‘tie down’ its meaning once and for all. For, as
Wittgenstein makes plain, it is not ‘always an
advantage to replace an indistinct picture with a
sharp one ... Isn’t the indistinct one often exactly
what we need?’ (1988: no. 71; cited in Davidson
and Smith, 1999: 77). Wittgenstein’s reference
to a degree of usefulness that might change
signals his recognition of and emphasis on the
importance of context, and provides valuable
insights into the shifting and ‘unnatural’ nature
of gendered being: it helps to clarify the ways in
which ‘even’ our biology is not set in stone
but conceptualized, mediated and fractured by
language and culture.
Such anti-essentialist and strategically impre-
cise definitions of ‘woman’ pervade feminist
work within and beyond cultural geography. To
take one example, in Ann Phoenix’s (1995)
study ‘Mothers Under Twenty’ the respondents’
various circumstances and social positioning(s)
presented the researchers with conceptual and
practical challenges and dilemmas, and
Phoenix’s account illustrates some of the bene-
fits and difficulties of working with any concept
or definition of women which inevitably directs
attention towards a specific ‘group’ identified, or
rather ‘constructed’, for the purposes of the
study. Despite the obvious similarities or we
might say, recognizable ‘family resemblances’
between these women in terms of age and
‘maternal status’, Phoenix (1995) makes plain
that individual respondents differed markedly in
their most immediate experiences and concerns:
even within this group of women who shared
apparently significant aspects of their lives ‘in
common’, their categorizations as women and as
young mothers turn out to be rather particular
aspects that coexisted with a multitude of highly
salient differences between them. While the
hardships and prejudices they faced in their daily
lives may be tied up with their gender and/or
youth and/or parental responsibility, such experi-
ences are not immediately attributable in this
way, or to any other identifiable or isolatable fea-
tures of their identities.
Phoenix (1995: 59) writes, for example, about
the complex and varied experience of white
mothers of mixed-race children in undeniably
racist circumstances; of respondents living in
obvious poverty, evidenced by ‘the emptiness of
food cupboards’ or ‘lack of milk for tea’ or
simply the ‘wintry cold’ of their flat. While each
of the respondents’ lives is uniquely complex,
for certain purposes it is useful to draw attention
to experiential and material similarities that can
be found among and between a number ofwomen. This is not to essentialize the experience
of this group, to delimit their subjectivity
through specific terms and ‘conditions’ (such as
motherhood). It is rather to draw a temporary,
purposeful and strategic conceptual boundary
around them, to pick out, highlight and explore
‘family resemblances’ in order to better under-
stand the needs and experiences of this ‘group’.
Drawing attention to particular points of contact
does not, however, mean that we are oblivious to
other resemblances and distinctions. And,
despite clear commonalities beyond gender
(relative youth and motherhood), any definition
of ‘woman’ capable of including and speaking to
the experience of all of even this small group
of respondents would have to be ‘imprecise’.
Above all, we could not assume that gender was
a matter of utmost priority in these women’s
lives, and it should be clear that, for alternative
political purposes, we might wish to draw atten-
tion to and prioritize aspects of their lives as
women over and above their gender.
The extent to which issues of subjectivity can
be brought to the fore, or fade to the background,
depends on complex and inconsistent contextual
factors and we may wish to elide certain differ-
ences and emphasize others for a particular
reason. Cultural geographers have therefore
found they need to approach the categories
‘women’ and ‘men’ flexibly, and that while gen-
der may be a primary concern of the researcher,
in order to engage with respondents’ own priori-
ties it may need to be viewed throughthe more
predominant prism of, for example, race or class.
The definition of the gendered subject that is
employed therefore needs to be imprecise
enough to allow diversity at some times but a
form of specificity at others, for example, when
we engage with issues of particular relevance to
young black single mothers, or grandmothers
who are disabled and working class. Conceptua-
lized in terms of family resemblance, the cate-
gories ‘women’ and ‘men’ allow for such shifts
to take place. Moreover, they remain faithful to
the ways in which such concepts tend to operate
in the contexts of everyday life.
In a variety of ways the theme of difference
has proven to be both contentious and produc-
tive. It has had a powerful and a profound influ-
ence on analyses of gender that deploy
geographical and cultural imaginations, through
which a complex fracturing of gendered subjec-
tivities has been illuminated. As our discussion
has shown, attending to difference has fostered
an understanding of subjectivities and spaces as
mutually constituted. Moreover the strategicTROUBLING THE PLACE OF GENDER 3353029-ch17.qxd 03-10-02 10:56 AM Page 335