(Re)making the Other, Heterosexualising Everyday Space

Abstract

In this paper I develop conceptions of sexualised space as continually becoming by exploring the (re)creation of heterosexual spaces through the processes of power that hierarchise sexualities and how they are narrated. I seek to gain insights into the subtle operations of power between momentary enactments and stabilised manifestations of power. Central to this are the (invisiblised and unnamed) microlevel processes and the ‘common sense’ assumptions. In the empirical research I interrogate how twenty-eight nonheterosexual women discuss their experiences of eating in restaurant spaces to examine othering processes, rather than solely relying on categories of difference or named discriminations in theorising the (re)formation of spaces. From this it is possible to render the contingency of heterosexualised spaces visible, if reiterated and congealed in part (and para-doxically) through an absence of naming. I conclude by contending that focusing on (re)productive practices could expand our understandings of the hierarchical (re)construction of space.