for example, a thingrather than a process). Not
surprisingly, then, the way in which ‘culture’ is
seen as evolving spatially in this kind of work is
via distinct ‘carriers’ and along (usually hierar-
chical) networks. And while virtually no work
explicitly addresses the diffusion of, or encoun-
ters between, sexual cultures in space, this theme
is implicit (as we have argued above) in a great
deal of the critical sexuality and space literature.
We would suggest, then, that in addition to new
focuses on communication, transportation, trade
and colonialism/postcolonialism, a queered
approach to the issue of spatial interaction might
focus as well on the connections between queer
cultures and subjectivities in different places, on
the interactions between and among dominant
and subordinate sexualities at different scales,
and on ways in which processes of sexualization
are transmuted as they evolve spatially. For
example, one might look at the roles of migration
and communication in shaping queer cultures and
forms of resistance in different places; at how the
policing of sexualities at supranational, national
and subnational scales affect each other; and at
how the meanings of ‘straight’, ‘gay’, etc. have
changed as they have crossed space and encoun-
tered other ways of conceptualizing and account-
ing for human (sexual) experience.
Having said all this, it is important that we
interject at this point some additional cautionary
comments regarding the epistemology of desire
and sexuality with which we are working.
Clearly, our notions of these human experiences
are mediated by our own social locations as
middle-class white academics in the ‘west’. While
we obviously would not argue that this disquali-
fies us (or others like us) from looking at desire
and sexuality beyond our own cultural frames of
reference, we do think it important that people
like us engage in careful self-criticism in the
process, so as to avoid, to the extent possible,
participating in the hegemonic globalization of
our own notions. Even more importantly, we
think that a corrective will be needed in the form
of non-western geographers producing their own
queer geographies (while we in the west listen).
In parallel fashion, it is important to note that
our own notions of the closet (Brown, 2000;
Knopp, 1994) are not the only ones worth exam-
ining from a queer perspective. Valentine’s (2000)
new edited collection on lesbian geographies
provides the beginnings of a badly needed cor-
rective to the bias towards studies of gay male
issues in queer geography. Indeed, Nast (forth-
coming) challenges us to consider the ways in
which patriarchies have historically worked in
and through gay male culture. But other sexual
and sexualized minorities (and, indeed, others)also have closets that urgently require unpacking.
We are thinking here not only of bisexuals, sex
workers, fetishists of various kinds, and others
who might identify (or be identified, culturally)
by their sexual ‘difference’, but individuals and
groups for whom ‘non-sexual’ pleasures or prac-
tices (for example, food, music, dance, ethnicity,
language, religion) or even more culturally
ascribed characteristics (for example, race,
nationality) might produce unique but culturally
powerful ways of knowing by not knowing (for
example, closets). What of the ‘quadroons’ and
other mixed-race women of antebellum
Louisiana who at times ‘passed’ as white? The
Jews and half-Jews who survived the holocaust
by posing as non-Jews? The political dissidents
who survive purges by concealing their histories
of activism? Surely queer insights into the work-
ings of closets generally will have some purchase
in these contexts as well.
As we have already argued (and contrary to
the assertions of some gay cultural critics – for
example, Savage, 1999; 2000), once closet doors
are opened, the other side can still be a very dan-
gerous place. In some parts of the world, being a
sexual dissident can still be a capital offense.
Valentine’s (1998) personal exposé illustrates
what the fear of the same kind of violence can do
to people even in allegedly safer societies.
Related to this is the growing iconographic
significance of sites of violence (tragic and
triumphant) to queer people. The Stonewall bar
in New York City was recently designated as a
National Historic Landmark, and a national gay
and lesbian magazine noted that people from all
over are now making pilgrimages to the remote
fence in Wyoming where gay college student
Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and
murdered (The Advocate, 2000). These examples
highlight the need for geographers to investigate
in further detail the dangerous spaces of abuse,
harm and bashing that threaten the queer body
quite materially.
At the same time, we think it very important
that queer geographies not be equated solely with
geographies of queerness (or non-heterosexuality).
Queerness is as much an intellectual and
epistemological perspective as a set of subjectiv-
ities organized around sexuality. Accordingly,
we wholeheartedly endorse calls instigated by
Nast (1998) and others for queer geographies to
begin taking heterosexuality and its myriad
expressions (and contradictions) seriously. As
a privileged set of identities and practices,
heterosexuality has been taken for granted even
while being constructed monolithically as nothing
less than the basic value underlying ‘the family’
and, by extension, ‘civilization’. But of course320 PLACING SUBJECTIVITIES3029-ch16.qxd 03-10-02 10:55 AM Page 320