
important in both the history of colonialism and
contemporary post colonial economic and politi-
cal relations (witness the global traffic in women
as sex workers and the rise, again, of sex tourism
in places like Thailand). A few geographers (for
example, Domosh, 1991; Gregory, 1995; Nast,
1998; Phillips, 1999; Rothenberg, 1994) have
recognized this and begun to explore it. But by
and large this project has been the domain of
postcolonial writers and theorists in the humani-
ties (especially feminist postcolonialists). They
tend to explore it in the context of either direct
colonial practices of domination or diasporic
subjectivities and other postcolonial cultural
products. A queer geographical focus specifi-
cally on the interplay between sexualities and
postcoloniality could provide some badly needed
foundational knowledge for broader understand-
ings of both colonialism and postcolonialism (so
long as it does not become an end in itself). Glen
Elder’s (1998; forthcoming) work on the compli-
cated intersections of race, class and sexuality in
post-apartheid South Africa provides an impor-
tant path in this direction.
Despite the relative scarcity of such work,
studies of diasporic postcolonial subjectivities
constitute one of the very few areas of study that
brings anykind of contemporary critical sensi-
bility to the issue of spatial interaction. Most
approaches to spatial interaction still employ
largely positivist epistemologies and fairly
narrow and mechanistic notions of culture (as,QUEER CULTURAL GEOGRAPHIES 3193029-ch16.qxd 03-10-02 10:55 AM Page 319