- GGR313 Lecture 3 (Difference, Exclusion, Marginality otherness)
- (from the Feminist Glossary of Human Geography)
o Difference ‘refers to the relational production of meaning in terms of non-identification’
Apple is not an orange and orange is not an apple
Men and women
o ‘Spatial constitution of subjectivity’
- Difference now comes to mean not otherness, exclusive opposition, but specificity, variation,
heterogeneity’ (pg. 171)
o Avoiding dualisms and essentialism; so that it’s not opposing or that there are essential
differences between apple and orange or men and women
o Apple and orange are different, but they’re both fruits; not opposing
- From a difference perspective we can see the city as heterogeneous
o And gender in the city is also heterogeneous
o Different, legitimate feminist expressions
o Potential critique of difference: does difference lead to (social, political) fragmentation
If we’re all living together and in the same, there is no political conflicts so that
means we won’t get anything done
- Exclusion, marginality, and otherness as parallel concepts
o If difference does lead to marginality and exclusion, is that a bad thing?
- Exclusion is a social or spatial separation of groups usually enforced by one group that is
stronger than another
o Two kinds
Spatial/geographic (based on space)
Social/cultural (based on identity)
- Spatial and geographical exclusion
o Ghettoization? Or Self-segregation?
o Othering...way of thinking
Perhaps people are intentionally living in a certain area before of various
reasons such as cultural similarities with the people in certain geographical area
- Social and cultural exclusion
o The separation of groups from those inputs into how society is organized
Housing, employment, education, etc;
People who are socially and culturally segregated also becomes spatially
segregated
- Margins and marginality
o Marginality is the result of exclusion from the dominant society in which those in the
margins are defined as other to some dominant social force or group
They don’t have a say on how society is organized
Do people who are living in ghettos considered themselves as marginalized?
Margins as positive place for hope and new way for living in the city
- ‘Hijab, Niqab or Nothing’ CBC TV o Each of difference, marginality, and exclusion can be viewed positively or negatively,
which means they can be ambiguous
When is something exclusionary? When does it make someone marginal?
Different?
Video of 3 Muslim women and their views of veils, covering certain parts of the
body, what it means, whether there are any effects to others treating them, etc;
Depends on which narratives you latch on to and digest and this affects your
views
Does co-existence of different ideas mean we live within difference?
- Iris Marion Young
o Difference, community, ‘city life’
o Young is trying to imagine a city that is not oppressive and she argues against liberalism
o Young is trying to conceptualize a way that people can related to each other in cities
that isn’t oppressive
o She argues against liberalism
Liberalism is the view of people as individual, autonomous subjects, with
decision making capacity
- Liberalism versus community
o Constructed as dualism
o When people were arguing about these topics, they made it sound like there was no
alternate choice and had to be one of these
- The idea of community as the opposition of liberalism, however, denies and represses social
difference
o ‘A more participatory democratic society should indeed encourage active publics at the
local levels of neighbourhood and workplace. But the important political question is
how relations among these locals can be organized so as to foster justice and minimize
domination and oppre
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