Coming out of Geography: Towards a Queer Epistemology?

Abstract

In this paper I argue that in order to challenge the marginalisation of lesbians, gay men, and other sexual dissidents within the discipline, we need to pay more attention to how geography has been studied. I consider how different theoretical approaches to the subject have treated sexual dissidence. While positivism has been particularly guilty of ignoring the interests of lesbians and gay men, the new cultural geography, and feminist geography, though enabling a limited amount of work on the geography of lesbians and gay men, may also reproduce heterosexism. This raises the question of which methodological and epistemological frameworks work best in promoting the interests of sexual dissidents within the discipline, and the academy more generally. Last I consider the material components of sexual dissident identity and how these impact upon the production of geographical knowledge.