Intersektionella rumsligheter

Abstract

There is an increased interest for spatial aspects in social sciences in general today. But the interest also raises questions of how space is conceptualised; whether power relations are included, or if space is understood as neutral and as a container. Historically, geography’s disciplinary base is colonial and patriarchial. Additionally, in Sweden economic geography’s specific interest in the ‘homo economicus’ has dominated. In contemporary critical spatial theory, space is understood as constructed, produced, fluid and relational. Space is constructed through, and by, different power relations. In this article the concept of intersectionality is used to see how race, gender and class coincide with time and space. Through these different perspectives issues of exclusion and discrimination are revealed. The focus is on the home, homelessness, the nation and the under-privileged suburbs in relation to how space and place are racialised, sexualised and classified. Firstly, it is illustrated how the home is sexualised, but also racialised, through the strong identification with having a place to belong to. This repetitive consolidation with a place also reflects the nationalisation of home, and the similar exclusion from home; the home is private and strangers should be kept out. The racialised female body is intrinsically problematic as she has a stronger connection to the private, at the same time as she is a stranger. In the growing segregation in the metropolitan suburbs these intersections of class, gender, race, time and space is at its most visible, and a revisited colonial approach to these areas can be seen today. The author calls for an increased awareness of the intersectional aspects of space in gender theory formation today since space is a fundamental category in relation to gender, class and race.