Rethinking Identity: How do social identities take place?
Dr Rachel Hughes Geography Melbourne School of Land and Environment hughesr@unimelb.edu.au
IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 1
Re-cap Our construction as subjects exists through the inter-relation of wider socio-spatial processes and our own biographical identities e.g. national identity, nationalism, 2005 riots: Aust as simple territory an impoverished imaginary the beach as iconic Anglo-Aust space embodied strategies of reclaiming, purifying space
IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 2
Outline of lecture 1. Age, gender identities & place, space, power 2. Case study: Vancouver nannies 2.1 How socio-spatial identities are complex, changeable, and defy easy assumptions 2.2 How a creative collaboration might intervene in various injustices arising from such a situation 3. Tutorial next week 4. Conclusions IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 3 1. Social identities: gender e.g. ideas of femininity have shifted over time and vary from place to place An important spatialisation for thinking through changing femininity has been the public/ private divide (a dualistic construction, but persistent and pervasive)
relates to todays case study.
IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 4
1. Social identities: age Similarly, age-based identities are constructed differently across different places and times e.g. childhood and children: little devils? little angels? competent social actors? childhoods now subject to capitalist workday (around parental demands for unbroken night sleep) e.g old-age: discourses of age intersect with those of class, physical ability and gender, demands of convenience IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 5 disability and sexuality e.g. understanding the built environment as itself disabling, not the individual as needing improvement e.g. sexuality and space: metaphor of the closet, geographies of homosexual beats, the transient space of the GLBT pride marches Social identity/ disadvantage used to be conceived of as accumulative, now recognised as complex, tenuous, negotiated IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 6 2. Case study: Vancouver nannies Researcher Prof. Geraldine Pratt -Long-term involvement in (Vancouver- based) Philippine Womens Centre (PWC) and work on the Canadian Govt. Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) -Did research interviews with 50 employers of domestic workers/ nannies in two sites: inner-city and suburbs
IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 7
Greater Vancouver, Canada 2.1 Socio-spatial identities: complex, changeable Unexpected finding: Philippine women (in LCP program) didnt work in suburbs (but dominant in inner-city domestic work) Found that white Canadian women (teenage, mothers themselves, or retired) comprised the suburban labour supply These women were were most lowly paid of domestic workers in the greater Vancouver area 2.2 How to intervene? Pratt and the PWC share:
an analysis that weds (probably different kinds of)
feminism with a critique of Canadas opportunistic use of an economic crisis in the Philippines that leads one out of every ten Filipinos to find work overseas; second, some norms about social justice; and third, a critique of the Canadian state and citizens who hold universal ideals of equality but practice them in very particularistic ways, that is to say, unevenly in relation to different categories of people (Pratt 2002). Pratt 2002 cont. We have found common ground for identification [with each other] by seeing how inequalities in our various homes, both in Canada and in the Philippines, are linked (Pratt, 2002: 198)
Pratt set out to examine difference, and found it,
(class and citizenship), BUT also found (different) marginalisations stemming from the devaluation of domestic labour 2.2 How to intervene? i.e. this marginalisation/ devaluation of domestic work was differently experienced by: - LCP participants (Phillipine women), - Canadian women working as suburban nannies, - their employers, Canadian working mums BUT collaborations possible, e.g. 2009 theatre event based on their testimonies: http://vimeo.com/1569921 IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 12 3. Field-based tutorial next week Your tutorial next week: is a self-guided visit to the Immigration Museum exhibition: Identity: yours, mine, ours Medical questionnaire Handout: print off from LMS, submit your annotated handout to your tutors in Week 7 (proof of attendance) If you want to go in groups, make them <10
IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 13
3. Field-based tutorial next week Address: 400 Flinders St, open 10-5 daily -- Take your student card for free entry -- Preparation: no set reading, but catch up on set reading in the subject so far Take: something to write with, the handout, a camera (but no flash allowed) OHS: Please comply with all museum signage and any instructions that museum staff give IDENTITY Semester 1, 2012 14 4. Conclusions Social identities e.g. gender identities and their disadvantage, once seen as accumulative Recent research has examined the more complex intersection of different identities, kinds of work, and meanings of work-spaces, plus ongoing and changing factors like laws , governance, social norms of intimate localities Doesnt mean no room for politics, collaboration